Corporate Responsibility: Client Focus

Client Focus In the complex world of IT services, addressing key business functions such as client loyalty, customer relationship management and process reengineering is an especially tough challenge. EDS has stepped up to this challenge in a way that distinguishes us from competitors through our Service Excellence Program and client focus. The program centerpiece is EDS' Service Excellence Dashboard, a Web-enabled, real-time information system that ensures we always know the quality of service we deliver to our clients.

What Our Clients Are Saying

Based on survey and interview feedback, EDS clients recognize our commitment to continuing improvement in the areas of strong EDS and client relationships, account leader capabilities, delivery operations, talented resources and technical expertise.

Through our Voice of the Client Program, we can directly and immediately improve services to all clients. In 2006, more than 90 percent of EDS' clients – including 4,500-plus client leaders – provided direct, unfiltered feedback through the program. The results indicated that more than 92 percent of EDS clients rated our overall performance as good or excellent.

We also monitor and improve service delivery through client surveys and face-to-face client interviews. Online surveys, initiated by the client or EDS, are available in 13 languages; paper surveys are available in 19 languages. In 2006, EDS conducted more than 160 client organization interviews globally with our top clients.

Exemplary clients and EDS organizations are recognized through the Service Excellence Cup and Service Excellence Diamond Award programs to raise awareness of what it means to deliver excellence and maintain mutually valuable relationships.

Celebrating EMEA Service Excellence Diamond award wins for 2006. Left to right: Claudio Pazzaglia, director of EMEA Service Excellence & Innovation, and Doug Davis, former EMEA vice president of Service Delivery.

Innovation and Thought Leadership

Innovation drives value creation, which leads to profitable growth; however, it requires a commitment to research, a culture that encourages risk-taking and a free flow of ideas. Today, EDS and our alliance partners put an estimated $20 billion in annual research and development toward bringing innovative new products and services to the market and clients.

Here are a few 2006 EDS innovation highlights:

EDS Fellows are leading industry and subject-matter experts with the ability to convert their outstanding knowledge into business solutions. In 2006, the EDS Fellows developed EDS' strategy for applications modernization, establishing a pilot class being used globally. They also spent more than 5,000 hours on client engagements, including developing and deploying innovation solutions and acting as technology officers for clients across numerous industries.
The EDS Fellows and Distinguished Systems Engineers currently maintain active connections with 64 universities around the world. These relationships range from board-level activities to defining curriculums that develop the skills of the work force of the future through internships and mentoring.

EDS Patents

Patents are a powerful instrument for harvesting the benefits of innovation and for encouraging innovators to create a continuous cycle of innovation. EDS has numerous awarded and pending patents available for use in its solutions for clients.

EDS' Next Big Thing Blog, written by the EDS Fellows, discusses the future of technology, trends and the impact of technology on our lives. In 2006, EDS Fellows posted 194 blog entries. The blog averaged 18,509 hits per month with 282 comments posted in 2006.
The Innovation JumpStart Program infuses account teams with thought leadership and innovation best practices in ways that are recognized by clients through improved Voice of the Client innovation scores.

Global Alliances

EDS global alliances combine the best technology and industry expertise of market-leading partners to provide our joint clients top value. The EDS Agility Alliance was developed to create a seamlessly integrated platform that delivers robust, relevant and value-driven technology services to clients worldwide. The alliance produces significant business results for EDS, our partners and our clients:

synnovation Magazine

In 2006, EDS and its EDS Agility Alliance partners began publishing a professional thought leadership journal, synnovation. The publication captures and presents original intellectual capital, collaborative insights and fresh perspectives on the trends and issues that affect enterprises and shape the outlook of their industries.

In 2006, EDS Agility Alliance partners contributed to more than 300 EDS client wins, for a total of $10.5 billion in total contract value.
Clients are already recognizing value from this collaboration through our innovative new capabilities such as Enterprise Application Implementation Services, Applications Modernization Services, Server Management Services, Managed Storage Services and Enterprise Content Management Integration Services.
EDS was named a 2006 finalist for Microsoft's Enterprise Partner of the Year.
EDS Austria won a Microsoft Customer Award in 2006 for the successful migration of a content management system at Austria's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labour.

Two EDS Agility Alliance Development Centers house more than 1,100 technologists – including more than 200 from EDS partner organizations – and enable hands-on global development and collaboration among EDS and our partners. EDS Innovation Centers provide an environment for deeper understanding where clients can access our joint talent, addressing business and technology issues and opportunities.

Industry Analyst Relations

Industry analysts are important to EDS because our clients and prospects look to them for IT services sourcing advice, including recommending preferred service providers. EDS Industry Analyst Relations (IAR) manages relationships with key analyst firms to ensure industry analysts have complete and accurate information about our capabilities, the value we provide to clients and our progress in the marketplace.

EDS' 2006 leadership ratings – issued by Tier One industry analyst firms – reflect the growing recognition of EDS' return to prominence in 2006 and include these:

North American Help Desk Outsourcing Services Magic Quadrant (Gartner, January)
HR BPO provider WAVE (Forrester, February)
North American desktop outsourcing services Magic Quadrant (Gartner, February)
Data center outsourcing, EMEA MarketScope (Gartner, March)
Storage services Magic Quadrant (Gartner, May)
IT sourcing deal transformation management WAVE (Forrester, May)
EDS vendor rating upgraded to positive (Gartner, November)
European remote infrastructure management (Forrester, December)

EDS 2006 Performance Against Key Metrics

Report mentions – EDS placed a close second behind IBM in total number of mentions for the year but ranked first in report mentions at Gartner, the largest and most influential firm.
Report tonality – EDS placed first and, as such, was the most positively referenced IT services firm by analysts tracking the IT services market. EDS has held industry tonality leadership for the past two years.
IAR Program perception – Industry analysts rated EDS' IAR program as the IT services industry's most effective in 2006, a rating we also held in 2005. EDS' IAR Program was featured in a new analyst relations book, Influencing the Influencers, published by Knowledge Capital Group in 2006.