Problem-solving proposals - Essay Example

These problems can be attributed to the actions and strategies instituted by all the previous CEOs (“Worst of 2012”). This topic is interesting as it gives an outlook on some of the important management issues relating to the business operations in the current business environment. Businesses need to make the relevant management changes to cope with the challenges in the internal environment including employee motivation and external environment such as increasing competition and dynamic customer demands.

It is clear that there is lack of stability in the leadership, and this has made it complex for the company to maintain consistency in the company. It has been noted that each CEO has instituted more dramatic strategies than their predecessors, which have led to substantial changes in the company’s direction. The HP case study is one of a kind and has valuable lessons to managers and business students worldwide. Statement of the Problem Over the past few years, HP has lost approximately three quarters of their value, and this can be observed from its performance in the stock market (“Worst of 2012”).

Any efforts to turn around the company’s deteriorating performance have proven to be futile. In the past ten years, the company has made efforts to transform its leadership and has lurched from one approach to another and recruited highly skilled leaders to amend the daunting problem of poor management. In 1999, the company brought on board Carly Fiorina whose main strategy focused on repositioning the company by taking the customers’ needs into account (“Worst of 2012”). It was under her leadership that the company made one of the most detrimental moves by entering into a merger with one of HP’s archrivals, Compaq.

This was aimed at improving speed in preparation for the advent of the Internet era’ however, the strategy failed to meet the set objectives. HP then recruited Mark Hurd in 2005 to deal with the issue of decreasing profitably (“Worst of 2012”). The company experienced immense growth and increased revenues under the leadership of Mark Hurd. However, this was short lived in 2010 when he was suddenly suspended over sexual harassment allegations (“Worst of 2012”). This led to an upfront challenge to his predecessor as he would have to live up to Hurd’s exemplary reputation.

The company then outsourced Leo Apotheker who worked at a Germany-based software company. Apotheker focused too much on software development and worked at the company for a short time (“Worst of 2012”). Currently, the company is under the leadership of Meg Whitman who is working tirelessly to solve the problems at HP. The third quarter earnings reveal that the company is not doing so well; however, Meg Whitman retorts that there are a lot of areas that need fixing. She claims that the company is at the initial stages of its take-off.

Conversely, financial analysts are skeptical about this and argue that it could be a repeat of what has happened with predecessors. She states that HP is facing three major challenges including execution of proposed strategies, industry trends as well as macroeconomic problems. Presently, the company has a market capitalization of 46.92 B, revenue of 115.57 B, EPS – 6. 85 and from the PE ratio we can conclude that the