Mitarbeiterbrief an das CSC Management

Dear Mr. Ricks,

This letter is in regards to the planned closure / move to Prague, Czech Republic of the CSC Service Desk in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

We realize that Immenstaad (Friedrichshafen) is quite small and that in the larger scheme that you are planning for CSC not very important, but we would appreciate the chance to present our side of the issue to you. We have repeatedly attempted to do this with the company executives in Germany, but our efforts have been consistently rejected - not because of a lack of merit, but because of a lack of interest on the side of management (please see examples at the end of this email).

It is regularly requested of us to participate in ethics and security awareness briefings, Customer Care programs, etc. In our opinion, however, the treatment that we are receiving is neither ethical, honest, nor professional and we are definitely not being kept informed of the decisions that are made which concern our personal lives, professional careers and the continued well-being of the company.

The Friedrichshafen Service Desk started as the Nortel Dasa IT Service Center; it originally consisted of 3 Call Center Agents and 1 Manager. Through the motivation and engagement of these four people, the number of Service Center staff had increased to approximately 20 by the time that it was outsourced to CSC in 2002. Today, the Service Desk Central Region employs over 60 people in Friedrichshafen alone and the quality of the service provided by SD CR staff stands with the best: Our "Fix First Call" rate is outstanding , we show great initiative in employee motivation projects (i.e. Customer Service Week 2005 ), have superlative communication methods (i.e. our monthly Cascade ), have contributed greatly to CSC processes and procedures (i.e. the EMEA Service Desk Knowledge Management Process), are known for the extremely high quality of our documentation of information and solutions (i.e. in CA KT) and for the ease in which we received our ISO 9001:2000 certification.

This level of excellence is, as we are sure is known to you, only possible if employees are highly motivated, interested in the company, very well qualified and engaged in always giving more then is being asked of them. SD CR staff has NEVER shied from putting in overtime hours (unpaid when necessary), doing extra work from home and altogether investing ourselves in contributing to a healthy CSC. In spite of our natural demotivation since the announcement that the SD CR would be closing, the statistics show that the quality of our work continues to excel (i.e. a Fix First Call rate of over 70% and 46 calls per 1st Level Analyst per day when only 35 are requested / expected). Is it really advantageous to CSC to terminate the employment of such dedicated people?

An independent analysis done by ISA Consult at the initiative of the CSC German Works Council shows that the profits realized by moving the SD CR to Prague will consist of approximately 55,000 � per annum. Because of the loss of quality and the inability of the new Service Desk to uphold SLA's in the first year(s) of operation, the penalties paid to customers (i.e. the penalty for missing one Bombardier Transportation "Abandon Rate / FCF" SLA is approximately 65,000 �) will widely exceed this sum. Currently, salaries are lower in the Czech Republic then they are in Germany, but this is changing and they are rapidly increasing. There is also a minimum of qualified staff available on the job market because there are very few unemployed technicians in Prague.

It is the announced intention of German CSC corporate management to acquire a minimum of an additional 5 new German customers per year. According to ITIL, the Service Desk is the absolute center of IT service. The new German customers will need Service Desk support from native German speakers (in the Czech Republic, German is spoken as a 2nd language at best) - some German customers absolutely insist on being supported by ONLY native German speakers (i.e. Mittelrheinverlag). Also, since English is the 3rd language for people native to the Czech Republic, there will be communication problems between them and CSC sites in other countries - this is rather detrimental towards any goals that include merging individual CSC sites into one working system. The Service Desk staff in Friedrichshafen all speak, read and write German and English fluently and most are fluent in at least one additional language; without additional resources, we are able to provide English, German, French, Polish, Czech, Russian, Hungarian, and Serbian / Croatian / Bosnian support immediately.

We do understand that certain decisions have been made and that initiatives have been started that can not easily be stopped; however, we have a lot to offer and we are of the opinion that you should be provided with correct figures; not those submitted by personnel companies in Prague who stand to benefit from the establishment of a new CSC Service Desk / Center. It is also clear to us that many performance measuring and employee incentive programs were blocked due to German laws by the Works Council and therefore put us at a disadvantage as concerns our participation in Global initiatives. The Czech Republic has a very similar Works Council to the one in Germany, however, and since it is (as in Germany) always initiated by employees (not employers / management), the same concerns could arise at the new Service Desk in Prague.

Thank you very much for your consideration of and interest in working with us to continue to create a solid foundation for excellent service and growth for CSC in Germany.

Best Regards,

CSC Staff in Immenstaad (Friedrichshafen), Germany

NOTE: A second email containing a scanned version of the printed form of this letter including all of the staff signatures (from 87% of all Immenstaad staff) and a translated copy of the relevant statistics from the external assessment from ISA Consult (16 translated pages from an original 83 pages in German - the full translated version will be made available if requested) will follow shortly and will ONLY be sent to CSC internal employees.

Disclaimer: The translations are correct to the best of the knowledge of all of the individuals involved in the sending of this email. They were not, however, translated professionally and neither the translators nor the senders of this mail accept responsibility for misunderstandings and / or errors.