Mark Hurd : HP
Mark Hurd Drove Growth at Hewlett-Packard, Fostered Discipline
Mark Hurd was Chief Executive Officer, President, and Chairman of Hewlett-Packard Co. between 2005 and 2010. Mark Hurd over oversaw 23 consecutive quarters of solid and steady growth and turned the struggling company around during his tenure as CEO. As of today, Mark Hurd has over 30 years of experience in the tech industry and his story is amazing to read about.
As author James Stewart of the New York Times noted in 2011, Mark Hurd "pulled off one of the great rescue missions in American corporate history, refocusing the strife-ridden company and leading it to five years of revenue gains and a stock that soared 130 percent." Mark Hurd excelled at achieving greater expansion for the company by educating the HP employees and managers about operational efficiently and how to translate that into a higher growth rate.
Mark Hurd delivered consistently stellar results at HP that continued for several quarters after his departure. He was widely lauded for his performance and praised particularly for bringing fiscal discipline to HP even while growing the business. One example of his excellence in leadership and business acumen was the stabilization of the company following the acquisition of Compaq. Deemed a rocky acquisition from the start, HP went ahead with the deal and the company faced internal conflict. Mark Hurd was brought in to help stabilize and correct the conflict and he accomplished that feat and then some. Before the merger even occurred, Mark Hurd set to planning the integration process and had a team of 1,500 people working full time in order to insure that the merger would go smoothly. The company revenue grew from $91.6 billion to $114.6 billion during his time there. Even during the 2009 fiscal year, Hurd managed to minimize the financial slide that most companies fell sharply into. He improved HP’s operating efficiency in order to help the company through difficult financial times.
Mark Hurd was named BusinessWeek’s 2007 Businessperson of the Year for his stewardship of HP. Barron’s named Mark Hurd one of the nation’s top CEOS three years in a row. He even beat out some big names on the short list that year like Steve Jobs and Robert Murdoch. His relentless, no nonsense approach to getting the company on the right track after it was hemorrhaging money earned him the reputation of being a top CEO of the tech world.
Before leaving HP, Mark Hurd was urged by Apple CEO Steve Jobs to recomsider. Jobs offered to personally address HP’s board to negotiate a reconciliation, according to BusinessWeek. Jobs feared that, without a skilled CEO like Hurd, HP would founder. Steve Jobs knew that Mark Hurd was a rare type of CEO whose laser focus and command of the numbers made him a rare commodity amongst CEO’s.
** HP’s metrics under Mark Hurd were spectacular. The stats were amazing and it demonstrates his leadership and experience at the company.
EPS: +242%
Revenue: +57%
Stock Price: +130%
Operating Income: +186%
Operating Margins: +50%
Free Cash Flow: +138%
Mark Hurd focused a disparate, factionalized organization by consolidating 85 data centers into 6; aligning 6,000 software applications into 1,500; and reducing internal IT department from 19,000 employees to 8,000. All these changes factored into the growth of HP and the increased revenue that HP had experienced under the direction of Mark Hurd. He was able to turn the entire company around in a matter of few very short years with all these significant changes.
Yet, at the same time, Mark Hurd grew Hewlett-Packard. Revenue rose. HP’s total employee count went from 150,000 to 300,000. Mark Hurd wisely diversified the business away from HP’s reliance on printer ink. In 2004, 54 cents of every $1 in HP operating earnings came from printers; in 2010, that number was down to 26 cents. He also integrated the process of “decommoditization” to the company’s strategy. This strategy recognized the consumer need to have a product that allowed for custom features and HP redesigned their machines with the consumer in mind. The updated redesign made the machines very sleek and modern that meant to blend into the home media room. HP also launched a marketing strategy that utilized celebrities that really appealed to their customer base. This strategy launched the company into a 19.6% worldwide share of the PC market crushing Dell in the process.
Under Mark Hurd R&D spending at HP rose in Mark Hurd’s first three years, was flat in year 4 and fell 20 percent when the financial crisis hit in 2008. In Mark Hurd’s last year at HP, R&D expenses rose. He focused on bringing on new products and services to help expand HP’s portfolio. Mark Hurd in the process managed to turn around HP’s software business as week. In 2005 the software unit posted a loss and part of the problem was that they did not have a diversified portfolio. They made a string of acquisitions that piqued the interest of the corporate computer buyers and hence made way for strong growth in the corporate sector. HP’s R&D budget under Mark Hurd was larger than Apple’s R&D budget and double Dell’s. HP also leveraged Intel and Microsoft for semiconductor/operating system R&D. These significant changes to HP’s portfolio launched the company into a significant position as one of the top tech companies in the world.
Bottom Line: Mark Hurd produced phenomenal results for HP and its shareholders. On the day Mark Hurd left HP, the company had a market capitalization of $95.3 billion, cash of $14.7 billion and debt of just $12.2 billion. Its interim CEO told analysts the company was in terrific shape. Here are the exact words of Cathie Lesjak:
“As I step into the role of interim CEO, I have never been more confident in the Company's future. Our strategy of profitable growth is solid and our ability to execute is irrefutable.
