Q&A: HP exec says changes bring 'focus and accountability'

Computerworld - For enterprise customers, the restructuring at Hewlett-Packard Co. that was unveiled today will improve accountability and focus, according to Todd Bradley, the HP executive vice president who will lead the Personal Systems Group, one of the three major groups at the company. Bradley offered his views on what customers can expect in an interview with Computerworld. Excerpts from that interview follow:

How does this restructuring affect the support and service that enterprise customers get from HP? It shouldn't impact them at all. This is meant to be a beneficial move to our customers because it brings both focus and accountability into the business units, and into that ultimate sales rep or service person that calls on a customer. We worked very, very hard to, one, take a long look on the organizational structure -- to focus on noncustomer facing people as we made these decisions ... and change our organization from a go-to-market perspective but really make sure it's relatively seamless to our customers.

What change in particular do you think has the most impact on improving customer interaction? Moving that accountability for the customer to the people that own the customers is extremely important. And the focus that we are bringing to three business units that we created -- personal systems group, imaging group and the service group -- that focus is what's going to bring innovative, great products to market, as well as help us take costs down.

Will the restructuring result in any road map changes to enterprise product lines? Not that I'm aware of. While people are really focused on the number of layoffs, [internally] this has been far more focused on how we increase accountability in the businesses.

Is there any special outreach to your large customers to explain this change? That's ongoing.

What's the message you're bringing to the customers? Consistency of product; improved execution, improved accountability in the business segments.

This isn't the first employee reduction that HP has made. And you have seen some deep cuts. How strong a company will HP be after it completes this restructuring? It's pretty clear with what we talked about that we're focused on our strengths. ... You didn't see us do anything other than focus on innovation, continue to invest in R&D, continue to invest in products, continue to invest in our go-to-market capabilities. I think you've seen lots of companies restructure over the last several years. ... Those companies that restructure yet focus on how the restructuring improves their operating performance is what we've