LA Times Article on HP
Message #1 Posted by Katie Wasserman on 9 Dec 2005, 9:32 a.m.
This was posted on the HPLX list but is just as relevant to this forum:
==============================
Los Angeles Times, December 8, 2005
by Michael Hiltzik:
Golden State
Restoring HP to Its Original Condition
Stumbling corporations trying to regain their footing often turn to
their past: They invite a retired chairman to resume the reins, reissue
a vintage product or christen a factory after a revered founder.
Something like that is undoubtedly behind Hewlett-Packard Co.'s
renovation of the rented Palo Alto garage in which its founders, William
R. Hewlett and David Packard, assembled HP's first product, an audio
oscillator, in 1939.
HP purchased the legendary property at 367 Addison Ave. in 2000 and
launched a project to restore it to its 1939 condition last year. On
Tuesday, the company held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark its
completion. The corporate archivist, Anna Mancini, has been giving
interviews on the rehab for several months, and a documentary video is
posted on the HP website. Except for a few tours this weekend, however,
the property won't be open to the public. (It's on a residential street.)
For HP, this project is loaded with subtext. Although the renovation
began under former Chairwoman and Chief Executive Carly Fiorina, it's
hard to avoid feeling that Tuesday's ceremony was designed partially to
leave behind the Fiorina era, which began with great fanfare in 1999 and
ended with her ignominious ouster in February, and to certify the
succession as CEO of the rather less exhaustingly glamorous Mark Hurd.
Under Fiorina, HP's very survival came into question, as did its
devotion to the core principles codified by Packard in his 1995 memoirs
as "the HP Way." In a nutshell, the HP Way exalted teamwork, individual
initiative and employee dignity. Its corollaries included rock-ribbed
integrity, corporate social responsibility and a reliance on innovative
engineering.
The company's diverse product lines started with industrial
instrumentation and included such inventions as the first hand-held
scientific calculator, the HP-35, which rendered the slide rule obsolete
overnight. It entered the computer business with only equivocal success,
but it's made a mint in printers and imaging.
That success in printers, however, is a mixed blessing.
The category, which includes consumables like ink and toner, has
accounted for less than one-third of HP's sales in recent years but
nearly 70% of its operating earnings.
Yet the market's growth is slowing, even as lower-priced competitors
flood the supply chain.
Meanwhile, third-party suppliers are hacking away at HP's franchise in
ink cartridges.
As for the PC, it's a commodity product in which innovation today comes
mainly from software — not one of HP's traditional strengths.
Nevertheless, Fiorina doubled down on the PC bet through her
controversial, polarizing and ultimately pointless 2002 acquisition of
Compaq Computer Corp.
Fiorina was the antithesis of HP's self-effacing, pragmatic founders.
She paid lip service to the HP Way, but employees came to doubt that she
truly internalized it.
She expanded the corporate jet fleet and seemed to trail clouds of
consultants wherever she went.
Her predecessors believed in precise measurement and rigorous financial
accuracy; she delivered wildly optimistic growth forecasts that wrecked
HP's reputation on Wall Street.
By the time she was forced to lay off more than 10,000 workers in the
teeth of the 2000 high-tech crash, she had lost credibility with the
rank and file, too.
Yet the founders had never ruled out harsh prescriptions for corporate
survival like layoffs, wage cuts or divestitures.
It's part of HP lore that the founders averted a 10% layoff during a
1970 downturn by asking every employee to work nine days out of 10 for
six months; but it's generally overlooked that, as Packard observed in
his book, this short-term tactic didn't mean HP was committed to
"providing absolute tenure for our people." Indeed, in the early '90s HP
stringently downsized, mostly through buyouts and early retirements
similar to those imposed at other corporations.
Fiorina's layoffs, while certainly larger and possibly harsher than
those that came before, were a response to a dramatically changed
marketplace and perhaps weren't as much of a violation of the HP Way as
her detractors suggested. (Packard died in 1996 and Hewlett in 2001.)
Hurd, a former CEO of NCR Corp., has now inherited the task of setting
the company firmly back on the HP Way. He began his tenure with a record
round of 15,300 layoffs, but paired that with bonuses for the survivors
to shore up morale. He also sheltered the company's $3.5-billion
research and development operation from the cuts.
Financial results are looking up. Profits improved across the board in
the fourth quarter ended Oct. 31, with even the long-suffering personal
computer segment showing an improved operating margin of 2.8%. (Printing
and imaging was still the margin champ, at 13.2%.) Under Hurd, HP
shares, which lost roughly half their value under Fiorina, have advanced
nearly 50% from the trough.
Watching this company's progress is sure to be a fascinating exercise.
HP operates in several businesses where differentiating oneself is
difficult and margins are narrowing.
But the company is one of high tech's sterling names and retains a
reputation for quality; as I've written before, my house is filled with
HP products, including a 12-year-old laser printer that churns out
flawless prints for less than a penny per page.
If renovating an ancient garage signals the company's modern
revitalization, that can only be a good thing.
| 
Go back to the main exhibit hall