If you want to know how to turn the IT chaos that afflicts so many small businesses into competitive advantage, ask Philippe Seguret. He quit his partnership in a southern French regional accountancy firm to found his own auditing and advisory business, PCE, in October 2005.

He bought a second house in the small, quaint market town of Saint-Affrique, in the department of Aveyron, where spectacular countryside separates infrequent towns, and sheep are more numerous than people, and transformed it into an office.