03 Activity 1-Strategic
03 Activity 1-Strategic
03 Activity 1-Strategic
ACTIVITY
Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company
Hewlett-Packard or commonly known as HP, is an American manufacturer of software and computer
services.
Mark Hurd, the CEO of HP in 2005, roared into the company by eliminating more than 15,000 jobs;
cutting down costs for research and development; and attempting to automate consulting services. A
leak of information discussed at a board of director’s strategy meeting in late 2005 led then–Board
Chairman Patricia Dunn and CEO Mark Hurd to initiate an investigation of fellow board members. Using
detectives who posed as reporters, they obtained phone records of those people on the board that they
suspected, and the spying scandal exploded into the open. Dunn was fired from her board seat in 2006
and Newsweek magazine put her on the cover with the title “The Boss Who Spied on Her Board.” Mark
Hurd escaped any serious repercussions from the scandal and announced a new, very strict code of
conduct for the corporation. By all accounts, Mark Hurd was successful at turning the company around
and was listed as one of the best CEOs in 2009. However, another scandal broke, Hurd was accused of
sexual harassment with an HP marketing consultant. While the board found that he did not actually
violate the company’s sexual-harassment policies, they did find that he submitted inaccurate expense
reports intended to conceal the relationship. He was forced to resign in August 2010 by a powerful but
small group of directors. In the wake of the Hurd resignation, there was a major board shakeup. Four (4)
directors involved in forcing the Hurd resignation resigned their board seats, and five (5) new board
members were named.
In November 2010, the board named Leo Apotheker as the new CEO. He was the former head of Global
Field Operations at SAP and would remain the company’s CEO for little more than 10 months.
Apotheker’s move to push forward the HP TouchPad tablet was a commercial failure at the same time
that HP phones were taking a beating in the market. In a stunning announcement in September 2011, he
stated that HP would exit the PC business entirely. HP was the leader in PC sales both within the United
States and globally. The outrage was immediate and overwhelming. The company reversed position two
(2) weeks later, but the board was appalled at his lack of leadership. After firing Apotheker, the board
named one of its own members, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman to run the company. The board turmoil
did not end. After a contentious annual meeting in 2013, the Chairman of the Board stepped down, and
two (2) other board members resigned. In 2014, Meg Whitman was named Chairman of the Board and
two (2) new members were added at the same time that the company was in the process of the most
significant layoffs in its history. From 2011 when Whitman took over as CEO to 2015, the company laid
off more than 55,000 employees. Effective November 1, 2015, the company split into two (2) publicly
traded companies to separate the slow-growing PC and printer business from the potentially fast-
growing cloud technology and cyber security businesses.
The manufacturing, delivery, and use of HP products and solutions requires a substantial amount of
natural resources. As part of their commitment in protecting the planet, HP measures their
environmental footprint across the value chain to prioritize areas for improvement. HP is the first
company in the IT industry to publish a full carbon footprint and one of the first to disclose a complete
water footprint. The goal of the company is to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% in 2020
and reduce its global operations’ potable water consumption by 15% in 2025.
References:
Bamford, C., Hoffman, A., Hunger, D., & Wheelen, T. (2018). Strategic management and business policy:
Globalization, innovation and sustainability (15th ed.). United Kingdom: Pearson Education
Limited.
Hewlett-Packard. (2019). Our footprint. Retrieved on February 14, 2019, from
https://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/environment/footprint.html