Salut, Paris!
Onventis Founds Subsidiary in France
The Onventis Group continues its expansion in Europe and is now represented by a French subsidiary in Paris. The 10th Onventis branch is located in the heart of Paris in the Quartier de Bonne-Nouvelle. Establishing Onventis SAS represents an important step in expanding the company’s customer base for source-to-pay solutions in Europe. In an interview, Onventis CEO Frank Schmidt and the new Director France, Raphael Rottenau, explain the decision for Paris and give an outlook on the next steps in the French market.
Why did Onventis decide to open a location in Paris?
Frank Schmidt: Since 2020, the All-in-One Procurement Suite product portfolio and international presence have been expanded through smart acquisitions, particularly in invoice automation and spend analysis. This has opened up new markets in Benelux and Scandinavia. As another national subsidiary and company location in Paris, France is vital in further expanding our geographical proximity to customers in the EU’s second-largest economy. Paris is the ideal starting point for increasing our customer base in France.
How has the new office space been designed?
Raphael Rottenau: The Paris office is located in the Quartier de Bonne-Nouvelle and, therefore, has excellent transport links. In addition to state-of-the-art workstations, flexible event and meeting rooms are also available. Thanks to the central location in the 2nd arrondissement, we ensure the shortest route to our customers and offer our employees an attractive working environment.
What is planned for the Paris site in the future?
Frank Schmidt:We want to be close to our existing and new customers in France through direct local contacts and offer them services relating to all aspects of our cloud world. Whether in sales, consulting, or project management, we will expand the local Onventis team in a targeted manner so that our French customers can benefit to the maximum from the comprehensive Onventis products and services. With Raphael Rottenau as site manager, we rely on a very experienced source-to-pay expert who has known Onventis for many years and is the perfect person for a successful market entry in France..
Raphael Rottenau: We will also sustainably multiply our digital business model for source-to-pay on the French market in collaboration with renowned national and international solution partners, including the EcoVadis sustainability monitoring platform and the Amazon Business and Mercateo Unite marketplace solutions.
Frank Schmidt has been the Chief Executive Officer of Onventis GmbH since February 1, 2013. The Economics graduate completed a degree in Business Administration (Foreign Trade, with a major in International Management) at Reutlingen University after his training to become an export merchant. Prior to his work at Onventis GmbH, Frank Schmidt was Managing Director at the international IT service provider Atos from 1997 to 2006.
As a member of the management of Atos Central Europe, he was responsible for the solution business and worked in senior management and sales functions in Germany and abroad during his 10-year career. Most recently, he was the board member responsible for sales and marketing at Heiler Software AG in Stuttgart as well as being responsible for strategic alliances.
As Director France, Raphael Rottenau, a German-French national, is responsible for Onventis’ source-to-pay solutions in the French market. Raphael Rottenau can look back on over 12 years of sales experience, including more than six years in the procurement sector. Before joining Onventis, the trained wholesale and foreign trade merchant and business administration graduate spent eight years in various positions at the Würth Group, the global market leader for assembly and fastening materials.