Symantec 2013 Annual Report Download - page 103

salespeople who can convey the strong value of our technology; as such we are reorganizing our direct sales
force into functional areas of security and information management. The focus of these specialized teams will be
to generate new sales opportunities. We expect that by dividing our direct sales force into specialized teams we
will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our sales process.
Concurrently, we are creating a dedicated renewals team that will be focused on extending the customer
relationship and renewing contracts. We are also streamlining our indirect sales channels to effectively reach
customers. We intend to have fewer, more focused partners. Additionally, we intend to reorient our partner
programs to enhance reseller sales. We believe these changes will ensure that we provide our end customers with
a high-quality sales and post-sales support experiences while expanding our business.
Simplifying the Organization
Aligning our organization by functional areas, rather than by market segments, will create an opportunity to
reduce complexity, remove redundancies, increase the speed of decision making and improve accountability and
execution. By the fall of 2013, we expect to reduce the number of management layers from our existing structure.
We also intend to increase the average span of control for managers.
Capital Allocation Strategy
Our enhanced capital allocation strategy is expected to return over time approximately 50% of free cash
flow to stockholders through a combination of dividends and share repurchases, while still enabling our company
to invest in its future. Our strategy will emphasize organic growth through internal innovation and will be
complemented by acquisitions that fit strategically and meet specific internal profitability hurdles.
Our capital allocation program includes the initiation of a quarterly cash dividend, targeting a yield of
approximately 2.5% based on our closing stock price on May 1, 2013. On May 2, 2013, our board of directors
approved a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share of common stock, the first dividend in Symantec’s history, to be
paid on June 27, 2013 to all stockholders of record as of the close of business on June 19, 2013. Any future
dividends will be subject to the approval of our board of directors.
Our board of directors also approved a new $1.0 billion stock repurchase program. This program does not
have an expiration date. Including our previously approved stock repurchase program, $1.2 billion remained
authorized for future repurchases as of March 29, 2013.
The initiation of quarterly dividends coupled with the increased stock repurchase program underscores our
commitment to consistently return capital to stockholders, and shows confidence in our long-term business
outlook and our ability to generate a significant amount of cash on a consistent basis.
Business Developments and Highlights
During fiscal 2013, we took the following actions in support of our business strategy:
• Our board of directors appointed a new President and Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) to improve
performance and increase long-term value for our stockholders. We also created an Office of the CEO
comprised of our CEO, Chief Financial Officer, President Products & Services and Chief Operating
Officer, to help make collaborative operational and functional decisions. We developed a plan to
reorganize our company around functional areas rather than business units.
• We released new solutions and entered into key partnerships in the enterprise business. We announced
updates to our backup appliances to include our latest backup software that delivers backup, recovery,
and deduplication software providing faster backup speeds, snapshot management, and simplified
search and recovery functionality. NetBackup is one of the first third-party backup solutions fully
certified by SAP to support High Performance Analytic Appliance or HANA. Our innovative backup
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