Hewlett Packard’s multi-year restructuring plan again looks to claim thousands of jobs, as the California-based IT giant struggles to overhaul its operations for a post-PC era. Revenues dipped for an 11th consecutive quarter, down one percent on the one previous at $27.3bn, and came in slightly short of expectations.
HP’s president and CEO Meg Whitman remains optimistic, however, and is confident that the company’s results fall in line with the company’s restructuring plans.
“With the first half of our fiscal year completed, I’m pleased to report that HP’s turnaround remains on track,” she said in the latest earnings report.
“With each passing quarter, HP is improving its systems, structures and core go-to-market capabilities. We’re gradually shaping HP into a more nimble, lower-cost, more customer – and partner-centric company that can successfully compete across a rapidly changing IT landscape.”
As part of the quarterly report, HP announced that it could axe as many as 16,000 jobs, equivalent to five percent of its total workforce. Whereas the company originally anticipated that it would eliminate 34,000 jobs as part of the restructuring plan, the overall figure could come close to 50,000 if the company proceeds with its planned cuts.
The restructuring plan took flight in May 2012, and the firm has since taken positive steps to reengineer its workforce
The IT giant has made cuts across its portfolio, with the only exemption being research, which HP believes to be crucial for long-term growth. Computing, networking, storage and software have all, however, been streamlined, with the underlying ambition being to reduce its reliance on PCs and shift instead to growth markets such as software services and cloud computing.
The restructuring plan took flight in May 2012, and the firm has since taken positive steps to reengineer its workforce and refocus its operations in the wake of declining PC sales. Last year represented the market’s steepest decline in history, throughout which worldwide sales of personal computers plummeted 10 percent, according to Gartner.
