Computer Associates 2004 Annual Report Download - page 33

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Our Business Model is one aspect that exemplifies our commitment to helping our customers receive ongoing value
from our software. In addition, our professional services organization offers customers a single point of contact for all
their installation, integration, and ongoing maintenance needs. Customer Advocates maintain customer relationships,
identify possible areas for additional education or services, and help ensure that customers maximize the benefits of the
licensed software. We have begun adding Sales Specialists (sales persons who focus on a single product area, such as
storage management or security management) and Account Directors (single persons responsible for overall account
management of specific customers) to enhance the sales and customer satisfaction process.
We compensate many of our employees based upon improvements in customer satisfaction, as measured by independent
customer satisfaction surveys.
In addition to investment in research and development, we support our customers through the following means:
•CA Technical Support — We have highly skilled customer response specialists who provide quality assistance
online or over the phone, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
•CA CustomerConnectSM — Customers can order and download software products, update their account information,
and obtain support or assistance at any time through our website, customerconnect.ca.com. We have approximately
15,000 registered users on CustomerConnect. As part of CustomerConnect, we offer “SupportConnectSM,” which
provides web-based problem diagnosis, program fixes, access to our customer support databases, and other
sources of information.
•CA Technology Services™— Our pre-sales technical and post-sales professional services organizations were
combined in April 2003 to form the CA Technology Services organization. The CA Technology Services organization
offers customers a single point of contact for a broad range of pre- and post-sales services, from education and
training to consulting and implementation. Our post-sales service engagements focus on our software products,
helping us to ensure that our customers receive the highest level of satisfaction.
•CA Education — Our education programs are designed to help our customers gain better value from our software.
These programs are available at customer sites, CA Learning Centers, and through computer or web-based programs.
Sales and Marketing
We distribute, market, and support our software products through our own salesforce and through a network of
independent, value-added resellers (VARs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), distributors, and dealers. Facilities
managers, including CSC, EDS, and IBM Global Services, often deliver IT services using our software products to
companies that prefer to outsource their IT operations.
Our sales organization operates on a worldwide basis. Each geographic territory offers all or most of our software products.
As of March 31, 2004, we had approximately 4,900 sales and sales support personnel, including our CA Technology
Services team, solution-focused Sales Specialists, Account Directors, and Customer Advocates.
We also operate through branches and subsidiaries located in 45 countries outside the United States. Each of these
organizations has a sales team that offers all or most of our software products in its territory. Approximately 48% of our
revenue in fiscal year 2004 was derived from operations outside the United States.
We actively encourage VARs to market our software products. VARs often combine our software products with specialized
consulting services. A VAR services a particular market or sector and provides enhanced user-specific solutions.
During the past several years, we formed joint ventures with leading technology providers, predominately in Asia. By
aligning with local technology providers in a particular geographic area, these joint ventures offer additional avenues
through which we can market and license our software products to customers.
Quality
We achieved global ISO 9001:2000 certification in March 2003. This certification is recognized globally as the highest
standard of quality a company can achieve within the ISO 9000 series of standards. Our quality initiatives include
documenting processes, defining responsibilities and authorities, measuring performance against predetermined goals,
and auditing for compliance, with a special emphasis on continual business process improvement and increasing
customer satisfaction.
We have also initiated department-specific processes and procedures designed to achieve the highest levels of quality.
For example, in our development organization, we use a Software Development Methodology that is designed to
standardize all of our development life cycle systems and procedures. The goal is to reduce mistakes or errors.
CA 2004 FORM 10-K | PAGE 5