Arik Hesseldahl

Recent Posts by Arik Hesseldahl

Exclusive: Hewlett-Packard Shakes Up Enterprise Group. We Got Your Memo.

A little more than a month after a sweeping reorganization that created a new Enterprise Group within Hewlett-Packard, that group’s head, Dave Donatelli, is shaking things up just a little by solidifying who’s in charge. For the most part, the new faces at the Enterprise Group are the same as the old faces from the former Enterprise Storage and Networking Group.

According to an internal HP memo issued yesterday, Donatelli, who last month took over responsibility for the Global Sales group from Jan Zadak, announced the consolidation of several regional sales teams around the world. Along with those changes were a batch of new or existing executive appointments, all at the senior VP level: Rich Geraffo is the new senior VP and general manager for the Enterprise Group in the Americas; Jim Merritt will run Asia-Pacific and Japan; Peter Ryan will run Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Randy Seidl will run the U.S., and Piau Phang Foo was named to run greater China.

The streamlining, as Donatelli calls it, leaves several people in their current jobs: Geraffo, Merritt, Ryan, Seidl and Foo all had the same title under the old Enterprise, Servers, Storage and Networking Group.

The odd man out appears to be Yves de Talhouët, who was named to run the Enterprise business in Europe last year under former CEO Léo Apotheker; Talhouët will be named to a new position later. In several cases in the past, but not always, this has been a sign that the person is being edged out.

It fits with the changes that CEO Meg Whitman announced in March, to “streamline and simplify” HP and the way it engages with its customers.

This is a group that has seen an awful lot of managerial change. Just a year ago, the group got a big jolt when Thomas E. Hogan, then executive VP for enterprise, left the company and Zadak was brought in.

Here’s Donatelli’s memo:

Dave Donatelli

Executive Vice President and General Manager

HP Enterprise Group

To: HP Enterprise Group Employees

Date: May 1, 2012

HP Enterprise Group Sales
Strategic Alignment

HP Restricted – For Internal Use Only

As you’ve heard from Meg, HP is embarking on a bold plan to make our company better. We are making significant changes to simplify our business to make it easier for our employees to get their work done, easier to sell and ultimately serve our customers better.

Today I am announcing a new Enterprise Group sales structure streamlined to ensure we make decisions faster, increase productivity and become more efficient and effective in our go to market efforts.

Effective immediately, we are consolidating the region and country sales leadership roles across Global Accounts, Enterprise Servers, Storage, Networking and Technology Services. The region leadership positions will be as follows:

Rich Geraffo – Senior Vice President and General Manager Enterprise Group Americas

Jim Merritt – Senior Vice President and General Manager Enterprise Group APJ

Peter Ryan – Senior Vice President and General Manager Enterprise Group EMEA

As the U.S. and China are key markets important to our overall success, I would like to announce the following leadership positions:

Randy Seidl – Senior Vice President and General Manager Enterprise Group U.S.

Piau Phang Foo – Senior Vice President and General Manager Enterprise Group Greater China

We will announce Yves de Talhouët’s position in the near future.

In addition, we are undertaking several strategic initiatives to ensure we are maximizing the company’s performance going forward. We will continue to improve our efforts in Supply Chain to respond faster to customer requirements, while at the same time capture additional efficiencies by simplifying our portfolio and rationalizing our approach to deliver high quality products and services to our customers.

While we are making the necessary strategic changes to improve our Enterprise Group business model, we are keeping many of the things we do well in place.

Our regional business unit structure remains the same, as does our front line sales team including business unit Specialists. If you are a sales Specialist today, your job is not changing. Our Account Managers continue to be important in representing one HP face to our customers. It is important that every customer-facing sales position continues selling to customers so that we deliver on our goals for this quarter. For all sales and service teams, it is our highest priority to maintain customer continuity and assurance that HP is the same, trusted advisor that will continue to deliver competitive solutions that uniquely solve our customers’ problems. The more customers we reach, the more customers will buy with the confidence that we are better than the competition.

Our Converged Infrastructure and HP Software IT Performance Suite strategies also remain unchanged. Together we have an ambitious goal to transform the industry, from servers, storage, networking and services all the way to the Converged Cloud.

We are undertaking this strategic sales alignment to improve the overall efficiency of our organization so that we

· make it easier for employees to excel in their everyday environments and future careers at HP

· continue to support our sales teams and channel partners to provide the best customer experience that is unique in the industry

· continue to invest in technology innovations to deliver solutions and services that further strengthen our portfolio

· optimize every aspect of our business model to ensure we are building a strong foundation for long term sustainable success

In the coming weeks you will see many announcements supporting the sales alignment. To keep you informed, all announcements will be posted as soon as they become available on the EG Organization Announcement website. I encourage you to check this website regularly for updates and watch for notifications of meetings in your specific region so you can remain up to date on all of the strategic initiatives we have underway.

Thank you for all your hard work to date. I am counting on everyone to deliver an outstanding performance in our second half. Going forward, I am confident this new structure will lay the foundation for long term business success.

Regards,

Dave

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