Hewlett-Packard and Compaq customers understood the logic of the
two companies' merger before some company employees, according to
Stephen Gill, the new UK and Ireland general manager of the merged
organisation.
He was speaking as HP laid out its four core business groups in the
UK and Ireland, along with the individuals who will lead
them.
HP's operations outside the US will play a key role in determining
the success of the merger, said Stephen Gill, HP's UK and Ireland
general manager.
The UK and Ireland operations are composed of four groups:
Enterprise Systems Group (ESG), led by general manager Andy
Isherwood; HP Services (HPS), led by Jim Kent; Imaging and Printing
Group (IPG) with Ian Whittaker as general manager; and Personal
Systems Group (PSG) led by Jude Meadow.
"The customers understand the logic of what we are doing, in fact,
our customers understood the merger before some of our own
employees did and before some outside commentators. Customers want
fewer strategic partners and we're in a position to meet that
requirement with services and products using open systems that are
based on industry standard architectures," Gill said.
Up to 60% of HP's revenue is generated outside its North American
operations and HP's UK and Ireland division is the second largest
outside North American, Gill said.
Services manager Kent said the new HP sees itself as the only
credible alternative to IBM, but its focus will be on being the
best in class rather than the biggest. "We are looking at
developing and maintaining a deep relationship over a very long
period of time with a small number of very large clients," he
said.
In enterprise systems, the post-merger HP has hit the ground
running, with HP and Compaq e-mail systems merged from day one and
is now focusing on reaching out to customers in its core business
groups, according to Isherwood.
"I cannot create products here in the UK, I provide the interface
to the customer, and in the last 16 days I have seen more customers
than ever before. They are clearly watching and waiting, but we
have received incredibly positive feedback," Isherwood said.
Isherwood's group focuses on enterprise IT infrastructure products
such as storage, servers and management software. The group has 20
customers in the UK and Ireland, out of 170 HP customers for the
group worldwide.
"Customers first ask, 'Who is my account manager?' and then they
ask for a detailed breakout of the three year roadmap we have
provided," he said.
HP's and Compaq's channel partner strategies were similar before
the merger, and will continue with coverage as the first priority
and the cost to market the second priority, he said.
There is little customer overlap in the enterprise group. "HP had
70 global corporate accounts in this segment, Compaq had 72 and
there was only an overlap of about 30 customers. In some divisions,
there was no overlap at all, like in printers," he said.
One major focus for the UK and Ireland operations will be the
telecommunication market, Isherwood said. "The telecom industry is
an absolutely key sector for us. Telecoms is an £8bn business for
us," Isherwood said.
HP's and Compaq's offerings for telecommunication operators will be
consolidated into the Opencall product line; which will then be
used to develop, integrate and deliver voice, data and converged
services, Isherwood said.
One other important area of development will be in providing
services and products over the Internet, not just for customers in
the telecommunications industry, but across HP.
Whittaker's Imaging and Printing Group will play a role in this.
"We will redefine printing and imaging with Web-enabled services
and products. It is about driving our digital imaging business,
about moving into the photo finish market place and about
transforming commercial printing through digital publishing,"
Whittaker said.
Indigo, the commercial printing and digital publishing company HP
acquired last March, will play the leading role in helping HP to
gain a foothold in the digital printing market, Whittaker
said.
"We will continue to fight and win at the low end, but we will also
expand with a continuing focus on our 'smart supplies' strategy for
ordering over the Web. It is also important to note that we will
remain very, very dependent on our channel and consumer customers,"
Whittaker said.