HP to use Australia as test-bed for global strategy

HP’s Australian operation will serve as a testing ground for the rest of the world, HP’s South Pacific chief David Caspari revealed to CRN.

Caspari made the comment at HP’s global partner conference last week in Las Vegas.

The company received a warm reception from partners to its efforts to transform itself following a period of instability including a possible PC sell-off and woes related to its Autonomy acquisition.

Caspari said his boss, HP CEO Meg Whitman, backed a plan to make Australia a “blueprint” and “beacon” for HP worldwide, specifically in the area of cloud services. 

“In South Pacific we are a microcosm for the rest of the company and we have the ability to be very agile," he said.  

“So our aspiration is to create the blueprint for HP in the rest of the world, to innovate faster and where it works to take those learnings to the rest of the world. And I do that with the sponsorship of the CEO who spends time in the country.”

He said HP’s $200 million investment in its Aurora data centre, built last September, and accompanying cloud strategy showed Australia was at the centre of HP’s global innovation, and a global platform for delivering cloud services. 

“We were the first country in the world to develop a full end-to-end cloud strategy and take that to market. That has only happened in the past six months – that was seen as a pilot and that has now been taken to the rest of the world,” he said.

He said further “tens of millions of dollars” would be invested in the centre to expand its capacity from one to five cells. 

Luring back partners in a tough market

Caspari admitted HP hadn’t been the easiest company to deal with lately, but said it was “elevating its dialogue” and simplifying its interactions with partners and clients. 

He warned partners that HP Australia’s biggest source of business, government departments, were tightening their belts, shifting the focus to OPEX over CAPEX. 

“I think what you have got in Australia is a generally cautious economic approach. What you have got is a [federal] government that is not driving stimulus – it is being quite frugal as it goes into the next election,” Caspari said.  

“And you have got enterprises who are paying down their balance sheet rather than investing in capital.”

“This does shift the focus to OPEX but there is still demand because the economics of the business case behind what we do stands on its own. But [customers] are asking more questions and prioritising their decisions.”

He singled out healthcare, education and defence as sectors that continue to spend on technology.

“The need to transform defence – and they have been very public about this - means that there are a lot of opportunities. They are the three sectors that are ripe for technology transformation and that is at the heart of what we do,” Caspari said.

Getting back on track

HP beat lowered market expectations on Friday with its quarterly results but still showed declining revenue and profits.

Caspari said the fundamental transformation of the technology industry was shaping the way HP sells its products and services, pushing it more heavily towards partners. 

“Strategically as we move forward we see more business will be done with partners; the reality of the technology business is that no company can do it alone,” he said.

“If you take a look at the economics that are driven, for example, by cloud, you are seeing a fragmentation in the consumption of workload. There are many, many people, who will be delivering services to the market and many of those will be cloud.

“Previously you would think of the big outsourcers and telcos. But now there are channel partners; private cloud public cloud – it’s a hybridised world. There are many more ways to consume IT services and capabilities.”

Michael Sainsbury travelled to HP's global partner conference in Las Vegas as a guest of HP.