Cyril Noury, CEO of Informatruck: utility before profitability

Cyril Noury, CEO of Informatruck, shares with Mouvement Impact France his vision of impact enterprises, whose status as SSE commercial companies enables them to put utility before profitability!

Can you tell us about your structure and your business?

Informatruck is the 1st network of autonomous itinerant workshop-trucks for computer repair and assistance (computers, tablets and smartphones) and electronics (consoles, small household appliances), fighting digital exclusion in rural areas while promoting the inclusion of disabled people who are far from employment.

We go out into the French countryside, where there are no local repair services (in front of village town halls, small country supermarkets, small town markets...) and offer everyone the chance to repair their appliances at low cost.

By carrying out repairs directly in our trucks, we create an environmental impact by enabling everyone to extend the life of their electronic devices without having to travel dozens of kilometers.

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Why did you adopt the status of a social economy business?

We address a real, important and major need for a large part of the population, so I chose not to create an association or an adapted enterprise, but a commercial SSE company, because I have set up a viable economic model that does not depend on subsidies.

Impact has always been at the heart of the project, and it was created to respond to a triptych of issues: digital divide + disability inclusion + reparability accessible to all, so it was logical for me to move towards a status putting utility before profitability.

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Will this status help the economy move towards a more virtuous model?

No, and that's a shame, because I could have set up a classic SAS without seeing any difference. In my opinion, the fact that there are too few financial incentives (specific subsidies and/or subsidies conditional on SSE status or ESUS approval) means that many entrepreneurs do without these demanding formalities.

What if, in the future, we were to do the opposite? What if we, as impact companies, were to become the norm, and those who do nothing in this direction were to have a specific "no-impact company" status, depriving them of certain advantages? That would be a game-changer!

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What do you expect from the Impact France movement to defend impact companies?

The Mouvement Impact France enables me to share best practices with my peers and defend our common humanist values. For the future, the MIF will enable us to raise the voice of all social and ecological impact entrepreneurs, so that there can be real advantages behind the status of SSE commercial enterprise, and so that we can have a more global influence on political decisions and the French economic sphere.