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Ever since the true scale of Power8 became visible, stakeholders have voiced their concerns – be it politicians, unions, employees. How did you deal with this?
Louis Gallois I had a very clear understanding of my mission right from the outset. To put it bluntly, as CEO of EADS and Head of Airbus, my mission is to restore the competitiveness of Airbus and safeguard Group profitability. In a duopoly, the two players have to be on equal footing, or the duopoly will not endure. Of course, there are always ups and downs on one side or the other, but the overall parity has to be assured. Given the challenges the company is facing, there is no alternative to a tough restructuring and integration programme. By making it absolutely clear to everyone that Power8 is necessary for us to succeed, I am sure people will understand and commit to its goals.
What about the employees’ role in all this?
Thomas Enders In fact, they play a pivotal role – and they have a great responsibility when it comes to making all the integration efforts work. For sure, we are demanding a lot of them in these challenging times.
Louis Gallois I have placed a particular emphasis on keeping Work Councils and employees’ representatives informed about where we are going. I think that is only fair when the Company is facing tough times.
Are you able to impose what is needed from an entrepreneurial point of view?
Thomas Enders No company can act without taking its environment into account. And of course we do take our stakeholders’ concerns seriously. That is why Louis and I have always insisted on fair and equal burden sharing. Yet, EADS is a company run on entrepreneurial principles. We want people to invest in EADS. In other words, financial markets can expect us to run the Company in a way that is appealing for investors – investors that look for long-term value.
During EADS’ recent turbulences, the question of whether the Company’s particular structure is part of the solution or part of the problem has been raised again and again.
Thomas Enders I will not pretend that our structure is ideal. But, given the constraints we’re operating under, it’s working quite well and it is evolving. Just look at the structural side of the EADS/Airbus integration. That’s definitely progress. And there will be more in the future, we are adaptive. Neither our management structure nor our 
corporate governance is carved in stone.
Louis Gallois Indeed, being responsible for the management of this Company we have to act within the rules set by the shareholders. Paradoxically enough, these rules have proved useful recently, as they provided a close link to all the public and political stakeholders in order to push forward with the integration and re-engineering efforts. However, as the Company’s needs evolve it will be logical to revert over time to a more classical structure.
What are your strategic objectives?
Thomas Enders Firstly, to push ahead with our internationalisation strategy and to strengthen our partnership in various parts of the world. But our operational improvement programmes, as well as our newly defined innovation plans, are also truly strategic for me.
Louis Gallois Apart from that, I am convinced that we have to boost our position in the services businesses. As we are such a successful player in the platforms business, we should also strive to service our own products, accompanying them through their entire life cycle. There is a huge business potential to be tapped, I am sure. So we will evaluate our options very closely.
Many people fear that the internationalisation of EADS will entail a weakening of industrial assets here in Europe.
and Louis Gallois, CEOs
Louis Gallois There is no reason to doubt our strong European roots. To become more international doesn’t mean to transfer activity or know-how but to leverage on local footprints to capture local growth and to access new financial or technological resources. It is true that our internationalisation does expose us to more intense competition but it also means more markets and more customers. We have to think of globalisation not as a risk but as an opportunity.
Thomas Enders I fully agree. Competition will intensify – because “the world is flat,” to quote T. Friedman’s famous book – and hence we’ll also have to intensify our innovation efforts. This is exactly what we’re doing, throughout the entire Group. The creation of our corporate “Innovation Works” last year testifies to that. Our industrial base in Europe will remain strong as long as Europe remains an important market, and as long as our European technology and innovation base remains world class.
Against this background – can you give us an outlook on your recruitment policy?
Louis Gallois We will always need excellent engineers. To build up our capacity for new business needs, we need people ready for a changing world. People with a transversal approach capable of managing a programme, capable of monitoring the financials, and who enjoy working with colleagues from other nations.
Thomas Enders As a more and more global company, we are looking for top talents everywhere. We have expanded our recruiting efforts to markets like Russia, India and China, in line with establishing new engineering centres around the globe. Personally, I think for young people there is hardly a more exciting place to work than EADS.
