Systems integration and consulting giant, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) announced drastic plans yesterday to redraw its corporate blueprint around a quartet of business units under its continuing quest to arrest sluggish growth. The restructuring will split the firm’s accounts across a so-called Business Process Management unit; an Information Solutions unit; its AT Kearney consulting wing; and its newly-created E.Solutions internet business unit.
The reorganization across service lines, to take effect on October 1 overhauls Plano, Texas-based EDS’s existing focus on vertical industry sectors. The changes are aimed at presenting a more seamless face to customers, growing expertise in burgeoning business areas and giving employees improved career development paths, the company said.
Under the plans EDS’s Business Process Management unit will be hived off from its E.Solutions wing underscoring its focus on customer relationship management, claims processing and settlement, a market it values at more than $130bn a year. E.Solutions, established in May, is aimed at tapping an estimated $120bn market in developing internet and e-commerce solutions for organizations, the company said. The Information Solutions IT Services group will compete for a piece of a reputed global $110m market.
AT Kearney, described by EDS as the number two player in the $25bn to $35bn consulting market will handle strategic, operational, organizational and IT consulting as well as executive recruitment. EDS said it would also create a panel of global industry experts to pool knowledge and coordinate work across all four units and assign an executive to each of its customer accounts.
The changes will be fleshed out today in a day-long analyst briefing that the firm is staging in New York. EDS has been gripped by internal restructuring since CEO Dick Brown took over last December vowing to wrest leadership of the IT services market from IBM Global Services. EDS, the erstwhile industry leader and self-proclaimed founder of the concept of IT services and outsourcing achieved only 9% growth in the year to April 1999 compared to a 14% industry average and 20% at IBM.
