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VENDOR JOB CARD ADSOFTWARE
VENDOR JOB CARD: ADSOFTWARE Christobal Henner explains how excellent software, value for money and great customer support have put ADSOFTWARE at the forefront for CAMO and MRO software solutions
Christobal Henner joined ADSOFTWARE in 2019 as Sales Director to define and execute the sales strategy of the company. His past experiences include three years as the GM of HiFly Marketing, a consulting firm based in South Africa and four years as Director of Sales for Americas at Safran Electronics and Defence, based in Dallas, Texas. Christobal spent most of his career leading sales of IT and hardware solutions to aircraft operators worldwide.
Aircraft IT: Your name, your job, and the name of the business?
Christobal Henner: Christobal Henner, Sales Director at ADSOFTWARE, short for Aviation Dedicated Software.
Aircraft IT: How did ADSOFTWARE get started?
CH: The business started 23 years ago. The founder and current CEO, Frédéric Ulrich, saw an opportunity to create an innovative CAMO/MRO software using the most recent IT technologies. His objective was and still is to provide a robust alternative to the complex and expensive solutions available on the market.
Aircraft IT: What is the guiding business principle that drives the business?
CH: Firstly, we pride ourselves on being aviation professionals. Over 25% of our workforce is composed of engineers with years of experience in flight operations. This is key for the development of features that match the needs of operators and to understand their constraints.
Secondly, customer satisfaction is the cornerstone of our marketing strategy. If we have companies such as ATR and SABENA among our customers today it’s because we were able to demonstrate a very good reputation in the industry built over two decades through reactive and personalised customer support.
Lastly, we work in close collaboration with our customers to design and specify new features and modules. This not only ensures that customers will get what they want, but it also guarantees that our tools are robust and 100% relevant to our target market.
Aircraft IT: What has the greatest business achievement been to date, and why?
CH: In the last three to four years, ADSOFTWARE has had resounding business successes, gaining market shares through contracts usually awarded to much bigger and more expensive software providers.
In 2018, ATR decided to rely on our solutions to support all their CAMO and MRO services for ATR operators. The same year the largest (120 A/C) aviation school in Europe (France’s ENAC) chose ADSOFTWARE after months of evaluation. Since then, we were also selected by the largest operator in West Africa, Air Peace while making good progress in the defence industry with the French Navy and DCI Group. A few months ago, SABENA AEROSPACE, the world-renowned MRO company, selected ADSOFTWARE to replace their existing solution. These contracts have confirmed our company as a leader in the industry and opened a new chapter in our history.
Aircraft IT: What have your disappointments been and what have you learned from them?
CH: What frustrates us the most is when a customer is not using our software to its full potential. Often the cause of this lies in the initial phases of the contract. This forced us to review our entire implementation process. We deployed a much more direct approach for the implementation project and facilitated the exchange of data and information between our customers and our team. Today, as soon as we sign a contract, one of the first steps is to assign a project manager with actual aviation experience and organize a local visit to the customer’s facilities to launch the installation. With our presence on premises and the expertise of our team we are proud to have an implementation success rate close to 100%.
Aircraft IT: In a sentence, how would you summarize what the business does for aircraft maintenance customers?
CH: ADSOFTWARE facilitates day to day CAMO and MRO activities by providing the right technology and the right expertise at a fraction of the cost of comparable solutions.
Aircraft IT: What will be the next big thing in maintenance Aviation IT?
CH: Paperless is here and will, very soon, be the standard practice; our solutions are already 100% paperless ready for the operators that want to implement them. Further down the road, Big Data will reveal the hidden value in the huge amount of data collected every day.
Aircraft IT: What do you want your customers to say about ADSOFTWARE?
CH: We want them to say that they feel understood and supported, and that we offer neat features to solve their problems.
