Bus 302 – Chapter 14 Case – “Hewitt-Packard Company”
Assignment # 2 – Chapter 14 Case – “Hewitt-Packard Company”
1. Discuss the three most serious problems you have identified in the case. Defend why you think they are the most serious.
When Mark Hurd, the new CEO, took over, he found matrix structures ambiguous, confusing and inefficient. The main reason is that there is no clarity on the roles that each unit in the matrix is intended to play. Unit roles suppose, responsibilities and relationships in a way that is clear, but not excessively detailed and hierarchical. Although the matrix seems to be a logical organizational solution, Fiorina, has not found it an easy structure. She has struggled with ambiguous responsibilities and reporting relationships, been slowed down by the search for consensus decisions, and found it hard to get all the different units to work constructively together. In fact, CEO Carly Fiorina was so preoccupied with immediate issues that she lost sight of her ultimate objectives.
Fiorina and her staff consider that the HP Way is an anachronism of a different, slower time, and that for the company to survive and succeed in the future it must be driven purely by a rational business strategy. After all of the layoffs, organizational changes, assertion of executive hierarchies and the destruction of traditional company rules of behavior, the HP Way that the old-timers are fighting to save is probably already dead. Fiorina and her team appear not to believe in the Way, they are now reduced to appealing to it in order to get enough shareholders votes to win. What this means is that, contra-Carly, the HP Way really did exist, it remains as powerful and useful as ever, and that its last use will be to destroy itself forever.
So, What Is the Strategy? Fiorina did not believe in the HP Way, and she just followed its dictates. But the heart of the HP Way is the notion of trust, and the ultimate manifestation of that trust is in open communication from the top of the firm to the bottom. And
1. Discuss the three most serious problems you have identified in the case. Defend why you think they are the most serious.
When Mark Hurd, the new CEO, took over, he found matrix structures ambiguous, confusing and inefficient. The main reason is that there is no clarity on the roles that each unit in the matrix is intended to play. Unit roles suppose, responsibilities and relationships in a way that is clear, but not excessively detailed and hierarchical. Although the matrix seems to be a logical organizational solution, Fiorina, has not found it an easy structure. She has struggled with ambiguous responsibilities and reporting relationships, been slowed down by the search for consensus decisions, and found it hard to get all the different units to work constructively together. In fact, CEO Carly Fiorina was so preoccupied with immediate issues that she lost sight of her ultimate objectives.
Fiorina and her staff consider that the HP Way is an anachronism of a different, slower time, and that for the company to survive and succeed in the future it must be driven purely by a rational business strategy. After all of the layoffs, organizational changes, assertion of executive hierarchies and the destruction of traditional company rules of behavior, the HP Way that the old-timers are fighting to save is probably already dead. Fiorina and her team appear not to believe in the Way, they are now reduced to appealing to it in order to get enough shareholders votes to win. What this means is that, contra-Carly, the HP Way really did exist, it remains as powerful and useful as ever, and that its last use will be to destroy itself forever.
So, What Is the Strategy? Fiorina did not believe in the HP Way, and she just followed its dictates. But the heart of the HP Way is the notion of trust, and the ultimate manifestation of that trust is in open communication from the top of the firm to the bottom. And