For contrast, Fiorina describes IBM as high tech, high cost and with a mediocre rating for customer satisfaction. Dell is low cost, low tech, with good customer relationships. Certainly, it's the job of the chief executives to position the company in a favourable light, in black and white if possible: HP good, IBM bad, Dell a low-end packager and distributor that doesn't invest in innovation. But, chief executives and CIOs don't buy into these flip competitive assessments.
Dell's track record, for example, indicates that a lower cost business model, based on standard components and leveraging the R&D of companies like Intel and Microsoft, has high value for customers. If IBM is so high cost and mediocre in customer relationships, then how does the company book billions in IT outsourcing deals?
Are all these large companies outsourcing to IBM, entrusting their IT future to IBM, just stupid?
Chief executives and CIOs writing big cheques want to know beyond all the rhetoric what HP stands for, how well the company understands the needs of large enterprises and industry verticals, and what it can deliver. They basically want to know HP's formula for solving the IT cost and complexity problems in today's organisations as a precursor to acquiring any specific product or service. The concepts that Fiorina articulates as part of HP's adaptive enterprise and Darwin reference architecture are common among all the major enterprise vendors. So, what is HP's centre of gravity and unique selling proposition? And is it much different from the IBM, Sun or Microsoft belief systems?
I met with Shane Robison, HP's executive vice president and chief strategy officer, to get a better sense of HP's centre of gravity. Robison has his hands in every part of HP's business, with a flock of direct reports spread out across the company and advisory boards providing feedback to help steer the $70bn (£42bn) company's longer term strategy across enterprise and consumer markets. He is the chief navigator, making sure the potentially sluggish HP vessel catches favourable winds and leverages the $4bn investment in research and development.
