Enterprise Ireland
Annual Report and Accounts 2007
Annual Report and Accounts 2007
Under the guidance of CEO Cormac Whelan, a recent participant on Enterprise Ireland’s Leadership 4 Growth programme, Datalex plc has built a strong platform for sustained international success.
The Dublin company’s software solutions are used throughout the world by major airlines, hotel and resort groups, travel agencies and consumers.
With a high quality customer base and a globally extended brand, the Irish Stock Exchange listed company is one of the world’s top providers of travel distribution solutions in an online travel market worth an estimated $200 billion.
Datalex’s Travel Distribution Platform (TDP), an advanced online shopping and reservations software system, enables clients to reduce costs and deliver increased content and choice to their customers across multiple sales channels.
In 2007 Datalex software processed well over 50 million flights worldwide, leading to a strong performance and a 20 per cent growth in revenues.
Spearheaded by the CEO, Datalex has created the potential for further sustainable growth by making a move away from the traditional technology business model of selling software licences to a transaction based model. The company’s transaction revenues tripled in 2007.
During the year a number of top brands in the global travel market, including Aer Lingus, Aero Mexico, South African Airways, SAS Airlines, Saudi Arabian Airlines and STA Travel, signed up to this service and pricing model which is incorporated within the TDP platform. As this transaction model gains critical mass Datalex is projecting incremental expansion and substantial revenue increases for the coming years.
As one of an initial tranche of 31 ambitious CEOs from Irish high-growth software companies, Whelan completed the Leadership 4 Growth programme in 2007. Developed by Enterprise Ireland in association with the Irish Software Association and the Stanford Graduate School of Business, this world-class management development programme brings together key players from the business world and academia to fast-track Irish company growth.
Whelan believes his experiences on the programme have helped Datalex refine and focus its strategic execution. They have also given the company’s management team simple tools with which to articulate and explain the vision throughout the organisation.
“In particular,” he adds, “the frequent exposure to other CEOs, their challenges, their experiences and how they solved them was an unexpected benefit from the programme.”
Datalex will launch a new version of the TDP software in 2008 and is planning 20 per cent top line growth on the back of the new model.
www.datalex.com (link opens in a new browser window)
