First of all I would like to congratulate one of our valued clients, British Airways, and the Chief Information Officer, Paul Coby, for winning the “Airline Business Strategy Award 2004” in technology. I believe that Paul Coby’s motivation “there are no IT projects only business projects,” says it all.

IT has rapidly emerged as a crucial and integral element in transforming the airline business. Innovation and imagination should be the themes for the long-term future of the airline industry. New strategic plans and business models are continuously being created and tested. We are indeed living in what is a massive and long-term change process to transform and create the new future for the industry. The key goals for most operators are to:

a) achieve a viable, sustainable and flexible operation and cost structure

b) improve the travel experience of passengers and through this, increase revenues

Meanwhile, there is much diversity amongst the world’s main commercial rail operators. In the U.S. the railway industry has undergone open competition for over 20 years, whilst in Europe the railways are still mainly under government control. The railway industry remains under pressure to grow faster whilst under demands on increased profitability. In order to grow under profit railways are working hard on increasing service levels, reliability and improving key resource and asset management.

I believe that there are many excellent ideas and best practices to be shared between different transportation industries such as railways, airlines, trucks, cargo and logistics. At the same time there are fundamental differences between these industries that need to be clearly and distinctly pinpointed, monitored and adapted. This is vital.

For us at Carmen this means that we need to be “on our toes” every moment to help serve and support our clients and target industries with ideas and in delivering results through value added optimization software and services. This objective was definitely fostered at our 10th Annual Users Conference held in Madrid in early September. The interaction between clients and Carmenites was at its best. Blending industry knowledge with modern work flows, IT and optimization is the right combination to achieve sustainable results for the future.

It is an exciting and challenging era that we face. Through close teamwork we will further innovate, differentiate and deliver on promises. In order to do so we need to be openminded and follow the new demands and objectives facing our clients.

Lastly, I want to thank Iberia for hosting this year’s Users Conference and making it a very fruitful and extremely memorable gathering.
Salut!

Per Norén
Chief Executive Officer

“Blending industry knowledge
with modern work flows, IT
and optimization is the right
combination to achieve
sustainable results for the future.”

Per Norén Chief Executive Officer