HP’s lumbering organization was losing touch with its global customers. Fiorina immediately dismantled the decentralized structure honed throughout HP’s 64-year history. Pre-Fiorina, HP was a collection of 83 independently run units, each focused on a product such as scanners or security software. Fiorina collapsed those into four sprawling organizations. The theory: The new structure would boost collaboration, giving sales and marketing execs a direct pipeline to engineers so products are developed from the ground up to solve customer problems. This was the first time a company with thousands of product lines and scores of businesses attempted a front-back approach, a structure that requires laser focus and superb coordination.

Companies can learn from HP’s experience to refine their organizational structure to be more external focused that internal and support the business strategies.

CITE THIS AS:

YouSigma. (2008). “Hewlett Packard’s (HP’s) Organization Restructuring." From http://www.yousigma.com.