PERFORM.COM Teams with Accenture to Deliver Dynamic Web-Enabled 'Performance Management' Solutions

Tools and processes aimed at empowering workers, improve productivity

NEW YORK – December 18, 2000 – PERFORM.COM and Accenture today announced a global alliance to deliver Web-enabled human performance, organizational planning and career management solutions. PERFORM.COM, a leading application service provider (ASP) specializing in human performance management, and Accenture, a leading global management and technology consultancy will co-market tools and processes that solve a variety of human performance and workforce development issues.

Through its Human Performance practice, Accenture delivers customized performance management solutions to clients in diverse industries. Together, Accenture and PERFORM.COM will provide a suite of solutions that enable companies to gather, organize and assess appraisal, feedback and goal information from employees at their desktops. These metrics will also enable businesses to develop world-class human resources operations, manage large-scale workforce transformations, promote individual career development and enhance performance throughout their extended enterprises. Accenture and PERFORM.COM are also combining their intellectual capital to create new releases of the tool suite, expected for early 2001.

“PERFORM.COM’s technology ushers in a new era for the discipline of managing people, and our firm is excited about the tremendous value it will help us bring to our clients,” said Garth R. Andrus, partner, Accenture. “This alliance will help us advance an Internet-based Performance Management model that we view as vital to empowering employees, helping them manage their careers and thereby enabling their enterprises to achieve real productivity gains and financial success in the new economy.”

The combination of PERFORM.COM’s innovative platform of adaptable Web-based tools and Accenture’s Human Performance capabilities, will help clients integrate their human performance initiatives with Web technologies to deliver powerful workforce development applications directly to the corporate desktop.

Studies have shown that companies using effective performance management techniques realize considerable increases in sales and income per employee – as well as in total shareholder return. According to recent industry research, firms with the most effective human resource management systems exhibited dramatically higher performance: employee turnover was close to half, sales per employee were four times as great, and the ratio of firm market value to the book value of assets – a key indicator of management quality, as it indicates the extent to which management has increased shareholder’s initial investment – was more than three times as large in high performing companies. (Becker, Huselid and Ulrich, The HR Scorecard: Linking People Strategy and Performance, Harvard Business School Press, forthcoming).

“It’s no secret that people are the key to organizational excellence, and we’ve made it our mission to unleash the power of the Internet to promote better, more creative and more productive human resources management,” said Tony Rich, CEO of PERFORM.COM “Companies of all shapes and sizes are looking for new and dynamic ways to meet the challenges of talent management that include identifying and retaining top talent, developing leaders and harnessing the power of the workforce to deliver against increasingly demanding organizational objectives. With its world-class client relationships across the spectrum of global enterprises, Accenture will be a powerful partner in delivering our solutions to the world.”

About PERFORM.COM

PERFORM.COM is the market leader in developing and implementing an innovative new platform of Web-based solutions for performance and career management. , With more than 4 years of web delivery experience, PERFORM.COM is focused on delivering premier human performance management solutions that leverage the hassle-free Application Service Provider model. PERFORM.COM’s clients include Fortune 500 companies in such industries as telecommunications, high tech, transportation, government, financial services and professional services. PERFORM.COM currently has 60 employees and is headquartered in New York. More information on PERFORM.COM can be obtained at its Web site, http://www.PERFORM.com.

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Steve Olds

SVP Business Development, SVP Business DevelopmentPERFORM.COM

(212) 370-0443

steve.olds@perform.com