Amadeus Targets Corporate Customers

<B> Amadeus Targets Corporate Customers</B>

By Mary Ann McNulty

<I>Miami</I> - Corporations with annual air volume of over $5 million might find a surprising vendor knocking on their doors: Amadeus, the global distribution system.

"The big message for us to deliver is that we're here, we're global and we have a suite of products out there," said Sue Carter, manager of corporate markets and products for Amadeus' North American distribution arm, based in Miami.

Now that its integration is complete, the former System One and Amadeus executives contend they're ready to go after the large corporate market, which they define as entities with more than $5 million in air volume. "Before, we really honed in only on the midsize market," Carter said. But not anymore.

A reorganization of its sales force in recent months clearly has identified the large and extra-large travel spenders that Amadeus is targeting, Carter said. The company expects the agency partners who participate in its Corporate Circle program to take care of companies with small to medium air spend. In market research conducted by Amadeus, company decision makers said they turn to their agencies--not a GDS--to provide this technology anyway, Carter said.

The partnership with SAP AG to develop a booking tool (<I>BTN,</I> July 20) also is expected to help Amadeus' presence, particularly with the thousands of companies that have deployed SAP software.

Amadeus executives will be offering these corporations its online travel products, Corporate Trip Solution--introduced eight months ago--and Corporate Traveler, which is being customized for the U.S. market.

Already launched in Europe, Corporate Traveler takes an unusual tack to help corporations manage travel policy, Carter said. "It customizes travel policies by trips," she said. For example, on Miami-to-Paris flights, if a corporation only cares that the preferred vendor is used, that is the only policy element that must be set.

The customization that Amadeus is introducing for its North American product will allow corporations greater control over policy, Carter said. "Part of what we're doing in our pilot is trying to determine what level of complexity to put into this," she said. The pilot is expected to be conducted in the fourth quarter, with general release of the software in early 1999.

On the reporting and analysis side, Amadeus plans to offer large customers its World Zoom product, the code name for an as-yet-unnamed package that Amadeus also will be piloting later this year for a general release sometime in early 1999.