First, HP maintained its focus on the market. During the World War II, HP’s strategy of only focus on “building a group of complementary products rather than becoming involved in a lot of un related things” reduced the damage to the company after the war ends. Otherwise, it may not survive when facing a 50 percent decline in revenue. Meanwhile, as a high-tech venture focus on innovation products, HP's design engineers find the needs of customer by determining whether the product met the needs of fellow engineer sitting at the next bench within the company rather than depending on market research. It helped HP understand its market’s needs and was a successful approach in HP’s early day.…
HP entered into an agreement with Compaq Computer Corporation in September 2001. In this definitive agreement, HP is going to purchase all of Compaq’s common shares outstanding, and pay a total price of 0.6325 shares of its common stock for each share of Compaq’s common stock.…
To this day, HP maintains the same values, “Success hinges on consistency of leadership, focus, execution and most importantly, great products and services” (About). In addition to this, the case study explains that the company values their innovator’s thoughts and opinions as well as providing a lot of room for creativity:…
Cisco has really stressed sharing its core values in all of their acquisitions. Only three of Cisco’s acquisitions have failed, and their goal in acquisitions is to fill in gaps in which their company is weak. With the many acquisitions of Cisco and strong push for shared values in the acquisition it shows that obtaining shared values through an acquisition is vital.…
When John Chambers assumed the CEO position, he outlined some very specific objectives for Cisco’s future success. His plans included creating a one-stop shop for business networks by creating a comprehensive product line, to make acquisitions an efficient business process, to create industry-wide software standards for networking, and to choose the right strategic partners. All of these efforts would change the way companies and industries operated by creating an infrastructure of networked voice, data and video.…
Mergers and acquisitions are becoming a growing trend for companies, both large and small, domestic and foreign, to form strategic alliances within their particular industries. Drucker states "that alliances of all kinds are becoming increasingly common, especially in international business" (pg. 287).…
HP’s board had a history of turmoil and turnover. It began in 2002 when Carly Fiorina-CEO since 1999-initiated a merger with Compaq. Most of the board supported the move. However, Walter Hewlett-a son of company founder Bill Hewlett and a longtime director-opposed it saying the merger would destroy the egalitarian culture that was a core element of his father’s legacy. In a close vote, stockholders ultimately approved the merger and Hewlett subsequently left the board. Thomas Perkins, who initially served on the board, rejoined the board shortly after the merger.…
Lessons for Telecom Alliances; The Big Four in Global Telecommunications (1994) Corporate Finance Iss. 118, p.SS1…
It has been said that “It can take years for a buyer/seller partnership to begin delivering results”. Each party much fully understand the intentions, goals, and expected outcomes of the partnership and must work together to achieve these requirements. Each party has to ensure that their respective employees are on board with the projects at hand, as well as having an understanding of the goals, objectives and outcomes. This does not happen overnight. It takes a long time to build trust within a company let alone with two companies working together. Information must be gathered and analysis performed to ensure that targets can be met. Teams must be built and tasks assigned. Each company involved must carefully chose the right employee to lead the teams and to make sure that the team leaders will work together with the other company’s team. As seen in the case, Whirlpool Corporation realized it needed to reduce its suppler base and achieve a more competitive advantage by forming an alliance with few key suppliers. Top executives at Whirlpool Corporation discussed their organizations top initiatives and then chose a partner that they thought would help them obtain the benefits, and who would…
Chambers, J. (2005) John Chambers of Cisco Systems: The Power of the Network to Change…
The HP way is “a core ideology…which includes a deep respect for the individual, a dedication to affordable quality and reliability, a commitment to community responsibility, and a view that the company exists to make technical contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity” (HP, 2008). HP looks for ideas to put technology to work for everyone (HP, 2008). At HP, ideas thrive best in a teamwork culture. Everyone at HP at every level in every function is encouraged to have original ideas, to express them, and to share them (HP, 2008). HP believes anything can be achieved if their employees really believe in it and HP will invest in their employees to change lives and working practices (HP, 2008).…
Cisco’s major products are switches and routers. A switch is used to connect workstations within a local-area network (LAN). The switch directs data only to the destination for which it is intended, and increases the efficiency of networks by reducing traffic and the number of “collisions” of data headed in opposite directions. Routers are the devices that connect networks to other networks in a wide-area network (WAN). Switches and routers are classified along a layer 1 to layer 7 continuums in technical point of view. Cisco competes on layer 2 onwards in the switches and routers market. With the explosion of the Internet in 1990s, Cisco achieved great success in the high tech industry, from basic connectivity to high-end, multilayer intelligent service switching solutions.…
On March 17, 1961, HP was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1998 HP changed its ticker from HWP to HPQ, because of its acquisition of Compaq. It’s stock currently sells for $12.99, closing price on November 30, 2012. HP currently employees approximately 349,000 people, in 2011. HP has acquired 119 companies since 1958. Some more recognized acquisitions Verifone, Compaq, Snapfish, VooDooPC, 3Com and Palm.…
Even though strong oppositions to the merger with Compaq at board of directors in HP, in 2001 the announced the merger officially and started meeting with Compaq executives. After merger some products of each company were affected, for instance the HP Jornade handheld was dropped in favor of the Compaq’s iPAQ.…
References: Casciaro, Tiziana and Christina Darwall. The HP-Cisco Alliance (A). Boston: Harvard Business Publishing, 2003. Print.…