Press Release

Compass America Announces Ford as Recipient of Compass of the Year Award

11/14/96

Ford Motor Company's Information Technology Operations Judged Best in
Class; Ford Captures Second Straight Award for Its Cost Efficiency and
Production; Quality World Bank and Cable & Wireless ..

RESTON, Va., Nov. 12 -- COMPASS America, Inc., the
world's leading consulting firm specializing in comparative analysis,
today announced that Ford Motor Co. has won the prestigious
COMPASS-of-the-Year Award after setting new highs in IT cost
efficiency and production quality for the second straight year.

Among other measures, Ford won the award for its ability to acquire
hardware and software precisely when it's most cost-competitive and
advantageous. In addition, the company has offset high industry labor
costs by carefully outsourcing selected IT operations and aggressively
automating others. As a result, Ford has managed a 33% increase in IT
workloads with only a 1% increase in personnel and 7% rise in costs
while maintaining excellent levels of service to their user community.

According to Don Storteboom, Ford's Manager of Global Network and
Computer Operations, "To ensure we are among the top performers, we
must know how we compare against industry leaders. We spend millions
of dollars a year on our data center. It's imperative that we manage
that investment efficiently. External comparative analysis helps us
keep our eye on the ball -- to know where to cut costs, add
automation, and become more efficient."

John Thomas, vice president of marketing for COMPASS, explains, "Ford
consistently stays at least a year ahead of the market in terms of IT
cost efficiency.  They have avoided traps that other companies fall
into.  They know where they are delivering exceptional performance and
how to fix problems. They know when to go outside for services and how
to get the best bang for their buck. There's a lot to learn from how
Ford manages its IT business."

Awards of Excellence

The World Bank of Washington, D.C. and Cable & Wireless, Inc.
of Vienna, Virginia also received COMPASS Awards of Excellence
for their computing operations. The World Bank was honored for the
high quality of service levels provided to its wide-area network
clients at a cost substantially below those of other top-performing
companies. Cable & Wireless was honored in the area of client/server
computing for their innovative use of comparative analysis studies in
outsourcing parts of their desktop infrastructure and support to lower
costs and improve service levels to their users.

Company Background

COMPASS is a privately held, international consulting firm
specializing in IT comparative analysis studies for Fortune 500-sized
clients and government agencies.  Since 1979, COMPASS has provided
consulting services and studies for some of the world's largest, most
prestigious firms. Today, it has more than 500 active clients in 27
countries. The COMPASS-of-the-Year Award is the industry's only honor
for IT operational effectiveness and cost efficiency.

Ford Motor Company is the world's largest producer of trucks, and the
second largest producer of cars and trucks combined. Ford has
manufacturing, assembly or sales affiliates in 34 countries, and Ford
companies employ more than 3OO,OOO people worldwide. The company has
manufacturing facilities in 22 countries on 5 continents, with 87
plants in North America and 41 in Europe.