Newly-appointed HP president and CEO Meg Whitman has pledged to put to rest the leadership drama that has dogged the company of late.
During her keynote address at the HP Discover conference, in Vienna, yesterday, Whitman said that as the new CEO and president, it is her duty to ensure the company ends the leadership change drama that hogged the limelight following the ousting of ex-CEO L'eo Apotheker and her appointment in September.
“This kind of CEO transition is hard for both the employees and partners,” she told more than 5 000 delegates in attendance.
“Last year, no one knew that I will be standing here in front of you; and as I speak right now, I've been in this position for nine weeks, one day and 20 hours.”
In a thinly-veiled attack on the past leadership, Whitman revealed that in the past year, HP had confused customers about the company's position in the market. “For example, the majority of people I have met since I was appointed asked me: 'What is your strategy?'”
She said the company needs to get the HP leadership drama out of the headlines and put products at the forefront. “At HP, we have thousands of stories to tell besides that,” she added.
“I believe wholeheartedly in HP making a difference in the market,” she pointed out. Whitman also revealed that one of her objectives is to improve the HP philosophy of teamwork.
As a former eBay CEO, Whitman said she assumed her position as HP boss after years of dealing with the tech company as a customer. Thus, she said, as a former customer, she needs to use her new role to extend the customer satisfaction she has always enjoyed to other clients.
“HP is the world's largest provider of information technology infrastructure, software, services and solutions to individuals and organisations of all sizes,” she noted.
Revealing the company's strategy, Whitman said HP is set to make huge investments in e-commerce solutions. “We will also invest in innovations and products that delight and inspire.”
Giving a breakdown of the HP business, she said IT infrastructure forms the core of the business, followed by software, which she said is a segment that expands, optimises and manages the core.
According to Whitman, a majority of organisations currently face a variety of challenges, including rigid infrastructure, old applications, security threats, information explosion, as well as custom-built stacks.
In response to these challenges, she said HP offers converged infrastructure, application transformation, enterprise security, information optimisation, as well as hybrid delivery.
After Whitman's brief keynote address, HP's executive VP for global sales, Jan Zadak, took to the stage to elaborate on the company's strategy.
He revealed that HP seeks to take organisations through the journey of becoming instant-on enterprises.
The company's application transformation solutions aim to deliver new levels of flexibility and innovation opportunities, he noted. “HP has about 60 000 applications specialists to service businesses.”
Zadak also revealed that HP's converged infrastructure delivers a new, fast level of automation for agility. “HP has over 2 000 customers in data centre management and automation.
“In terms of enterprise security,” he added, “I don't know of any organisation that is not worried about this.
“There are about 2.5 billion attacks on the Internet every day. HP secures more than one million applications for clients. The company security portfolio includes applications security, infrastructure security, information security, as well as identity and access management.”
According to Zadak, HP's information optimisation solutions deliver “a new level of insight and advantage. The HP platform manages all data, including 85% unstructured human information.”
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