Our first-annual list of the top FAO deals of the year.

by FAOT Staff

Best-of lists are always hit and miss. This year's Oscar winner may be next years Razzie nominee. (Hey, it happened to Halle Berry--it could happen to anyone.) And the first of any annual list is always open to the most criticism. No one wants to be the first to raise their hand, except those bookworms who are teased mercilessly as youths, then go on to become the thought and business leaders of the future.

So our thanks to those FAO companies that did step up and offer us valuable information not only on their top deals of the year, but also on some of their biggest competitors top deals--now thats gracious. This list was developed in part by their contribution. Of course, it was also fact-checked by researching newsrooms, other business publications, and press databases. And last, but not least, contacting some of the top sourcing consultants who were advising on many of those deals, and a few others that were too confidential to be released at the time.

The deals below encompass some of the largest FAO contracts of the last 14 months. They are listed in alphabetical order by client. To be considered for the list, the deal had to be large in scale (either by number of employees serviced or number of countries covered) and scope (number of F&A services offered and length of time). As this list is developed and updated each year, we at FAO Today will do our best to better define the requirements, provide more data on each deal, and reach a broader audience of FAO users and providers. The same strong-arm tactics we promise to use for next Top FAO Providers List we promise to use for this list as well.

So heres to the FAO clients and providers--who may have once been the first FAO nerds, but are now the industrys new leaders.

The 2005 FAO TodayTop FAO Deals

CLIENT/PROVIDER; DATE; CONTRACT AMOUNT; CONTRACT LENGTH

BC Ministry of Provincial Revenue/EDS     
Dec-04; $480 M; 10 yrs

EDS will be providing the British Columbia Ministry of Provincial Revenue with a new revenue management system that will streamline and simplify customer service, enhance personal privacy protections, and provide net financial benefits to the province. As part of the contract, EDS will deliver information technology services and perform billing, remittance and payment processing, and non-tax collection functions for several government programs.

City of London/Liberata            
Jun-04; NA; 5 yrs

An extension of a previous FAO contract, Liberata will be responsible for NNDR and Council Tax collection, including the implementation of new revenue and document management systems, as well as the rollout of mobile technology for property inspections.

Deutsche Bank/Accenture

Jan-04; NA; NA

This FAO contract covers corporate purchasing and AP services for Deutsche Banks offices worldwide. Under the contract, Accenture will provide resources such as state-of-the-art systems, tools, and processes to manage the entire procure-to-pay process.

Dun & Bradstreet/IBM

Oct-04; $180 M; 7 yrs

In another one of its BTO (business transformation outsourcing) deals, IBM will not only be managing key business functions and financial operations globally for D&B, it will also be transforming them.

GE/ACS

Mar-04; NA; 10 yrs

ACS will be responsible for GEs accounts payable, fixed-asset accounting, and transactional tax processing in this 10-year FAO contract.

GM/ACS

2004; NA; NA

An expansion of the 2003 FAO contract GM signed with ACS, under this new contract, ACS will be including additional F&A functions and services to Latin America and South-East Asia.

IRS/CSC

Feb-05; $34 M; 6 mos

Just in time for tax season, CSC will be implementing the next phase of the IRSs Customer Account Data Engine (CADE) project. The cornerstone of the IRSs Business Systems Modernization program, CADE is expected to replace the agencys antiquated system and become the single database for account and tax return data.

Marathon Oil/IBM

Aug-04; NA; 7 yrs

IBM will be handling a major portion of Marathon Oils upstream accounting services and portions of Marathon Ashland Petroleum LLCs accounting services in this 7-year multimillion-dollar deal. IBM will assume accounts payable, fixed assets accounting, production revenue accounting, and other tasks for Marathons accounting services.

Office Depot/ACS

Dec-04; $25 M; 7 yrs (1 yr renewal)

Under this FAO contract, ACS will provide Office Depot with credit, collection, and sales tax support service; as well as a seamless interface to Office Depots existing technology with continuous evaluation of new technology enhancements in the future.

Orbitel/Convergys

Aug-04; NA; 5 yrs

Convergys first product deployment in Colombia, their client, Orbitel, will use several new service applications for rating and billing, and to support the rapid deployment and bundling of new products and services to its customers.

Pendle/Council Liberata

Feb-05; 100 M; NA

This BPO deal, which includes FAO, HRO, and IT aspects, outsources Pendle Councils managed benefits, revenues, IT, property, quantity surveying, architectural, personnel, and payroll services.

Procter & Gamble/HP

Apr-04; NA; 10 yrs

This expansion of their 2003, 10-year, $3B ITO contract includes new FAO services such as transitioning of P&Gs corporate-wide transactional accounts payable operations to HP Services.

Romania Telecom/Convergys

Jul-04; NA; NA

ROMTELECOM will use the Convergys service applications for rating and billing, and to develop voice and data services in order to enhance performance. As the prime contractor, Convergys will manage the integration of the system into ROMTELECOMs billing environment and direct associated business process re-engineering improvements.

Dept of Ed Federal Student Aid (FSA) Office/EDS

2004; $6 M; TCV of $110M if options exercised; 1 yr (9, 1-yr options)

Part of a subcontract with Pearson Government Solutions to increase FSAs ability to manage student financial aid applications processing and disbursement processing. EDS will provide application architecture, enterprise application integration, data strategy, software development, business process re-engineering, business intelligence, imaging, and data capture services.

State of Nevada/Accenture

Sep-04 $27.9 M; 4 yrs

If you have a problem with the taxes on your next Las Vegas win, talk to Accenture, since they were hired under this contract to design and build a new tax system for the state.

State of New Jersey/ACS

Mar-05; $27 M; 3 yrs (2, 1-yr options)

In this FAO contract, ACS will be responsible for the garden states billing, payment processing, and debit card transactions.

Tele2/Accenture

May-04; NA; NA

In this multi-national FAO contract,Tele2 hired Accenture to consolidate its billing system across 22 European countries. Accenture will be responsible for implementation, initial operation, and support of the project.

TIAA-CREF Asset Management/Mellon Global Securities Services

Jul-04; NA; NA

Under the contract, Mellon will provide middle and back-office outsourcing, accounting, and custody, while its affiliate, Russell/Mellon, will supply performance measurement and analytics.

TXU/Capgemini

May-04; $3.5 B; 10 yrs

Employees in the new Capgemini Energy limited partnership will provide information technology, call center, billing, human resources, supply chain and accounts payable, and finance and accounting services to TXU and other energy companies.

WildBlue/Convergys

Jul-04; NA; NA

Convergys will provide service applications for rating, billing, order management, and inventory management to support WildBlues delivery of high-speed Internet service. Convergys will also provide implementation, integration, and custom development services supporting the launch of WildBlues new billing and customer-care applications.

Williams/IBM

Jun-04; $320 M; 7.5 yrs

Energy firm Williams will shift its accounting, finance, human resources, and IT management processes to IBM in a $320 million, 7.5-year business transformation outsourcing deal.