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He
is essentially an operations guy a straight-talking number-crunching
wonk or so the industry watchers would like to dub him. When
Mark Hurd took over the reins of the $80 bn PC giant, which
ranks second globally, next only to cost-cutter Dell, the
comparisons were bound to be made. For Hurd, an exNCR hand
(where he worked for 25 years) surely, the task on hand is
huge and the responsibility to restore the lost glory requires
a brave effort as today's HP is characterized more by razor-thin
margins, directionless divisions with inconsistent performances
and a very challenging business environment, which have left
Hurd with a company full of loose strings. However, the investors
have been bullish about the company, looking at its industry-leading
printers business, which is roughly equal to 2/3 of its market
capitalization. This leaves Hurd with the immediate task to
show value to investors in HP's other divisions. Initiatives
like cost-cutting, layoffs, and increased R&D efforts
have already made lots of investors believe in the HP story.
However, having demonstrated his execution skills to perfection,
Hurd will be under great pressure to live up to the same expectations
on the vision front too.
A
career spanning 25 years and manning roles from sales to operations,
and eventually leading NCR as president and CEO, Mark Hurd
has done and seen it all. Strong execution skills and leadership
abilities, along with his proven track record of turning around
sick divisions into profitable ones, landed Hurd the tough
job of leading the floundering HP in April 2005. And he has
shown that he means business. His successful fat elimination
and streamlining of operations have allowed HP book a profit
of $1.23 bn increasing its earnings by 30% and growth in sales
by 6% in first quarter of 2006. HP has also moved fast to
absorb the huge cost of merging with Compaq.
Robert
Enderle, Principal , Enderle Group, says, "The
clear problem HP had post Carly Fiorina was of execution and
not vision." He further adds, "Hurd is very strong
on execution." HP's major divisions like Printers, Hardware,
Software and PCs have turned profitable after Hurd took over
the reins of the company from the much charismatic Carly Fiorina,
the chief architect of the HP-Compaq merger, but was shown
the door as she struggled to deliver on merger promises. Hurd
has been successful in transforming its other once sleepy
divisions like the Enterprise Servers and Storage division
into profitable ones. |
