Hewlett-Packard finds that making itself over is hard to do
May 18, 1999 was a banner day for Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ). Six months after a major internal reorganization, media and analysts were stuffed into an auditorium on its campus in Palo Alto, Calif.
The crowd was so large there wasn't a seat even for Bill Russell, then COO and executive vice president of HP's enterprise systems and software group. He was reduced to leaning against a wall alongside the other latecomers.
This standing-room-only crowd was there to hear HP's plans for redefining itself for the future. What it heard was an ambitious strategy to convert HP from a value-added hardware supplier into a strategic Internet player, with an emphasis on software technologies far removed from what HP was known for. The e-services initiative, as it was dubbed, would transform HP. Almost immediately, every product in HP's portfolio was given an e-services spin. Within a month, Carly Fiorina was tapped to replace Lew Platt as CEO, and HP's stock spiraled to more than $135 a share by mid-July.
Rather than build on all its momentum, however, HP then stalled. Talent slipped through its doors, partners defected and market share slipped away. And the envied stock price? It now trades at around $30--just half its split-adjusted value in July 1999.
Then there's e-services. To date, the more forward-looking concepts outlined at HP's coming-out party--online brokering, wireless services and the ability for every enterprise to turn its computing infrastructure into an outward-facing revenue source--have yet to become a reality.
What has happened to HP since it started to reinvent itself in the spring of 1999? Some say the problem starts with e-services itself. Others say the company just needs some time.
"E-services is a strategy and a vision for the next generation of the Internet," says Doug McGowan, general manager for HP's e-services solutions organization. "Some pieces of that vision will come from us and [others from] our competitors. I think we're making tremendous progress. But it was never intended to be a six-month project."
Fair enough, but where's the meat, some wonder.
"Most people liked the official HP spokesman, former senior vice president and chief marketing officer of HP's enterprise and commercial business Nick Earle, as he espoused HP's vision," says Joe Clabby, group vice president at Boston-based Aberdeen Group.
"Patricia Seybold and some other consultants helped HP craft the e-services message, and she and her buddies were brilliant. They took former HP strengths in middleware development and highly available systems development, and crafted a wonderful message.
middle of paper ... ... With outstanding shares of 208.99 million, when the put options are exercised 20.9 million shares will need to be paid out at $50 per share costing the firm $1.045 billion Since these put- warrants were issued for free there is no profit to offset this expense and will cause a decrease in assets by $1.045 billion, a decrease in liabilities by $1.045 billion and a decrease in equity by 20.9 million. Intel made $1 billion off of the convertible stock sale at the end of the second year after all the bonds had been converted at a price of $75 per share. their cost was $ 997.5 million, netting a profit of $2.5 million.
With AXI Travel, AXI was able to identify exactly what the customer was looking for, listened to the recommendations of the customer and implemented those recommendations, and worked with the leading name in IT to develop an ASP superior to any of its competitors. Leveraging the infrastructure already in place to develop new e-businesses, while providing incentives to the consumer to use all of the AXI e-businesses, solidified a customer base for their internet offerings. If AXI wants to remain a leader in the internet business corporate services industry, they need to continue these best practices of sound customer service and rapid innovation in the future.
Within 11 months of joining C-T-R, Watson became its president. The company focused on providing large-scale, custom-built tabulating solutions for businesses, leaving the market for small office products to others.
A 2005 HP press release documents the sale of Peregrine Systems to HP. HP acquired Peregrine in a cash merger for $26.08 per share, adding to a combined $425 million. Today, Peregrine’s software is sold through the arm of HP OpenView’s business unit in order to create the industry’s most comprehensive distributed enterprise management software solution.
This paper will profile Jeff Hawkins, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for PalmOne, Inc. examining qualities that Mr. Hawkins exhibits that make him influential leader. The paper will also examine details of the business strategy that make this man an exceptional innovator and his contribution to eBusiness technology.
University of Idaho. (2014). Information Technology Services: Appendix 1: ITS Analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Retrieved from http://www.uidaho.edu/its/strategic-plan/appendix-i.
