SGA

What SGA does

SGA (Société Générale d'Archives) is a privately held, family-owned French archive management company founded in 1973 and headquartered at 25 place de la Madeleine, Paris. The company is the oldest independent operator in the French physical archiving market and operates an entirely owned infrastructure of 20 warehouse sites totaling 210,000 m² and approximately 3 million containers under conservation (equivalent to 1,500 km of linear archives). SGA employs 182 staff and serves more than 4,000 clients, including 40% of CAC 40 companies, with named enterprise relationships spanning banking, energy, nuclear (AREVA Group), and real estate verticals, plus a public administration segment served through five sites holding Agrément Archives Publiques from the French Ministry of Culture.

The company's core technology is the patented Archives-en-ligne web platform (patent filed 2007), a collaborative portal providing real-time inventory tracking, deposit management, consultation history, and movement logs for physical archives, complemented by a mobile application launched in 2011-2012 and the proprietary ARCHILISTE inventory management software (created 1985). Services span the full archive lifecycle — audit, consulting, transfer, GPS-tracked transport, storage, inventory, digitization to PDF/A2, consultation (with 3-to-48-hour delivery SLAs), and certified secure destruction — all delivered without subcontracting. Compliance is anchored by ISO 9001:2015 (since 2017) and NF Z 40-350 (since 2009) certifications issued by AFNOR.

SGA's business model is a hybrid of recurring annual subscriptions (prepaid annual conservation fees, indexed to INSEE construction cost and SYNTEC indices) and project-based professional services (audits, consulting, digitization projects, destruction certificates). Pricing is quote-based rather than publicly disclosed. Go-to-market is direct sales via two regional exploitation centers — Region Nord in Combs-la-Ville and Region Sud in Vitrolles — with online quote request forms supplementing field outreach. Customer segments are CAC 40 and large enterprises (primary), public administrations (primary, regulatory-driven), and SMEs (secondary). The company has pursued growth through measured, debt-free site acquisitions and regulatory approvals rather than external funding.

Name

SGA

Legal name

Société Générale d'Archives

Website

https://sga.fr

Company type

Private

Founded year

1973

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

SGA is a French family-owned archive management company founded in 1973, providing physical and electronic archiving, document storage, digitization, and secure destruction services to over 4,000 clients, including 40% of CAC 40 companies, across 20 owned warehouse facilities in France.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Paris

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices22 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Infrastructure, Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Supply Chain

Revenue model

1. Archive Management Services: Core recurring revenue from archive externalization, storage, conservation, and management services. Services include audit, consulting, transfer, transport, inventory, digitization, consultation, and destruction of archives. Annual subscription model with annual prepaid fees.
2. Professional Services: One-time services including archive audits, consulting engagements, digitization projects, and destruction certificates. Custom project-based pricing.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

SGA provides outsourced archive management services covering the full document lifecycle: audit and consulting, secure transport with GPS tracking, offsite physical storage across 20 French facilities, inventory management via its patented Archives-en-ligne platform, digitization, on-demand consultation, and certified secure destruction. Services are delivered primarily to enterprises and public administrations under annual subscription contracts, with 40% of CAC 40 companies among its 4,000+ clients.

Product overview

SGA (Société Générale d'Archives) offers a unified archive management platform centered on Archives-en-ligne, a web-based collaborative tool for managing, tracking, and consulting archived documents. The ecosystem includes ARCHILISTE© (inventory software), the Espace Clients customer portal, and a mobile application. Core services encompass the full archive lifecycle: audit, consulting, active management, outsourcing across 20 French facilities, secure transport, inventory, digitization, consultation, and certified destruction. The company also provides retention period guidance and operates an online customer portal for real-time archive access.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• ARCHILISTE©: Premier logiciel de gestion d'inventaires d'archives créé en 1985
• Archives-en-ligne
• Archives-en-ligne

Products and services

• Audit en Archivage Archive audit service that evaluates document management compliance, identifies risks, and proposes corrective actions for organizations needing to assess their existing archive practices.
• Conseil en Archivage Personalized archive consulting service providing strategic advice for optimal document management and compliance with French legal retention obligations.
• Externalisation des Archives Complete outsourcing of archive management with secure offsite storage across 20 facilities in France, including conservation and inventory tracking for intermediate and historical archives.
• Transport d'Archives Secure transport of archives between client sites and SGA facilities using equipped vehicles with GPS tracking and anonymous handling for confidentiality.
• Numérisation de Documents Document digitization service converting paper archives to digital PDF/A2 format with quality control, enabling electronic access to physical records.
• Destruction des Archives Certified secure archive destruction service with formal certificate of destruction and confidentiality compliance for documents reaching end of legal retention period.
• Inventaire des Archives Archive inventory service including cataloging, classification, and digital inventory management to reduce client storage space requirements.
• Consultation des Archives Archive consultation service with multiple retrieval options including on-site access, delivery within 3 to 48 hours, and online access via Archives-en-ligne.
• Transfert d'Archives Archive transfer and deposit service with comprehensive inventory and regulatory compliance documentation for moving archives to SGA facilities.
• Gestion des Archives Active archive management including organization, classification, inventory, and storage of current and intermediate documents for ongoing business operations.
• Archives-en-ligne Web Platform Patented web-based collaborative platform (launched 2007) enabling clients to manage, track, and consult their archived documents in real-time with automated deposit management, consultation history, and complete archive unit movement tracking.
• Archives-en-ligne Mobile App iPhone/iPad mobile application providing mobile access to the Archives-en-ligne archive management platform, allowing clients to manage archives on the go.

Quantifiable outcome

• Up to 30% cost savings compared to traditional archive management
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Association PAGE (Prestataires en Archivage et Gestion Externalisée)industry associationOthersSGA became a member of the Association PAGE in 2010. PAGE is an association of main providers of archiving and externalized management services. Membership indicates industry recognition and adherence to professional standards.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Docaposte: La Poste Group's digital services and trust services subsidiary, offering document management, archiving, digitization, and secure exchange at national scale. Comparable to SGA in archive services but operates as a much larger, diversified incumbent with government relationships and infrastructure beyond archive outsourcing.
• Veolia Onsite Services (Archive & Document division): Diversified environmental services group with operations that include secure document destruction and related services in France and Europe. Overlaps with SGA's destruction and recycling-adjacent service lines but as part of a much broader waste and resource management portfolio.

Direct peers

• Everial: French specialist in document and information management, providing physical archive storage, digitization, and BPO services to enterprises and public administrations. Head-to-head competitor for SGA in the French market with overlapping customer segments and service offerings.
• Oodrive: French provider of secure cloud document management, collaboration, and archiving SaaS for regulated industries. Comparable to SGA's digital/Archives-en-ligne offering and overlapping customer base, but with a SaaS rather than physical-storage model.
• Tessi: French BPO and document services group (now part of Docaposte/La Poste) offering document management, digitization, and back-office services. Comparable to SGA in document handling and French enterprise customer base, with a broader BPO portfolio.
• Crown Records Management: International records and information management company offering physical records storage, secure shredding, and digital document services. Comparable to SGA in service mix (storage, destruction, digitization) though operating at a smaller, geographically distributed scale than Iron Mountain.
• Iron Mountain: Global leader in physical records storage, information management, and secure destruction, with the largest network of archive facilities worldwide. Closest direct competitor to SGA's physical archive outsourcing model, serving many of the same enterprise and regulated-industry customers at far greater scale.
• Locarchives: French third-party archive management provider offering storage, conservation, digitization, and consulting services to enterprises and public bodies. Directly comparable to SGA in geography (France), service scope (full archive lifecycle), and customer profile.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Compliance5 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about SGA