HP Takes Big Steps Toward Unity and Efficiency

Hewlett-Packard made a huge stride toward unifying what has seemed to be a too-fragmented organization and culture withthe announced merger of its PC and printer units. From an office/business buyer point of view (whether enterprise or SMB), it seems like an obvious and long-overdue move to us, and one that can and should deliver wins all around – if HP is able to manage the transition and blending of operations and responsibilities smoothly.

In our experience, HP business units traditionally operate as businesses unto themselves, practical fiefdoms with limited inter-unit communication and coordination; and that communication has tended to be at the highest levels. HP is not the only large firm to operate in this manner. It’s a time-honored tradition that can force efficiencies when well-managed.

But it also makes cross-unit, intra-enterprise communication and coordination challenging, especially when it comes to development, marketing, and sales.

Why? Picture two upside-down funnels next to each other; now picture trying to get information from the bottom or middle of one funnel up through the increasingly narrow neck of one, out and over to the other – then figure out how the communication gets dispersed while traveling down and spreading out through the adjoining funnel.

Now picture HP as combining two of its biggest and most important funnels into one. It’s easy to quickly visualize how that could/should simplify the company’s paths to market, which can/should enable significant improvements in process and operational efficiencies, and therefore add a little margin to a couple of critically-important-yet-shrinking-margin business units.

The printer+PC union is only one part of a sweeping series of unification-oriented org changes announced by HP early today. Company marketing and communication is being centralized; Global Sales will now have responsibility for practically anything large enterprise/data-center oriented, including servers, networking, and storage.

In short, CEO Whitman is making long-overdue moves to strengthen and unify communication and coordination within HP, and between HP and its partners and customers. This is a very important, very positive move for HP that should improve partner and customer relationships, and improve perception of HP as stable and unified, while reducing and removing inefficiencies.

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Bruce Guptill

Most research firms can explain what happened; some can explain what is happening. Saugatuck Technology excels at understanding both in order to explain what else is likely to occur, and to guide its clients toward the actions that deliver them the greatest business value while enabling the safest business path.
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Guptill’s own technology and business background laid a solid foundation for such a flexible, yet stable, approach to IT research value for clients. His technology research work includes mobility, collaborative IT, telecom, data networking, web commerce, and electronic marketplaces; his research work for enterprise IT and business clients includes return on IT investment, total cost of IT ownership, and business planning for IT. His research and guidance on vendor channel management, market identification and development, and buyer behavior analysis has enabled hundreds of established and startup IT providers to find, enter, and profit from new and traditional markets, while helping to guide user enterprise leaders toward optimal IT procurement and vendor management.
Guptill’s research background includes several years as a VP and research director with Gartner, senior positions with TeleChoice and Robert Frances Group, and editorial work within the IDG companies, including four years as a writer and editor with NetworkWorld. His marketing business focus was honed as VP of marketing for firms ranging from custom development providers to non-IT firms in aviation and other industries. His sales and channel experience started by traveling with a sample bag, then working for IT VARs, then advising telecom and wireless carriers on partner choices, to developing partner programs for traditional and Cloud-based software development firms and ISVs.
Guptill holds an MBA in marketing and finance, and a BA in the psychology and business of mass media communication. He is licensed to fly airplanes, drive boats, and sell houses; he is also a certified baseball coach, serves on the boards of regional civic groups, and is a serial home renovator. Married with three children, Guptill resides on Cape Cod in southeastern Massachusetts, and is a lifelong fan of the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics, and the University of Connecticut Huskies.

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