Globalising a middle-market company while respecting local culture

When he was a civil servant, Gilles Benhamou was in charge of the conversion of the Chapelle Darblay paper mill. This gave him a taste for the industrial sector. When he left the civil service, he turned around the Facon company (which was on the verge of insolvency) in one year, and created the G. Cartier company which he sold ten years later to an English group after a period of sustained growth. He created the Asteel company in 2000 by targeting the flourishing market of electronic component subcontracting for major clients. The company quickly became the leader in its sector in France, and started to expand internationally, growing rapidly. Today‚ it has seventeen factories throughout the world and employs more than five thousand people. How does one integrate such a diversity of cultures so quickly into a coherent group without stifling local identities? Therein, surely, lies the secret behind Asteelflash and Gilles Benhamou.