Australia's Department of Finance and Administration Awards Major Human Resource Outsourcing Contract to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 15, 1999--

Australia's Department of Finance and Administration (DOFA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the world's largest professional services organization, have signed a contract for the supply of human resource services - one of the first and largest of its type in Australia.

"By entering into this contract with PricewaterhouseCoopers, DOFA will gain access to world class HR services and support," said Dr. Peter Boxall, Secretary of DOFA. "PricewaterhouseCoopers has a flexible, responsive approach to human resource management and access to the best thinking globally. We were also attracted by PricewaterhouseCoopers' commitment to strategic relationships. This relationship will bring best private sector practice to the way we do business."

Under the terms of the contract, PricewaterhouseCoopers will provide strategic HR advice, as well as human resource processing services, including payroll and personnel processing, compensation case management, and recruitment services.

Ton Heijmen, the PricewaterhouseCoopers partner in charge of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) practice in Asia Pacific, said, "As governments and businesses seek to maximize performance and efficiency, the winners will be those organizations that can maintain a sharp focus on core business and continually invest in core competencies. In other regional markets, business process outsourcing has proven to be a powerful management strategy for doing just that - and now we are witnessing its successful implementation in Australia."

"What we are establishing with DOFA is a full service HR relationship," said Allen Edwards, managing partner, Business Process Outsourcing, PricewaterhouseCoopers in Australia. "This heralds the arrival in this country of a developing global standard for the provision of HR management services."

To deliver the outsourced services, PricewaterhouseCoopers will establish a multi-client, multi-process shared service center in Canberra, Australia, delivering economies of scale and leveraging global technology to deliver world's best HR practice. This center will extend the business process services PricewaterhouseCoopers is already supplying to many Australian government agencies through its Canberra Shared Service Center in real estate outsourcing.

Business process outsourcing is defined as the long-term contracting of a company's non-core business processes to an outside service provider. According to industry estimates, the global BPO market in 1998 was valued at $80 billion and is expected to more than double in size to $200 billion over the next five years. A leading BPO services provider, PricewaterhouseCoopers is recognized as a market driver in providing "end-to-end" process solutions coordinated on a multi-process basis to help enhance shareholder value.

Through its core process expertise, unique approach to empowering people, ability to build a winning culture for its clients, and world-class service delivery, the PricewaterhouseCoopers Business Process Outsourcing group helps companies manage business processes that support their strategic business plans and build shareholder value.

In recognition of PricewaterhouseCoopers' successful client relationships and global leadership role, InfoServer, the Journal for Strategic Outsourcing Information, awarded the BPO group two prestigious honors - Most Visionary Relationship Award in 1998 followed by Best BPO Relationship Award in 1999. The group also recently won GartnerGroup's Dataquest Business Value Award for market education and thought leadership in the information technology services industry.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has developed a number of thought leadership initiatives designed to promote global awareness of and insight into the use of BPO as a critical management strategy. These include the Global Top Decision-Makers Study sm on Business Process Outsourcing, which provides comprehensive research and analysis of the BPO practices of over 300 of the world's leading corporations, and the Outsourcing World Achievement Awards. Presented annually in conjunction with The Corbett Group, the Awards honor academic and business leaders who have made significant contributions to the outsourcing industry.

Currently, PricewaterhouseCoopers manages outsourcing programs for more than 500 multinational corporations and other large organizations around the world - leveraging the core process expertise of outsourcing professionals in finance/accounting, internal audit, tax compliance, applications process, procurement, human resources and real estate process.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwcglobal.com) is the world's leading professional services organization. Drawing on the knowledge and skills of 150,000 people in 150 countries, we help our clients solve complex business problems and measurably enhance their ability to build value, manage risk and improve performance. PricewaterhouseCoopers refers to the U.S. firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and other members of the worldwide PricewaterhouseCoopers organization.

Note to Editors: The name PricewaterhouseCoopers is one word, with upper case P, upper case C, and all other letters in lower case.