Computer Associates 2007 Annual Report Download - page 24

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Account Managers are dedicated to managing the Company’s relationships with specific new and existing enterprise
accounts.Their focus is on selling new solutions to enterprise customers. While reducing the overall size of our force through a
reorganization of the sales force in the second quarter of fiscal year 2007, we more than doubled the number of Account
Directors and Account Managers who perform this function. Also, early in the third quarter of fiscal year 2007, the members
of our technical sales organization, consisting of more than 1,500 employees, were assigned revised roles as solution
strategists, technology specialists, and consultants, aligned around our product solutions to be deployed as needed by our
Account Directors and Account Managers in connection with the sale of new products and solutions. We also have a core
group of sales people who are dedicated to managing, maintaining and renewing our installed customer base. The balance of
our market will be covered substantially through our resellers and partners. We are engaged in an extensive training program
to enable our sales force to perform its new roles effectively. The purpose of these changes, together with changes to CA’s
Incentive Compensation Plan and related process changes, is threefold: (i) to enable the Company to increase its sales of new
products and solutions to new and existing customers while protecting the Company’s installed base; (ii) to reduce costs and
increase productivity; and (iii) to address the commissions issues that arose in connection with our fiscal year 2006 Incentive
Compensation Plan.
Our sales organization operates on a worldwide basis. We operate through branches and subsidiaries located in 46 countries
outside the United States. Each geographic territory offers all or most of our software products. Approximately 46% of our
revenue in fiscal year 2007 was from operations outside of the United States. As of March 31, 2007, we had approximately
3,700 sales and sales support personnel.
We also distribute, market and support our software through a network of value-added partners, OEMs and distributors. As
noted earlier, one of our growth strategies is to strengthen our partner relationships and grow our partner channel. We actively
encourage value-added partners to market our software products.Value-added partners often combine our software products
with specialized consulting services and provide enhanced user-specific solutions to a particular market or sector. Facilities
managers, including CSC, EDS, and IBM, often deliver IT services using our software products to companies that prefer to
outsource their IT operations.
Competition
The markets in which we compete are marked by technological change, the steady emergence of new companies and
products, evolving industry standards, and changing customer needs. Competitive differentiators include, but are not limited
to: industry vision, performance, quality, breadth of product group, integration of products, brand name recognition, price,
functionality, customer support, frequency of upgrades and updates, manageability of products, and reputation.
We compete with many established companies in the markets we serve. Some of these companies have substantially greater
financial, marketing, and technological resources, larger distribution capabilities, earlier access to customers, and greater
opportunity to address customers’ various information technology requirements than we do. These factors may provide our
competitors with an advantage in penetrating markets with their products. We also compete with many smaller, less
established companies that may be able to focus more effectively on specific product areas or markets. Because of the breadth
of our product offerings, an individual competitor does not generally compete with us across all of our product areas. Some of
our key competitors include BMC, EMC, HP, IBM, and Symantec. We believe that we have a competitive advantage in the
marketplace with our EITM industry vision, the breadth and quality of our product offerings, our products’ hardware
independence, and the ability to offer our solutions as product modules or as integrated suites, so that customers can use
them at their own pace. In the past fiscal year, we have also undertaken an effort to evolve the CA brand by providing a
consistent worldwide “look, feel and sound” for the Company to help the market understand who CA is today and the value
the Company can deliver.
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