Hurd caught in a hurdle?

Chairman & CEO Mark Hurd has everything going for him currently, except for the law

Hewlett Packard finds itself in the hornet’s nest, yet again. This time around, the company’s top brass is not being condemned for a strategic blunder like in case of the HP-Compaq merger (the infamous Carly Fiorina exit), but are rather being held responsible for being a bit too smart for comfort (legal comfort that is). The accusation – implementing the practice of pre texting; misrepresenting the identities to obtain information about others. The imbroglio reached such a stage that Patricia Dunn, who became the Chairperson in 2005, was ousted on September 22, for initiating the boardroom leak probe. This has given way to CEO Mark Hurd, who now shoulders the Chairperson’s post and (needless to add) the burden of high expectations from the company stakeholders. And these expectations are not without reason. When Mark became the CEO of HP last year, he faced an uphill task of reviving slumping morales and sagging stocks. He proceeded with stringent cost cuts and in the process, fired a whopping 15,300 employees (10% of HP’s work force) over a period of 18 months. Under his leadership, the services division churned out an operating margin of 6.9% (up from 4.4% in the same period for 2005) and contributed a whopping 17.76% to the net revenue of $21.89 billion of HP for the quarter ending July, 2006. Meanwhile, HP also acquired Mercury Interactive for $4.5 billion in July 2006, hence strengthening its position in the soft ware sector. For complete information on IIPM Articles, please click here... , Also visit: Arindam Chaudhuri Initiative

Source: B&E and IIPM Publications