Kiwi prominent in Computer Associates revamp

By PETER GRIFFIN*

ORLANDO - Not many people realize it, but a Kiwi from Lower Hutt has his finger on the pulse of the third largest software company in the world.

High-flying sales executive Stephen Richards is to take a lead role in steering Computer Associates' sales strategy as the company restructures to shake off its image of poor customer relations.

CA's chief executive and president Sanjay Kumar said on Monday that CA had restructured into six brand units which would ultimately have profit and loss responsibilities. The company has been pushing its storage, security and web services this year with a range of new products as revenue from enterprise management business begins to level off.

The reorganised units include Unicenter, (enterprise management), eTrust (security), BrightStor (storage), CleverPath (web services) AllFusion application lifecycle management, and Advantage (mainframe management).

While these product divisions have existed for the best part of a year, each unit would now be responsible for its own marketing, customer support and product development. But sales and channel relationships would be continue to be managed across the board with Richards, as executive vice president of sales, taking primary responsibility alongside executive vice president Gary Quinn, who oversees CA's client relations.

An employee of CA for 12 years, Richards headed the New Zealand operation of CA in his mid-20s before taking over the top job in Australia and later continuing his ascent up the corporate ladder in the US operation. He is based at CA's headquarters in Islandia, New York.

Yahoo's online finance service put Richards total pay package in the year to March 31, 2001 at over US$1.2 million, made up of a base salary of US$300,000 and a bonus of US$900,000. That makes Richards better paid than the chief executives of every listed New Zealand company. It also put Richards' pay for the year above that of Kumar, however the latter had stock options in CA worth millions of dollars at the end of the 2001 fiscal year.

Kumar said that in a drive to improve sales and customer service, the remuneration of the top 500 employees at CA was now linked to their performance.

The reorganisation would not result in any job losses, he said, adding that the changes would come with 95 per cent continuity of customer interaction.

A spokesman for CA New Zealand said the organisational changes would have little impact on the local operation because a sales team worked across the brand units due to the relatively small size of the market. CA employs about 35 people In New Zealand.

Kumar said CA had learnt a lot from last summer, and the much publicised proxy battle with rebel billionaire shareholder Sam Wyly, but said Wyly's criticism of CA had little to do with the restructuring.

Kumar also sought to explain the sales of CA's Interbiz unit to SSA, saying the unit was just too small to become a major player in its own right and was not part of CA's core business anyway.

Addressing the Securities and Exchange Commissions (SEC) accounting probes that have dogged CA and hammered its share price, Kumar said he was confident the company's accounting would receive a clean bill of health.

"We have a very conservative and transparent business model," he said.

"I believe that time is the only factor that will tell when this inquiry is closed."

In a further move to improve its sales structure, Kumar said CA was adopting a policy of channel neutrality. Sales through the company's massive network of channel partners would be given equal weighting to sales made directly by CA. The same discounts and incentives offered through the channel would be offered to customers dealing directly with CA.

Addressing a press conference at CA World in Orlando, Richard's said the structure of CA's sales channels was finally coming right.

"One of the problems we have had as a business over the last 24 months has been a conflict between the two different types of channels we have [which are] direct and indirect," said Richards.

"Ultimately we found that style effectively was holding the organisation back."

"We have the ability through our size and the breadth of our technology solutions to ultimately leverage the channel in a different way than I believe anybody else in the marketplace can."

*Peter Griffin attended CA World in Orlando as a guest of Computer Associates.