From an IT development perspective, aviation is an exciting space.

Alan Cullop

NetJets Inc., USA, Chief Information Officer

Managing Information Technology for NetJets is a very big job. Not only does NetJets operate the world’s largest fractional jet ownership program, but we also operated the world’s largest charter company. When you are a global company, size and breadth can really play to your advantage if you can generate, share and leverage ideas across your operations. Our IT shared service enables us to do precisely that – share smart ideas across our platforms.

Overall, NetJets has grown very rapidly. A substantial amount of that growth has been from our European market. In just five years, we’ve gone from 18 aircraft in Europe and by the end of 2008 we will have 174 aircraft. By this time next year, we will be the largest air-carrier in the world in terms of fleet size.

While this growth has been exciting, it has also presented some IT challenges. Taking a relatively small company and developing it into a global enterprise is a challenge. My job has been to help make it happen. It’s an exciting place — from an IT development perspective we’re building the foundational systems to support key workflows across the company, implementing business intelligence systems and ensuring they’re scalable and capable of supporting our future growth.

In terms of IT strategy, one of my key tasks has been to establish an IT roadmap for the next three to ten years. Since the beginning,

Sogeti has definitely been a trusted advisor in helping formulate that vision and achieve our goals.

Another priority has been to increase the maturity of our IT organization. Again Sogeti has played a significant role. For example, one of our initiatives has been to move some of the positions in our business development and business support areas off-shore. The economies of scale have enabled us to dramatically improve our efficiency. Sogeti has been instrumental in helping us develop this off-shoring plan, conceive its architecture, and then execute it.

In addition, they’ve done a tremendous job helping NetJets train our employees, since very few on IT team had any off-shore experience at the time and this initiative like most in IT is about effectively managing change.