Hewlett-Packard to Boost Hiring of Sales Staff, Livermore Says
By Katie Hoffmann and Connie Guglielmo
Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to boost its sales force to keep winning customers and improve the way it pitches computers and related services to corporations, Executive Vice President Ann Livermore said.
The company will hire from services firms and also targets chief information officers with sales skills, Livermore said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York today. The company has more than 24,000 salespeople.
Livermore oversees a unit that accounts for 47 percent of Hewlett-Packard’s revenue and includes server computers, storage devices, software and services. The company, which competes against International Business Machines Corp., is engineering- focused and not as “polished” with its sales pitches as some rivals, Livermore said.
“One of the biggest things we need to work on and improve is to be even better in the sales process,” Livermore said. “We don’t cover our top 2,000 customers very well.”
Livermore, 51, aims to attract more customers by making Hewlett-Packard a one-stop shop for corporations’ information- technology needs. The company has made about 30 acquisitions in the past 3-1/2 years to expand its product and services range, Livermore said.
“Networking products, storage products and services products are becoming more intertwined,” she said. “We just have a phenomenal opportunity. We’ve got the core elements of what we need to be a very strong supplier.”
Largest Unit
Livermore has headed Hewlett-Packard’s Technology Solutions Group since 2004. Under her leadership, TSG -- one of the three main product divisions along with the personal-computer and printing units -- has almost doubled its sales to $53.6 billion. That puts the unit ahead of the PC business, with sales of $35.3 billion.
TSG’s growth was helped in part by last year’s purchase of Electronic Data Systems Corp., a deal that vaulted the company to No. 2 in services, behind IBM. EDS also helped the company capture demand for computer services as recession-wary customers held off buying hardware. This year’s contract wins included a $1 billion data-center deal with Aviva Plc, the U.K.’s second- biggest insurer.
Last month, Hewlett-Packard agreed to buy 3Com Corp. for $2.7 billion, countering moves by Cisco Systems Inc. to become the main supplier of networking and computer gear for corporate data centers. The networking market needed a “big No. 2 player” so that customers have choice, Livermore said.
“The networking market is very attractive,” Livermore said. “It’s growing more rapidly than other product components of the marketplace. And it has a large margin opportunity for it.”
Hewlett-Packard, based in Palo Alto, California, fell 26 cents to $49.53 at 2:35 p.m. on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares had gained 37 percent this year before today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Katie Hoffmann in New York at khoffmann4@bloomberg.net; Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: December 7, 2009 14:42 EST |
