EADS achieves €5 million annual cost savings with KDS Corporate

Average ticket costs down 15%, total travel spend down 30%

Paris, Novembre 14, 2007 – EADS, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, has reported significant annual savings of over €5 million in its corporate travel budget as a result of using KDS’s travel management solution over the past three years. KDS Corporate has been widely adopted within EADS and now handles over two thirds of its business travel. Through improved travel booking decisions and reduced TMC costs, KDS Corporate has allowed EADS to reduce average booking costs by 15 percent and its total travel spend by 30 percent.

As part of its enterprise-wide cost saving program EADS had looked for a way to reduce its travel expenses as well as rationalize and unify its overall business processes. As a global leader in aerospace, defense and related services, EADS has a complex organizational structure with a wide variety of systems and processes across its operating units. Reliability and transparency were therefore high amongst its travel management priorities.

“We wanted a tool that would be easy to implement, need minimal resources, yield a fast return on investment and would greatly simplify our day-to-day life,” says Michael Doerr, Director, Travel Management, EADS. “With KDS Corporate we found a solution that satisfied all these requirements.

” KDS Corporate offered EADS an end-to-end solution for business travel bookings that spanned travel authorization, the enforcement of corporate policies, efficient self-booking and comprehensive management information. By embedding KDS Corporate within EADS TRAVEL.net, the company’s own travel management portal, EADS achieved a seamless integration with its wider travel and expense systems and thereby delivered enhanced travel policy compliance.

"Linking the booking and accounting processes enabled us to reduce complexity and achieve an improved workflow on all levels at EADS. This led to lower manpower requirements which in turn resulted in further cost savings," explains Frank Füllbeck, Sales Director, KDS Germany.

Commenting on the success achieved over the initial three years, Michael Doerr says: “Thanks to KDS Corporate we have made a lot of progress and are well on our way to achieving our goals. Adoption rates are as high as 80 percent in some departments and we have seen total cost savings of 30 percent. KDS has proved an extremely effective tool and we are now well equipped to deal with the rising business travel costs that are forecast for the coming years”.

EADS is shortly to upgrade to KDS Corporate V6, the latest version of KDS’s market leading technology. EADS expects its enhanced expense management feature to contribute to even greater user adoption and further cost savings of 10 percent.

About EADS
EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defense and related services. In 2006, the EADS Group generated revenues of € 39.4 billion and employed about 116,000 people. EADS includes the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, the world’s largest helicopter supplier Eurocopter and EADS Astrium, the European leader in space programs from Ariane to Galileo. The EADS Group is the major partner in the Eurofighter consortium, develops the A400M military transport aircraft, and holds a stake in the joint venture MBDA, the international leader in missile systems. For more information please visit www.eads.com.