Coming in as President of the Ethics and Compliance unit at Computer Associates was not going to be an easy job. John A. Swainson previously worked as Vice President of worldwide sales for IBM’s Software Group, capping off his twenty-six year tenure at IBM. What would make an engineer like John Swainson decide to embark on this path less traveled?
In the 1990s, senior executives at CA began to feel the intense pressure of the market to make revenue meet its quotes. As John Swainson states in his presentation, “The market is unforgiving.” Due to extremely lenient standards in quarter revenue books, there was a margin of flexibility for the accountants of CA to work with. However, the flexibility was stretched to its extreme, and morals were eventually left behind. Revenue books had months that lasted anywhere from thirty five days to fifteen days, completely manipulating the revenue quarter period. In the end, a large number of Senior Executives, as well as the CEO of CA were endited and some were subjected to serve time in prison. This once family oriented company was now a dismantled and disheveled corporation, hanging by its ends to its sinking reputation.
Stepping in to set up ethical regulations, Swainson had some main goals to accomplish in this weary company. Swainson lists his objectives, “First, we needed to fulfill our agreement with the government. In this Deferred Prosecution Agreement, the government agreed to drop prosecution if the company reformed a list of issues within a given time frame. Second, we needed to get the company growing again. And lastly, we needed to re-energize our employee base.”
As the Ethics and Compliance President, it was Swainson’s job to not only establish a moral standard throughout the corporation but also, to reestablish the credibility of CA in general. But before he could jumpstart the moral and ethical component of the corporation, Swainson had to do research on updating the IT software that had been neglected due to the recent accounting crisis.
Regarding the new technique of selling the software, Swainson states, “We needed to focus on what we were good at doing. Our goal was to sell software that focused on unifying and simplifying customers’ IT fields.” He went on to assign his best salespeople to small groups of loyal customers to sell CA’s updated IT software program.
As for energizing his distressed group of employees, Swainson had an answer to that as well. “We changed the way we paid our employees. Pay rates were based on how well an employee helped affect the company’s progress,” says Swainson.
On a personal level, Swainson made an effort to connect with his employees. He set up an outstanding communication program in which he traveled to all the branches of the corporation across the country to get feedback on how the employees felt about the company. Whether it was large hall filled with employees from CA, or a small café with a few employees, Swainson got in touch with their perspectives. He used surveys to evaluate the moral standings within the company, as well as write blogs that could be accessed by the employees themselves. He also made a vow to personally answer all his emails to keep a strong, intimate connection with his employees.
After being at CA for over four years, Swainson is proud of the progress that is being made. He says, “Employees are proud of where they work, and we are regaining our reputation and credibility.” Computer Associates has gone from a struggling corporation to one of the world’s largest independent software companies.
Swainson concluded his ethics speech by stating, “I always think of it this way, you should never do anything you’d be ashamed to tell your mother about.” By having such a prominent business ethics leader in our presence, Bentley shows their commitment to a strong moral reputation and their dedication to informing the Bentley community and student body about ethics awareness.