Case Review Paper 2: Hp - Leading in Organizing

Christian Parrott

2/7/16

Case Review Paper 2: Leading In Organizing

        The actions of the CEO’s impacted the financial resource allocation at HP tremendously. The resource allocation process starts with strategic planning, HP needs to set goals and a vision for success. The strategic goals the CEO sets in place are only accomplished through the achievement of objectives. For example, Apotheker wanted the personal computer and printer groups to focus more on business-to-business sales. He planned on cutting costs by focusing HP’s software on big data analytics. There was no way the company could succeed by being the most cost-effective hardware supplier and make innovate new products by doing so. Palm who is a predecessor with Apotheker, were planning on launching a tablet computer to compete with it’s competitors like Apple.

        The objective goal set at HP was to design a tablet computer, which HP was definitely lacking in. There was slim to no new innovation at HP. HP was basically set in the stone age trying to compete with companies like Apple who were innovating on a consistent basis. HP’s objective was about design and promoting a innovative tablet computer. HP needs to allocate sufficient resources to accomplish it’s goals. Product budgeting is an important process in determining consumer needs and wants for a computer tablet. Apotheker soon realized it was going to be a costly failure because before they even released the tablet, Lane and Apotheker went and changed the whole board. The tablet worked with the webOS software, but was extremely slow and poor battery life. The tablet’s success was receiving such bad rating, HP was considering pulling the product from the shelfs. This caused many concerns for Apotheker’s strategic plans and decisions.

        The organizational structure at HP was definitely lacking structure. The CEO’s were consistently changing at HP, because the lack of strategic decision making. HP’s divisions were run as separate entities. Each part of the organization had it’s own marketing teams, public relations, and finance teams. They are also all in charge of their own success and performance. This was confusing to some because HP was basically working with different companies even though they all called themselves HP. “ This could lead to ludicrous consequences. Some HP PCs didn’t even have software which would automatically allow them to talk to an HP printer.” (Bandler,32). The whole structure at HP was confusing and no vision was set in place. Nobody got along with each other, and because of the different entities, It lacked in communication and organizational aims. The structure within an organization determines how they will operate and perform. The main part of an organizational structure is it determines which individuals within the organization get to make the strategic decisions and how these actions will bring success. There was no organizational structure at HP during these troubling times.

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