What's Happening at Post-Merger CSC?

The post-Mynd-acquisition CSC Financial Services Group is trying to make up for lost time following a merger approval process that stretched out longer than anyone anticipated. Since the deal was approved at the end of 1999, the organization has been carrying out an action plan geared toward "creating a new operating model and organization taking advantage of the fact that Mynd is being fully integrated into the financial services group of CSC," according to Jackie VanErp, vice president of marketing for the CSC Financial Services Group (Austin, TX). "CSC's objective is to provide end-to-end solutions, from initial strategic consulting, through systems development and integration into the client's environment, as well as the option of having CSC actually operating their data center or whole business process."

The Mynd brand has been discontinued, and the group's Americas operations have been reorganized into five operating entities related to different market sectors "that have full responsibility for their products, solutions and clients," VanErp says. The divisions are life and annuities, headed by Paul DeFuria, who comes out of the CSC organization; property/casualty, headed by former Myndexecutive Ray August; cost containment/claims, headed by Joe Jensen (who held similar responsibilities with CSC); banking, headed by CSC executive Dave Blanton; and IT/process outsourcing, which will be run by Mike Risley, who previously headed Mynd's Cybertek division.

This is essentially a new executive team, as a number of Mynd senior executives departed as a result of the merger. Additionally, CSC Financial Services Group chief Ken Williams will retire. So far, the other significant departures involved about 200 Columbia, SC-based employees who were in areas that were duplicated in the CSC organization.

Financial services now represents more than 25 percent of CSC's revenues and is the El Segundo, CA-based parent's largest commercial vertical business. "CSC is about a $10.2 billion company in terms of revenue, and with the addition of Mynd it has a $10.7 billion annual run rate," VanErp reports. One of the biggest challenges has been figuring out just how many clients the new organization has, and into what market segments they fit. "CSC had about 1,000 major banks and insurers before the acquisition, and Mynd had about 1,000 customers," VanErp says. "There was some overlap, so we figure there are about 1,200 clients, but we don't really know" the precise number yet. Roughly half of these customers are software clients, about 40 percent are customers of outsourcing services, and 10 percent are clients of consulting services.

Katherine Burger is Editorial Director of Bank Systems & Technology and Insurance & Technology, members of UBM TechWeb's InformationWeek Financial Services. She assumed leadership of Bank Systems & Technology in 2003 and of Insurance & Technology in 1991. In addition to ... View Full Bio