On the Record with
PAUL M. COFONI, PRESIDENT, TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT GROUP OF COMPUTER SCIENCES CORPORATION

Computer Sciences Corporation doesn't have a Farnborough chalet this year, but that's not because CSC management isn't taking Farnborough seriously. It's because the company has its European headquarters right here, at Brennan House in the BAE Systems Centre, and will play host there.
Plus, in what amounts to a near-perfect analogy of how the big American information technology specialist does business, it plans to visit with customers-and potential customers-in their own chalets.

"We'd rather be perceived as being out working in the midst of our clients," says Paul M. Cofoni, president of CSC's technology management group. CSC has a cadre of execs at the show, including Cofoni, at least one other group president, and the firm's UK president Guy Haines.
To say it's been a good year for CSC would be an understatement. The Virginia-based company logged revenues of $9.37 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, a 15.5% increase over fiscal 1999, and, excluding special items, raked in net profits of $432.7 million, a 21.7% increase over the prior year.

CSC's European group notched sales of $2.5 billion for the year. Europe thus accounts for some 27% of the corporation's global revenues, and just over 28% (17,000) of its 60,000 employees.

Overall CSC aerospace and defense revenues came to $2.77 billion last year.

"Nobody can touch us in aerospace and this was the best-kept secret in aerospace," Cofoni says. "We have been a behind-the-scenes sort of company for years."

Now, he told Show News, "We're trying to take more advantage of our strong position." Hence increased advertising and other promotional work in preparation for this week's big British show, where CSC is telling the world that it is, in Cofoni's words, "a major enabler in the aerospace marketplace."

Recent contracts include a deal with Sweden's Saab AB whereby CSC is buying Saab IT subsidiary Combitech Network AB and through it will supply IT infrastructure and security services to Saab AB's Aerospace business, as well as to other IT/security customers in Sweden. More 230 Combitech IT specialists will become CSC employees.

"Revenue from the Saab outsourcing relationship is expected to exceed $300 million," CSC says.

CSC even more recently inked a contract to supply modeling and simulation, systems engineering and integration, guidance and control, software support, logistics and management expertise to the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command. Approximately 800 CSC employees will be involved.
CSC's aerospace client list reads like a Who's Who of the sector: BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin are longtime CSC clients, as are General Dynamics, Hughes, Raytheon, NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense; last year's developments included a $2.1 billion contract with Pratt & Whitney, and since then CSC has taken over all of Pratt parent United Technologies' infrastructure IT work.

Being a computer company, CSC is riding the Internet wave, too. The company's e-commerce activity surged to $700 million for the fiscal year just finished, up from about $200 million the year before. "In general it has stimulated our business enormously," Cofoni understates. He says he's not worried that the bustling world of "B2B" is bringing in more competition. Small new dot.coms get the media attention, he says, but "they don't have core competence."

"What's happened in the market is really reflective of what has happened in business." The start-ups are fading and established firms like CSC are getting the real work. "We keep our eye on the ball and do the things we've always done well," Cofoni says.

Cofoni worked in IT at General Dynamics for 17 years before joining CSC in 1991. He became president of CSC's Technology Management Group in March of 1998.

By Rich Piellisch