Symantec 2016 Annual Report Download - page 53

Symantec’s competition in the broader talent market. The peer group’s proxy statements provide detailed pay
data for the top five positions. Survey data, which we obtain from the Radford Global Technology Survey, pro-
vides compensation information on a broader group of executives and from a broader group of information tech-
nology companies, with positions matched based on specific job scope and responsibilities. The Compensation
Committee considers data from these sources as a framework for making compensation decisions for each named
executive officer’s position.
The information technology industry in which we compete is characterized by rapid rates of change and
intense competition from small and large companies, and the companies within this industry have significant
cross-over in leadership talent needs. As such, we compete for executive talent with leading software and serv-
ices companies as well as in the broad information technology industry. We face particularly intense competition
with companies located in the geographic areas where Symantec operates, regardless of specific industry focus or
company size. Further, consistent with prior years, in part because we believe that stockholders measure our
performance against a wide array of technology peers, for fiscal 2016 the Compensation Committee used a peer
group that consists of a broad group of high technology companies in different market segments that were of a
comparable size to us prior to the Veritas Sale. The Compensation Committee used this peer group, as well as
other relevant market data, to evaluate named executive officer pay levels.
The Compensation Committee reviews our peer group on an annual basis, with input from Mercer, and the
group may be adjusted from time to time based on, among other factors, a comparison of revenues, market capi-
talization, industry, peer group performance, merger and acquisition activity and stockholder input. The follow-
ing criteria were used to select our updated FY16 peer group:
‰Businesses with a software development focus;
‰Similar breadth of complexity and global reach as Symantec;
‰Annual revenue of $1.5 billion — $20.0 billion;
‰Market capitalization of $4.0 billion — $61.0 billion; and
‰Software and engineering-driven companies in the Silicon Valley or elsewhere with which we compete
for executive and broader talent.
Using this criteria, the Compensation Committee did not make any changes to our peer group for fiscal
2016, other than removing one company which is no longer a public company. The Compensation Committee
reviewed potential changes to the peer group in fiscal 2016 in light of the then-proposed spinoff of Veritas, but
determined, after taking into account the expected timeframe to complete the then-proposed spinoff, the current
peer group maintained year-over-year consistency with a balance of size and comparability and that it would
revisit the peer group for fiscal 2017 consistent with past practice. The following companies were used in setting
the compensation for our named executive officers for fiscal 2016:
Fiscal 2016 Symantec Peer Group
Activision Blizzard, Inc. eBay Inc. Nuance Communications, Inc.
Adobe Systems Incorporated Electronic Arts Inc. salesforce.com, inc.
Autodesk, Inc. EMC Corporation Synopsys, Inc.
CA, Inc. Intuit Inc. VMware, Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc. NetApp, Inc. Yahoo! Inc.
The Compensation Committee uses these peer companies for comparative purposes, as discussed above. In
fiscal 2016, compensation for individual executive officers was not dependent on how we performed relative to
these peers with respect to particular financial metrics. Further information regarding the financial results and
performance of the peer companies may be found in periodic reports the companies file with the SEC.
43