The quiet achiever
Good things seem to happen to a company’s stock price when Mark Hurd is appointed to the helm. About two years ago, shares in NCR, the automated teller machine maker, jumped more than 12 per cent the day after Mr Hurd was named chief executive.
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This week, Hewlett-Packard stock gained 10 per cent when Mr Hurd emerged as the new leader of the world’s second largest computer maker. The surprise appointment thrust this unassuming but tough and hard-working executive into the spotlight. Now, investors and employees at the computer and printer company are hoping its new chief executive can deliver the same kind of results he did at NCR.
The early buzz on Mr Hurd from analysts, consultants and HP employees has been highly positive. Known as a detail-oriented and demanding operations manager who is ready to roll up his sleeves and get down to work, Mr Hurd says he is intensely competitive. “I always like competition. I’ve always thrived on it. I like to compete and try to win. I like the adrenalin of the game,” he told the FT in one of his first interviews after news of his appointment.
This desire to win scored him a tennis scholarship in the late 1970s to Baylor University in Texas, where he studied business administration and competed as a nationally ranked college player. He briefly considered life on the pro-tennis circuit but ultimately saw a more secure and rewarding future in technology.
”I was one of those fringe guys who could try to make a living doing that, or I could be smarter and try to get a full time job,” he says, settling into his new office at HP’s leafy Palo Alto headquarters. “My view was, if you couldn’t do it well then you were better off to get a real job, so that’s what I did. I started selling mainframe computers.”
Mr Hurd joined NCR 25 years ago straight after university and sold computers in Texas for several years before moving to company headquarters in Dayton, Ohio, where he rose through the sales and marketing ranks. One of his more notable achievements at NCR was building the Teradata unit into an information services powerhouse that helps companies use data they already collect about customers to improve their business operations and customer relationships to become more competitive. For example, Wal-Mart could use Teradata’s technology and services to calculate the number of Gatorade bottles - or sweaters - it needs in stores on any given day by analysing customer data from previous years as well as real-time weather conditions.
Mr Hurd became NCR’s chief executive in 2003 and focused on turning around the loss-making company by cutting costs and investing in sales and marketing. Long-suffering shareholders saw their NCR stock climb more than 300 per cent during his tenure.
”He is pretty good at vision. He was able to understand how data were changing business. He has high intellectual power, is not afraid to voice his opinions and will push very hard for what he believes in,” says George Colony, chief executive at Forrester, the research group.
Such qualities will be in high demand at HP, where Mr Hurd will find plenty of challenges to stoke his competitive streak. The Silicon Valley icon has been squeezed by fierce competition from IBM’s high-end services group and Dell’s low-cost PC operations. HP’s quarterly performance has been woefully inconsistent of late and it is seen to have lost its innovative edge. This contributed to the ouster of Carly Fiorina as chief executive almost two months ago. The board cited her failure to deliver the profitable growth she promised in the wake of the company’s controversial $19bn acquisition of Compaq Computer in 2002. She was also seen to have spent far too much time promoting HP - and some believed herself as well. Morale suffered during her five-year tenure as the celebrity chief executive became a symbol of all that was wrong at HP.
Mr Hurd, on the other hand, has shown little appetite for celebrity. He was known for putting in long days at NCR before heading home to his wife and two children. Nor is he prone to making the kind of grandiose claims that have returned to haunt other executives. He exudes understated confidence and prefers to let his actions talk for him. But so far, Mr Hurd is sharing little about how he intends to proceed at HP.
Dismayed by the company’s results since the Compaq deal, analysts and investors have repeatedly urged HP to spin off its lucrative printing unit or sell its struggling PC operations. HP’s board has maintained it has no plans to heed those calls and Mr Hurd has echoed those views, saying it is far too early even to consider those questions. His first priority, he has said, will be to get HP’s various business units performing up to their potential. On the other hand, he has refused to rule out any options. “If he decides 18 months from now that this is the wrong strategy he will push very aggressively to change directions,” says Mr Colony, who has known Mr Hurd for four years.
The biggest question mark about Mr Hurd remains the issue of scale. He has performed well at the head of a $6bn company, but can he do the same at HP, which had sales of $80bn last year? Like the board that hired him, Mr Hurd says the issue is complexity, not size. He argues that while NCR is significantly smaller than HP, the two companies are similarly complex because they both have various divisions that span the globe and run on different operating models. “People leap to cite the scale of revenues as the definition of complexity. “I don’t believe in the end that is that ultimate definition of complexity,” he says. But, he concedes, “the point is still fair. At the end of the day you have a $6bn company and an $80bn company. Time will tell.”
