Resource optimization is Carmen's core business. We sincerely believe that transportation is basically a matter of optimization and that all decision-making will eventually be based on state-of-the-art 'domain knowledge' and optimizers.

Superiority in terms of optimization quality and understanding of the transportation problems involved - at all levels in our clients’ companies – are vital if we are to provide the necessary support to those clients.

When I meet airline and railway executives on my travels, they all speak about the necessity of adaptability and predictability. Increased competition and customer price-awareness have created problems for most operators. Yet, there is strong resistance towards change within many companies. This could, of course, be blamed on a lack of awareness but in most cases it is simply a fact that it is difficult to forecast the exact implications of any changes prior to their implementation.

In December we hosted our annual meeting for Carmen Development Partners, a forum where all our clients meet and discuss the development of our planning and decision support tools. The signals from our clients were clear - continue to focus on optimization, and especially on integration and predictability. Here at Carmen Systems, we believe that the key to this is our clients’ ability to control business logic and to be able to continuously adapt to change. This will also allow full control of trade-offs between the various corporate objectives and an understanding of the financial impact of a proposed decision.

I strongly believe that tools supporting increased predictability are the fundamentals for successful change implementation in an organization. We should not forget that the most advanced tool is never better than the people who supply it and who support it. A combination of skilled people and advanced tools is the only way to help provide a common understanding in the organization of the problems involved - and their solutions.

In the current business climate the ability to achieve predictability is extremely important. Very few suppliers can guarantee this with immediate results based on facts.

Carmen can!

Let us - together - shape a new era for the airline and railway industries in 2003.

All the best for the New Year!

Per Norén
Chief Executive Officer