Those were the words of Yves Weisselberger, chief executive officer of KDS, the leading European supplier of integrated travel and expense (T&E) management systems, speaking this month at the company’s first annual ‘KDS! Now’ conference in Paris.

“Cloud computing has caused a revolution,” said Weisselberger. “You can seamlessly deliver a software upgrade to every single one of your customers at once.

“Mobility is another key technological trend. We used to live in a world where technology meant people had less to do. Now we bring technology to people wherever they are, so they can do more with their lives.”

The new ‘KDS Mobile’ service, launched at ‘KDS Now!’, brings the company’s T&E services to employees on the move anywhere in the world, through a mobile phone or similar hand-held device. Staff downtime is therefore minimised. Among the many advantages, expenses can be entered whilst, for example, staff are travelling between meetings in a taxi, and travel requests and approvals need never be delayed again simply because an employee or manager is off-site. “‘KDS Mobile’ is our first-generation mobile product,” says Weisselberger, “and we are very excited about the prospects. Further generations of KDS mobile products will follow soon.

“The common theme for all our technological advances at KDS is ‘people’. We know our customers want measurable savings, happy employees and control over what happens in their companies. Our efforts constantly focus on those goals.”

Under this partnership, Omega World Travel will resell and deploy KDS Portal, the KDS solution for the SME market.

“Our goal has always been to deliver creative technology solutions to our customers and to diversify our business to meet their challenges head on,” says Gary Povey, director of sales and client services EMEA, Omega World Travel. “In today’s economic climate it is essential to align ourselves with partners that can help us deliver products and services that excite our customers. Smart companies recognise that end-to-end solutions are a compelling option and by partnering with KDS, we have the experience, knowledge and technology to make us serious competitors in this arena.”

This announcement comes only a week after KDS’s launch of the ‘Partner Programme’ at the company’s ‘KDS Now! 2011’ conference in Paris on February 2.

The ‘Partner Programme’ offers travel management companies (TMCs) the best package yet for communicating with corporate customers through a portal. “Our goal,” says Yves Weisselberger, KDS’s CEO, “is to allow our partners to serve their customers in the best way possible. We want to make our partners self-sufficient in a shorter timeframe than ever before. Our fully-hosted portals already allow TMCs to forget about infrastructure and focus on customers. Through the Partner Programme, TMCs can now look forward to software, services, training and tools designed to accelerate revenue and drive customer satisfaction.”

Omega World Travel is exhibiting at the Business Travel & Meetings Show on stand 223 where it is demonstrating KDS’s online travel management solution.

Yves Weisselberger talking at KDS Now! 2011

To Paris this week for ‘KDS Now! 2011’, the inaugural travel and expense conference hosted by our client KDS. The event was a ‘palpable hit’. An audience of 380 T&E professionals from across Europe turned up to hear about KDS’s latest technology (including the Executive Suite, which promises to finally get CFOs excited about seeing a return on investment from their travel spend) and case studies of how businesses such as Airbus succeed in getting ‘more for less’ from their travel budgets. The day was given added vim by ubiquitous travel guru journalist Simon Calder, who kept the audience entertained throughout as host and speaker.

To see photos from KDS Now! 2011 click here.

Speaking at the company’s ‘KDS Now! 2011’ conference in Paris, chief executive Yves Weisselberger said: “We’re unveiling technologies that will give companies unprecedented levels of flexibility, visibility, forecasting, ease and efficiency in their travel booking and expense processing.”

Through an on-screen ‘dashboard’, the ‘KDS Executive Suite’ provides companies with an instant graphic overview of their T&E performance. In a single glance, a financial director can see many key performance indicators (KPIs), monitoring concerns from whether company policies and processes are being correctly applied by staff to what would happen if those policies were to change. “Best of all,” says Weisselberger, “the Executive Suite’s revolutionary new ‘Foresight’ early warning system follows and predicts KPI trends to provide advance warning of forthcoming problems. If company targets are not going to be met by year-end, ‘Foresight’ can recommend practical, pre-emptive corrective measures. There has never been a technology-based solution to this problem before.

“Finance directors will love the ‘Executive Suite’,” continues Weisselberger. “You can customise the dashboard to show the KPIs that really matter to your business, from ‘Return on Investment from T&E’ through to ‘Compliance to Travel Policy’. Then you can immediately assess your company’s performance and solve any problems – or even potential problems – with just a few taps on the keyboard. Realising too late that you have a crisis – and introducing a panic travel ban, for example – is just not a sign of good management.”

The Executive Suite ‘Index’ function allows the user to see exactly how money is being spent, and by whom, even breaking figures down into spend on individual vendors if required.

“T&E spend normally represents 2-8% of a company’s turnover,” says Weisselberger. “The ‘Executive Suite’ brings the same level of visibility and cost discipline to T&E management as companies routinely demand in other areas of substantial spend.

“The ‘Executive Suite is a landmark in T&E management; a major step forward in helping companies maximise the return on their travel budgets.”

‘KDS Mobile’ brings the company’s T&E services to employees on the move anywhere in the world, through a mobile phone or similar hand-held device. Staff downtime is therefore minimised. Among the many advantages, expenses can be entered whilst, for example, staff are travelling between meetings in a taxi, and travel requests and approvals need never be delayed again simply because an employee or manager is off-site. “‘KDS Mobile’ is our first-generation mobile product,” says Weisselberger, “and we are very excited about the prospects. Further generations of KDS mobile products will follow soon.”

The new KDS ‘Receipt Scanning’ service removes the paper trail from expense processing. “The employee could, for example, scan his receipts on the office photocopier and then send that scan electronically when submitting the claim,” says Weisselberger. “Or he could even photograph the receipts with his mobile phone and attach the images to the claim.” Finance teams therefore no longer need to waste time matching a pile of physical receipts to the entries on a claim form. By improving the reconciliation of routine receipts and claims, the team can focus instead on missing or unusual receipts.

Finally, KDS is launching a ‘Partner Programme’ service that offers travel management companies (TMCs) the best package yet for communicating with corporate customers through a portal. “Our goal,” says Weisselberger, “is to allow our partners to serve their customers in the best way possible. We want to make our partners self-sufficient in a shorter timeframe than ever before. Our fully-hosted portals already allow TMCs to forget about infrastructure and focus on customers. Through the Partner Programme, TMCs can now look forward to software, services, training and tools designed to accelerate revenue and drive customer satisfaction.”

Over 380 people attended ‘KDS Now! 2011’, which was hosted by leading travel journalist and broadcaster Simon Calder.

KDS is creating the ‘KDS Now! 2011’ event as a forum for sharing knowledge and insight into this increasingly important aspect of business finance. Companies invest up to 8% of their annual turnover in staff travel and, on the long road to economic recovery, optimising the return on that investment should be a priority.

‘KDS Now! 2011’ will be hosted by leading travel journalist and broadcaster Simon Calder. Over 450 people are already scheduled to attend.

A full programme for ‘KDS Now! 2011’ will be backed by the launch of a white paper drawn from the results of the latest KDS survey, analysing how organisations are coping with the complexities of modern T&E management, from the smallest procedural details through to return on investment (ROI).

Yves Weisselberger, chief executive officer of KDS, says: “As a business our focus is on delivering an enhanced ROI when it comes to T&E and ‘KDS Now! 2011’ is the embodiment of everything we do. Businesses are getting back out into the travel market but costs are at a premium so this event is an opportunity to take the pulse of business travel and to discuss best practice.”

Registration for ‘KDS Now! 2011’ can be found at: http://www.kds.com/kds-now-2011-registration.