“HP has been built around a solid long-term strategy that remains unchanged and has a number of sustainable, competitive advantages, such as, first, our technology and market leadership; second, the industry's broadest portfolio of hardware, software, and services; third, our scale; fourth, our global reach; fifth, our strong senior leadership team and management bench; sixth, our financial strength; finally, our ability to execute, as evidenced by our most recent Q3 results."
As author James Stewart of the New York Times noted in 2011, Mark Hurd "pulled off one of the great rescue missions in American corporate history, refocusing the strife-ridden company and leading it to five years of revenue gains and a stock that soared 130 percent." Mark Hurd excelled at achieving greater expansion for the company by educating the HP employees and managers about operational efficiently and how to translate that into a higher growth rate.
Mark Hurd delivered consistently stellar results at HP that continued for several quarters after his departure. He was widely lauded for his performance and praised particularly for bringing fiscal discipline to HP even while growing the business. One example of his excellence in leadership and business acumen was the stabilization of the company following the acquisition of Compaq. Deemed a rocky acquisition from the start, HP went ahead with the deal and the company faced internal conflict. Mark Hurd was brought in to help stabilize and correct the conflict and he accomplished that feat and then some. Before the merger even occurred, Mark Hurd set to planning the integration process and had a team of 1,500 people working full time in order to insure that the merger would go smoothly. The company revenue grew from $91.6 billion to $114.6 billion during his time there. Even during the 2009 fiscal year, Hurd managed to minimize the financial slide that most companies fell sharply into. He improved HP’s operating efficiency in order to help the company through difficult financial times.
Mark Hurd was named BusinessWeek’s 2007 Businessperson of the Year for his stewardship of HP. Barron’s named Mark Hurd one of the nation’s top CEOS three years in a row. He even beat out some big names on the short list that year like Steve Jobs and Robert Murdoch. His relentless, no nonsense approach to getting the company on the right track after it was hemorrhaging money earned him the reputation of being a top CEO of the tech world.
Before leaving HP, Mark Hurd was urged by Apple CEO Steve Jobs to recomsider. Jobs offered to personally address HP’s board to negotiate a reconciliation, according to BusinessWeek. Jobs feared that, without a skilled CEO like Hurd, HP would founder. Steve Jobs knew that Mark Hurd was a rare type of CEO whose laser focus and command of the numbers made him a rare commodity amongst CEO’s.
** HP’s metrics under Mark Hurd were spectacular. The stats were amazing and it demonstrates his leadership and experience at the company.
EPS: +242%
Revenue: +57%
Stock Price: +130%
Operating Income: +186%
Operating Margins: +50%
Free Cash Flow: +138%
Mark Hurd focused a disparate, factionalized organization by consolidating 85 data centers into 6; aligning 6,000 software applications into 1,500; and reducing internal IT department from 19,000 employees to 8,000. All these changes factored into the growth of HP and the increased revenue that HP had experienced under the direction of Mark Hurd. He was able to turn the entire company around in a matter of few very short years with all these significant changes.
Yet, at the same time, Mark Hurd grew Hewlett-Packard. Revenue rose. HP’s total employee count went from 150,000 to 300,000. Mark Hurd wisely diversified the business away from HP’s reliance on printer ink. In 2004, 54 cents of every $1 in HP operating earnings came from printers; in 2010, that number was down to 26 cents. He also integrated the process of “decommoditization” to the company’s strategy. This strategy recognized the consumer need to have a product that allowed for custom features and HP redesigned their machines with the consumer in mind. The updated redesign made the machines very sleek and modern that meant to blend into the home media room. HP also launched a marketing strategy that utilized celebrities that really appealed to their customer base. This strategy launched the company into a 19.6% worldwide share of the PC market crushing Dell in the process.
Under Mark Hurd R&D spending at HP rose in Mark Hurd’s first three years, was flat in year 4 and fell 20 percent when the financial crisis hit in 2008. In Mark Hurd’s last year at HP, R&D expenses rose. He focused on bringing on new products and services to help expand HP’s portfolio. Mark Hurd in the process managed to turn around HP’s software business as week. In 2005 the software unit posted a loss and part of the problem was that they did not have a diversified portfolio. They made a string of acquisitions that piqued the interest of the corporate computer buyers and hence made way for strong growth in the corporate sector. HP’s R&D budget under Mark Hurd was larger than Apple’s R&D budget and double Dell’s. HP also leveraged Intel and Microsoft for semiconductor/operating system R&D. These significant changes to HP’s portfolio launched the company into a significant position as one of the top tech companies in the world.
Bottom Line: Mark Hurd produced phenomenal results for HP and its shareholders. On the day Mark Hurd left HP, the company had a market capitalization of $95.3 billion, cash of $14.7 billion and debt of just $12.2 billion. Its interim CEO told analysts the company was in terrific shape. Here are the exact words of Cathie Lesjak:
“As I step into the role of interim CEO, I have never been more confident in the Company's future. Our strategy of profitable growth is solid and our ability to execute is irrefutable.
“HP has been built around a solid long-term strategy that remains unchanged and has a number of sustainable, competitive advantages, such as, first, our technology and market leadership; second, the industry's broadest portfolio of hardware, software, and services; third, our scale; fourth, our global reach; fifth, our strong senior leadership team and management bench; sixth, our financial strength; finally, our ability to execute, as evidenced by our most recent Q3 results."
