HP's Resurgence: The Details

Today's Wall Street Journal features an article purporting to describe, in detail, the reasons for H-P's resurgence under Mark Hurd. According to the piece, it all comes down to Hurd's first new hire, Todd Bradley, late of Palm.

What Mr. Bradley did, upon arriving at H-P, was essentially three basic things:

-reviewed consumer purchase behavior research

-concommitantly focused H-P's PC marketing on retailers

-identified, tackled and solved various operational issues involving distribution to said retailers>

What ought to concern any reader, and does me, is that none of what Mr. Bradley did was all that unusual. As I wrote about Burberry's recent CEO change here, so often, the solutions are not all that novel.

Why is it so hard to find people who can do the mundane and obvious? Where was H-P's board all the while when Carly Fiorina bumbled this one, via her 'management team,' such as it was? Why wasn't that board grilling Carly & Co. as to the reasons for whatever PC strategy they had, and why it wasn't working?

As I look at Mr. Bradley's actions, they are classically excellent. Clearly, this guy is worth whatever they pay him, as is Hurd, for finding him. But why did it take just Bradley? Why wasn't there some underling in the marketing or product management ranks at H-P who has or had sufficient talent to do this?

Let's review Mr. Bradley's program for rescuing the PC business.

First, he went to the data. He learned that Dell was weak in retail.... duh! That most consumers were now moving to buy laptops and notebooks and, consequently, wanted to see, touch and feel them, then walk out of the store with them. As I wrote here last fall, one benefit of selling notebook computers is that there isn't a whole lot to customize, so a vendor can realistically cover several price points at retail, without the time and expense of custom building the products for each order.

Next, Mr. Bradley focused on channel management issues. He improved communications and service to his downstream partners, listened to their problems and ideas, forged stronger relationships with them. Now he was in a leadership position in the channel of choice for notebooks and laptops.

Finally, he went about hunting down and fixing the various logistical stumbling blocks inside H-P that threatened the successful execution of the retail strategy. Through painstaking homework to identify bottlenecks, hold frequent meetings and establish performance metrics, he brought the logistical performance up to grade, and completed the overhaul of the unit's product and marketing strategy.

What about any of this was magic? Bradley did not apparently bring a team with him, or, if he did, the article omitted this. He simply used basic, traditional marketing strategy and tactics, common sense, and good management skills.

Are these so lacking in most American businesses, and H-P, as to require an infusion of this type of skill from another company?

Honestly, I think this speaks very poorly for the continuing state of American management education, the MBA as a useful degree, and middle-to-upper management in the average large US corporation.

H-P prior to Hurd seems to have simply been allowed to become mediocre. Even the board seemed to take a long time to show Fiorina the door and usher in a more competent CEO, Mark Hurd.

How many more US corporations underperform, consistently underperform the S&P500 total return, due simply to inept management of decent products in attractive markets?