Although Hewlett-Packard (HP) recently split into two companies - HP Enterprise and HP Inc - it's business as usual at HP South Africa.
After more than 75 years, HP ceased to exist in its original form, splitting into two publicly-traded companies. As at May, HP was valued at $57.9 billion.
While many companies are consolidating or teaming up, such as Dell and EMC, HP is taking a different approach. HP Inc focuses on printers and personal computers, while HP Enterprise manages the higher growth servers, storage devices and services units.
The rationale for the split was that HP believes its employees and financial resources can now be better utilised on a smaller and narrower group of businesses.
A South African spokesperson says HP Enterprise and HP Inc share offices in SA. "We did not have any changes from the split besides the legal changes."
In SA, Pieter Bensch leads HP Enterprise while Thibault Dousson heads HP Inc. Bensch was appointed managing director of HP's local operation in March. The position had been held by Frank van Rees since January 2010. Dousson was previously GM of HP SA's printing and personal systems business unit.
"By separating into two companies, HP Enterprise and HP Inc will focus on the markets they serve while also being more agile, nimble and responsive to current and prospective customers. Both companies will build on HP's 75-plus year legacy of adapting and innovating technologies to support the customers they serve and deliver maximum value to our shareholders," the spokesperson says.
"We have put certain agreements in place to ensure operational success continues. Our goal is to continue growing these two successful companies, and in doing so, we will continue to partner when it makes sense."
The spokesperson adds technology is transforming businesses and entire industries at an unprecedented pace, and HP Enterprise is poised to lead in this dynamic market environment.
"With the industry's most comprehensive portfolio, spanning the cloud to the data centre to workplace applications, HP Enterprise will focus on helping organisations make IT more efficient, more productive and more secure in South Africa."
HP Enterprise has a diversified and predictable revenue base, with over 60% of revenue outside the US and over 40% recurring revenue, she adds.
"From an IT perspective, we had to separate 2 700 IT systems, build over 6 000 servers in less than three months, 375 000 e-mail accounts, 74 000 interfaces, over 100 000 system integration testing and user testing cases. We have ensured over 20 000 customers, 150 000 partners and 1 300 suppliers are ready to do business with the two new companies.
"We set up 1 100 legal entities and moved all employees with their data and system support into these entities. We set up almost 800 new bank accounts and obtained over 300 new tax IDs. We separated 641 real estate sites globally."
HP has gone through massive job cuts. However, in SA the company could not disclose how many people were affected.
"We don't disclose these details at a country level. These changes are part of a company-wide strategy to give HP the needed workforce to be a more nimble customer and partner-centric company."
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