Steve, we've been down this road before but I like a good debate. I think you are speaking from experience that is some 10-20 years old now.
So HP has 112,000 people. So they aren't supposed to be "cutting it"? Well how do you explain the fact that they are "cutting it"? To repeat myself, HP is not a PC company so it hardly makes sense to apply your metrics in a broad brushstroke. PC's are a by-product...a necessity in order to be in the overall computer business. Only 14% of revenues come from PC sales. So, in the future, please direct your criticisms to a workforce size that is 14% of the 112,000.
On to the labor cost. If, as you claim, labor is 1% (I'll throw in overhead too) I am unimpressed. I know one facility in Europe that could manage that now. PC's are trivial to assemble relatively speaking. You should see the hard stuff.
Where are HP's low cost printers built? Where are the low cost calculators built? CPQ doesn't own the patent on automation. Printers are much more complex than PC's and yet HP has managed to keep a decent profit margin on declining prices. The formula already exists and it applies to PC's too.
As for EEC regs, HP has done business in Europe for decades. They have an extensive sales and service network throughout. I think they have a small fraction of the 112,000 devoted to understanding the minutia of doing business abroad. It's not a burden anymore.
I don't know what ELM refers to. If it's that database you talked about before then I would repeat myself again.
Good talking to you steve,
Tim |