However, unlike McDonald's over the past three years, H&R Block has been in the market of “land grabbing” and buying back franchised owned offices sadly this is not for better control but to pad numbers for wall street. "Delivering consistent service quality to clients anywhere, anyway and anytime they want to be served" (Coate, 2014). One would think now that the company has almost 70% business ownership that ensures employees understood the vision would be effortless (H&R Block, Inc. 2016). Still, this new vision by Cobb led to a few challenges for H&R Block employees.
1. Strong Board of Directors. Jeff Harkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan are considered industry leaders. In fact they had been credited with reviving the handheld computing industry. The Palm Pilot which they developed was the most successful product launch in computing history.
At the Maytag shareholders’ meeting held on May 9, 2002, many shareholders were anticipating an interesting meeting. There were many questions that needed to be answered and Ralph Hake would be the one to answer the questions and ease the shareholders’ mind. Ralph Hake, Chair and CEO of Maytag Corporation, made his speech and voiced two goals. These goals were to return the corporation to the historic earnings levels under Leonard Hadley and exceed those earnings. These goals would take the effort of everyone within the Maytag Corporation to make this possible. His speech spoke of problems that the company had encountered and was addressing. They were not going to let the company lose anymore customers or market share.
Poor organizational management, failure to innovate and adapt to the environment, and an outdated brand image have all contributed to Sears massive decline. By not setting a clear organizational strategy, executives of Sears strayed away from innovation, allowing for competitors to attract Sears loyal customers to their organization. In addition, the outdated brand image of Sears has failed to meet the ever changing customers of today’s society. Overall, there are many reasons that have led to the downfall of a once powerful retail giant.
For many years, IBM succeeded in holding a very good market position. In fact, the company achieved a very high market share and huge profits. However, this situation did not last forever. In 1990, IBM experienced its first quarterly loss of $2billion due to some unexpected accounting charges. However, revenues increased from $62.7 billion in the previous year to $96 billion. In 1991, the c...
Amazon Web Services has benefitted Ericsson. Ericsson had specific business needs for the support of their business and Amazon’s Web Services was able to provide them with a robust global infrastructure that provided Ericson some significant cost savings. AWS gave them the ability to scale their application according to the business demand or changes. Remote assess has allowed then the ability to access their systems via the cloud anytime from anywhere. Ericsson chose AWS because they are considered to be the best integrated public cloud provider. “The Ericsson team states that having hosting centers in various regions was important for them. AWS also showed a better quality of service with solid management and a proven track record.” (Amazon Web Services, 2012)
The Strategic Analysis will show some of the steps that have been taken to overcome some of the difficulties that Sears has had. The newest CEO, Arthur C. Martinez, has been a motivating leader for the company. He has implemented many changes that have increased sales and moved Sears back up to the top of the retail chain. These changes would include store remodeling, Internet strategies, differentiation, and human resource management.
"The long-term challenge is to accelerate the development of next-generation technologies in a way that avoids repeating the mistakes of the past" (Global Technology Initiative, 2003). Even with these challenges, e-commerce is changing the face of business worldwide every day. In mid 1999, General Motors announced a development, which simultaneously accelerated the process of globalization and e-business (Reynolds, 2000).
Michael Dell founded Dell Computer Corporation in 1984 with a simple vision and business concept – that personal computers can be built to order and sold directly to consumers. Michael believed his approach had two advantages: (i) by passing distributors and retail dealers eliminated the markups of resellers, and (ii) building to order greatly reduced the costs and risks associated with carrying large stocks of parts, components and finished goods. Its build-to-order and sell-direct approach proved appealing to growing numbers of customers in the mid 1990s as global PC sales rose to record level. In 1998, it was already the 3rd manufacturer in the United States with a 12% share of PC market and a nearly 6% share worldwide. The company’s fastest growing market for the past several quarters was Europe. Even during the Asia economic woes in the early 1998, Dell’s sales in Asia rose 35%. Its sales at the Internet Web site were about $5 million a day and expected to reach $1.5 billion annually by the year-end 1998. Since 1990, Dell’s stock price had exploded from 23 cents per share to $83 per share in May1998 with a 36,000% increase and was the top performing big company then.