低调制胜的首席执行官
马克?赫德(Mark Hurd)被任命执掌哪家公司，哪家公司的股价似乎就会受益。大约两年前，赫德先生被任命为自动柜员机生产商NCR的首席执行官，该公司股价次日跳升了12%。
上周，当赫德先生成为全球第二大电脑生产商惠普(Hewlett-Packard)的新领导时，该公司的股价上涨了10%。赫德先生没什么架子，但个性刚毅，工作努力。此番出人意料的任命使这位管理者成为众人瞩目的焦点。现在，这家电脑和打印机公司的投资者和雇员希望，新任首席执行官能重现他在NCR创造的业绩。
分析师、咨询师和惠普员工对赫德先生的初步议论是高度肯定的。赫德先生以注重细节、行事高标准而著称，而且乐于卷起袖管亲力亲为。他说，他斗志高昂，“我总是喜欢竞争，我总是在竞争中发展兴旺。我喜欢竞争而且努力求胜。我喜欢这种游戏带来的刺激。”他在任命宣布后接受《金融时报》采访时作此表示。
这种对胜利的渴望令他在70年代赢得了德州贝勒大学(Baylor University)的网球奖学金。他在那所大学攻读工商管理，并作为国家级大学选手参加角逐。他一度考虑过职业网球生涯，但最终在科技领域看到更可靠、更有价值的未来。
“在网球方面，我是那种边缘人物之一，可以尝试以此为生，或者我可以更明智些，尝试一份全职工作，”他说。他已搬进了帕洛阿图（Palo Alto）的惠普总部新办公室中，周围郁郁葱葱。“我当时认为，如果网球不能打到很好，那还是找一份真正的工作比较好，所以我就这么做了。我开始销售大型计算机。”
赫德先生在25年前大学刚毕业就加盟了NCR，先在德州做了几年电脑销售，然后转到公司位于俄亥俄州戴顿的总部，在那里，他在销售及市场业务上逐级升迁。他在NCR较著名的成就之一就是，把Teradata部门打造成一个强大的信息服务中心，该中心帮助企业运用自己手头的客户数据，改善业务经营和客户关系，从而变得更有竞争力。例如，凭借Teradata提供的技术和服务，沃尔玛(Wal-Mart)能通过分析前几年的客户数据和实时天气状况，计算出该店在某一天需要储备多少瓶佳得乐(Gatorade)饮料（或多少件毛衣）。
赫德先生在2003年成为NCR首席执行官，并致力于通过削减成本、投资销售及营销，使这家企业扭亏为盈。在他任期内，长期遭受损失的股东目睹自己的NCR股票上涨逾300%。
“他相当有远见。他懂得信息将如何改变企业。他很有智慧，敢于表明观点，而且会奋力推进他所相信的事情，”研究集团福里斯特(Forrester)的首席执行官乔治?克鲁尼(George Colony)表示。
惠普会非常需要他的这些素质，在那里，赫德先生将发现许多挑战来激励他的斗志。这家硅谷的偶像企业受到严酷竞争的挤压，从国际商业机器公司(IBM)的高端服务集团，到戴尔(Dell)的低成本个人电脑业务。近来惠普的季度业绩非常不稳定，公司似乎已经丧失了创新优势。这种局面导致了卡莉?费奥莉娜 (Carly Fiorina)近两个月前被赶下首席执行官的宝座。董事会的理由是，在惠普2002年采取以190亿美元收购康柏(Compaq)这一有争议的行动后，她曾保证让公司实现有赢利的增长，但最终未能履行该承诺。另外人们觉得她花了太多时间为惠普（一些人认为还为她自己）做推广。随着这位明星首席执行官成了惠普所有错处的象征，在她的5年任期内员工的士气也被挫伤。
相比之下，赫德先生对成名的兴趣不大。人们知道，在NCR时，他常常工作到很晚，然后就回家陪伴妻子和两个孩子。他也不喜欢说豪言壮语，有些首席执行官往往因为说过这些大话而下不了台。他表现出低调的自信，更愿意用行动来为自己说话。但到目前为止，对于自己打算在惠普如何开展工作，赫德先生几乎没说过什么。
分析师和投资者对惠普收购康柏以来的财务结果大失所望，因而多次敦促惠普把赢利丰厚的打印机部门分拆出去，或出售其处境艰难的个人电脑业务。但惠普董事会仍坚持表示，该公司不打算理会这些呼吁，而赫德先生也呼应了董事会的观点，表示目前就连考虑这些问题都还为时过早。他说，他首先要考虑的，是让惠普旗下各部门充分发挥潜力。另一方面，他拒绝排除任何选择方案。“如果他在18个月后认定这是个错误的战略，他将非常积极主动地改变方向，”科洛尼先生说。他认识赫德先生已有4年。
有关赫德先生的最大疑问仍是规模问题。他以前执掌一家60亿美元的公司表现很好，但在去年销售额达到800亿美元的惠普，他能做得同样好吗？与聘请他的惠普董事会的说法一样，赫德先生也表示，问题在于复杂性而不是规模。他强调，虽然NCR要比惠普小得多，但两家公司有着相似的复杂性，因为它们都有各种各样的分部，这些分部遍布全球，运作模式也不尽相同。“人们贸然地用营收规模来定义复杂性，而我不相信那就是复杂性的定义，”他说道。但他也承认，“这种说法还是情有可原的。归根结底，一家是60亿美元的公司，另一家是800亿美元的公司。时间会证明一切。”
