American Management Systems

American Management Systems

Founded	1970
Defunct	2004
Fate	Sold, defense related business to CACI, rest of the company to CGI Group
Headquarters	Fairfax, VA

American Management Systems (previous NASDAQ symbol: AMSY) was a high technology and management consulting firm, founded in 1970 by a group of five former Defense Department officials who had worked under Robert McNamara in the Kennedy and Johnson administration

Origin

The company grew to over nine thousand employees, with many offices in both the United States and other countries. At one point in the 1990s, one quarter of the company's revenue, albeit none of the profit, came from Europe. Much of its business centered on creating large computer systems for various government entities. It created a large accounting system for New York City during the city's recovery from its fiscal crisis in the late 1970s, and won an award for the Defense Department's Standard Procurement System in 1997.

Location

For the first 20 or more years of its existence, the company was based in Arlington, Virginia on the banks of the Potomac River with a commanding view of Washington DC. In the early 1990s, AMS moved its corporate headquarters to Fairfax, Virginia

Telecom Practice

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, American Management Systems was among the main telecom consulting companies in the United States. The company grew agressively because of professional talent in the emerging Competitive Local Exchange Companies. As a result, AMS was a market leader to offer its telecom client Kenan's Arbor- B/P, the award-winning convergence Billing Solution.

Divesture

In December 2002, AMS sold its Global Energy Group to Bangalore, India-based Wipro Technologies. In 2004, several factors, most notably an inattentive Board Of Directors, a series of ineffective CEOs, and the senior executives' overall inability to adapt to new business models, combined to force the company's dissolution. CGI, a Canadian company, was the primary purchaser, getting the commercial business and all government business not related to national defense. The defense portion of AMS could not be sold to a foreign-based company so CACI purchased that part. The AMS brand was retained by CGI for a time and the AMS website directed users to the CGI site. CGI's United States headquarters are in Fairfax, Virginia.

AMS in Europe

At the beginning of the 1990s, AMS provided the PRISM billing solution for the American cellular network operator PacTel Cellular, who later became AirTouch. Following the expansion of the GSM standard in Europe, AirTouch International invested in a number of foreign GSM providers. This led to the expansion of the AMS billing solution, re-branded as Spectrum 2000, into Europe. In 1992 AMS was in a unique position as provider of the billing system to the emerging mobile telco market in Europe, making AMS a major player in the European Market. AMS expanded into Portugal, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Poland. Despite this success, the company did not develop sufficient service delivery and business development units. Instead, it decided to commit to a huge (over 100M$) investment in the development of the sophisticated Customer Care and Billing System Tapestry for German fixed-wire telecom Arcor. Lack of commitment to marketing of this system contributed to the problems that led to significant layoffs in Europe in 2002. Furthermore AMS lost prestige when D2 chose Amdocs for its billing solution.

AMS 2002

In 2002, AMS had approximately 6300 employees, 986 million in revenue and 21 million in income and 51 offices worldwide.

Founders

• Ivan Selin
• Charles O. Rossotti
• Frank Nicolai
• Pat Gross
• Jan Lodal

Chief Executive Officers

• Ivan Selin - 1970 to late 1980s.
• Charles O. Rossotti - Late 1980s to Mid 1990s.
• Paul Brands - Mid 1990s to October 25, 2000.
• Bill Purdy (Interim) - October 26, 2000 to November 30, 2001.
• Alfred T. Mockett - December 1, 2001 to 2004.