HP boss Weisler pledges bigger channel role driving new HP forward

Weisler also discussed HP’s billion dollar acquisition of Samsung’s printer business, and how it will make HP a power in the A3 market.

dion-weisler-300BOSTON — Today at its first HP Global Partner Conference as a separate company, Dion Weisler, HP Inc.’s President and CEO, laid out the vision and strategy for the new company, as it aims to leverage its strong market position into strong growth and profitability. The channel is key to that, as HP indicated measures it has taken to get its partner-generated business up from 80 to 87 per cent this year.

“Talk is cheap,” Weisler said, at the start of his keynote to partners, indicating the steps HP has been taken to translate its vision into results

“At the new HP, change equals opportunity and opportunity translates into growth for all of us,” Weisler told partners. “The new HP has a clear and absolute focus. Every single one of us wake up every morning thinking about print and personal systems. We go to bed thinking about them – and we think a lot about supplies as well.

“We are taking profitable share where we choose to play – in the profitable part of the market,” he stressed.

Weisler said that in the new company’s first 317 days they had unveiled the best product lineup in decades.

“We are frankly unrecognizable from four years ago,” he said. “We are gaining momentum by driving differentiation and innovation. Our Net Promoter score is up seven per cent since the separation!”

Weisler formally revealed HP’s $USD 1.05 billion acquisition of Samsung’s printing business.

“We said we were serious about entering the A3 market, and we announced a billion investment to acquire the Samsung printing business today. With the acquisition today, we are the undisputed powerhouse in printing.”

Weisler said that while the printing and copier markets are colliding, HP hasn’t been able to fully leverage this before this deal.

“We have 40 per cent of the printing market and 5 per cent of the copier market, but until today, we haven’t had a strong way to address that,” he said. “Samsung is the single largest transaction in print in HP history. Samsung brings a competitive, disruptive A3 portfolio.” That, combined with HP’s existing printers and operational excellence through its distribution system, will provide a combined portfolio with superior reliability and uptime and lower cost of ownership.

Weisler also emphasized the new HP’s emphasis on commitment to the channel.

“Our work on the channel never stops,” he told partners. “We are providing you with the innovation and tools we know you need in order to win. We are increasing our omni-channel capabilities and transforming hp.com.

“We aren’t just a partner first company – we are a partner led company. So we took 30 per cent of our direct business and put it through the channel.” The objective, Weisler said, is to get to 87 per cent channel by the end of the year.

“We are also investing more than one billion a year in enablement and partner rewards,” he emphasized. “We are also digitally transforming channel enablement by drastically transforming HP Sales Central.”

Weisler emphasized HP’s position that its competitors — Dell, Lenovo, Lexmark, Xerox, are distracted by their own acquisitions or internal restructuring, leaving HP well positioned to take advantage of the disruptive trends that are changing the market.

“We believe that we are on the cusp of triggering the next industrial revolution,” Weisler said.