New HP India will be in place by mid-July 

Balu Doraisamy, President of the new HP India after HP's global merger with Compaq, has said that the company's restructuring process will be complete and the new organization in place by mid-July. Speaking to CNS in Bangalore, he said, "Since the merger on May 8, more than 60 percent of the organization structure and people are already in place for the new HP. We will complete the rest before July 15."

The top managers, a layer below the CEO, have already been named. Compaq's stronger presence and larger revenues in systems and services in India, a situation different from the global picture, has meant a dominance of Compaq India top managers in the new HP structure in India. Doraisamy himself, Ravi Swaminathan, Kapil Jain and Neelam Dhawan are all from Compaq India, as is HR chief Zarir Batliwala. (HP's former HR chief C Mahalingam has left HP to join the Scandent Group). From the erstwhile HP India, there's Ravi Aggarwal and VP Finance Deepak Shah.

According to Doraisamy, the restructuring will affect five to 10 percent of the permanent and contract employees of HP and Compaq in India. "Thankfully we run a tight ship here and we didn't do a great deal of hiring last year, otherwise this number could have been higher." Compaq and HP together have close to a 1,000 employees apart from contract workers traditionally hired by HP in its heavily outsourced model, and it is likely that many of those could go.

At the time of the merger HP had announced that employee restructuring worldwide and all necessary lay-offs would be completed by November 2003. Recently, however, that deadline has been pulled forward to November of this year. Said Doraisamy, "We would like to get this done as quickly as possible and relieve the uncertainty that is hanging in the air."

New section

The new HP President also outlined the organization's new go-to-market strategy. Under this, the Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) headed by Ravi Aggarwal will be responsible for all IPG products as well as for the management of all retail partners and customers (the small office home office segment).

The Personal Systems Group (PSG) headed by Ravi Swaminathan will be responsible for all PSG products as well the management of all channel partners and their resellers who largely address the small and medium businesses.

The HP Services Group will be headed by Kapil Jain whose job is to integrate HP and Compaq service offerings. HP Services in India have yet to take off in a significant way though the services business at Compaq grew at nearly 32 percent last year to gross Rs 294 crore.

And finally, the Enterprise Systems Group (ESG) is headed by Neelam Dhawan, who will be responsible for all ESG products as well as the management of all HP product revenues from corporate, enterprise and large commercial accounts--about 200 of them in India.

Doraisamy also ruled out any channel reorganization for the moment. "I think some of the reorganization will take place by itself depending on the profitability etc of the channels themselves."

According to him, the management team will be split between Delhi and Bangalore. "As the legal close process has not started, we will not be able to tell now where the registered office will be."

Depending on the size and complexity of a deal, the new HP may take ownership of certain old channel accounts though fulfillment will continue to happen through partners. "Pre-merger, the channel did about 70 percent of the business for both companies, and I expect that level to stay for the new HP," pointed out Doraisamy.

Despite the mammoth task at hand--integration of two large companies to form what is possibly the largest IT Group in India--Doraisamy said the HPQ merger has been far easier than the Compaq-Digital merger was, given the degree and depth of preparation that has already been done. "I don't have to do much strategizing. Right now I just have to execute the plan. That makes life relatively easy."

Sarita Rani

(CNS)