The Carly Fiorina era in HP is over. She has been replaced by Mark Hurd. It remains to be seen how instrumental Hurd can be in turning around HP.
She (Carly) executed the merger with Compaq in superior fashion. But looking forward, we think we'll (need a CEO with) hands-on execution.
Hewlett-Packard, the Palo Alto, California-based company, which ranked at the 10th position in a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 2004 on "The World's Most Respected Companies", announced the appointment of Mark Hurd (Hurd) as the new President and CEO on April1, 2005. Hurd replaces the dynamic and marketing-savvy Carly Fiorina (Carly), who engineered HP's push into services by acquiring Compaq at a time when it was under tremendous competitive pressure. The disastrous Compaq deal, that did not yield the expected synergy, combined with her high flying personal lifestyle and contentious managerial approach, added to the friction within the company. This was quite contrary to the `HP way' of working put in place by the founders, which forced the Board to ask for her resignation. As her successor, Hurd's job will be tougher. The expectations are high as he has been looked upon as a turnaround specialist and operational cost cutter, based on his experience at NCR, a hardware firm, which he nursed back to health within nine months of taking over as CEO. Now HP needs to justify Carly's ouster and prove it could have been better off without her. What were the consequences of her decision on the company's performance? What are the problems likely to confront Hurd in the coming months? |
