Symantec 2016 Annual Report Download - page 54

The Compensation Committee reviewed and revised our peer group for fiscal 2017 in light of our reduced
revenue size and increased focus on security software after the Veritas Sale. As these changes were made pro-
spectively, they had no impact on compensation decisions for fiscal 2016. The following criteria were used to
select our updated peer group to be used to evaluate named executive officer pay levels in connection with set-
ting compensation for fiscal 2017:
‰Business with software development focus including security related businesses where possible;
‰Similar breadth, complexity and global reach as Symantec; and
‰Annual revenue 0.5x to 2.0x as a starting point but including companies based on an assessment of geog-
raphy, engineering focus and executive talent competition landscape.
The Compensation Committee selected the following companies as our fiscal 2017 peer group:
Fiscal 2017 Symantec Peer Group
Activision Blizzard, Inc. eBay Inc. PayPal Holdings, Inc.*
Adobe Systems Incorporated Electronic Arts Inc. Red Hat Inc.*
Autodesk, Inc. FireEye, Inc.* salesforce.com, inc.
Akamai Technologies Inc.* Intuit Inc. Synopsys, Inc.
CA, Inc. LinkedIn Corporation* VMware, Inc.
Citrix Systems, Inc. Palo Alto Networks Inc.* Yahoo! Inc.
* Denotes companies added for fiscal 2017.
EMC, NetApp and Nuance Communications were removed from our FY17 peer group as a result of the
application of our new criteria.
Appropriate Pay Mix: Consistent with our pay-for-performance philosophy, our executive officers’ com-
pensation is structured so that a large portion of their total direct compensation is paid based on the performance
of our company (modified by individual achievement). In determining the mix of the various reward elements
and the value of each component, the Compensation Committee takes into account the executive’s role, the
competitiveness of the market for executive talent, company performance, individual performance, internal pay
equity and historical compensation. In making its determinations with regard to compensation, the Compensation
Committee reviews the various compensation elements for the CEO and our other named executive officers
(including base salary, target annual bonus, and the value of vested and unvested equity awards actually or poten-
tially issued).
The percentage of an executive officer’s compensation opportunity that is “at-risk,” or variable instead of
fixed, is based primarily on the officer’s level of influence at Symantec. Executive officers generally have a
greater portion of their pay at risk through short- and long-term incentive programs than the rest of our employee
population because of their relatively greater responsibility and ability to influence our company’s performance.
Typically, a higher proportion of the CEO’s compensation opportunity is at-risk relative to our other named
executive officers because of the nature of his role and ability to influence our company’s performance. As illus-
trated by the following charts, for fiscal 2016, approximately 93% of our CEO’s target total direct compensation
(sum of base salary, target annual incentive and grant date fair value of equity award) was at-risk, and on average
approximately 89% of our other named executive officers’ compensation opportunity was at-risk.
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