A wave of global restructuring at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has reached New Zealand, resulting in a round of redundancies at the tech giant.
Aligned to the HPE Next initiative - which was rolled out on 1 November 2017 - the vendor has simplified organisational structures worldwide, redesigning business processes through removing “several layers” of management.
Therefore, change comes as no surprise for the local business, with the streamlining strategy forming the backbone of HPE’s priorities during the next three years.
As a result, sources close to Reseller News claim that the restructuring has reached New Zealand, with the local consulting business “disestablished” and as many as “18 people” being made redundant.
Reseller News understands this decision was made over the Christmas and New Year period, and now stands as common knowledge across the channel.
“As a matter of company policy, HPE does not break out our global headcount by region,” a HPE spokesperson told Reseller News.
While HPE remained tight-lipped on the exact number of job losses in New Zealand, the change stands to reshape the vendor’s go-to-market strategy across the country.
First revealed by The Register in June 2017, the project is “likely to determine” the vendor’s “relevance in the years ahead”.
Specifically, the program is designed to drive gross cost savings of US$1.5 billion.
According to the vendor’s FY18 Outlook - released in October 2017 - HPE will reinvest about US$700 million of that back into the company in the form of go-to-market, operational and R&D investments in key growth areas.
Net cost savings will be approximately US$800 million on a run rate basis exiting fiscal year 2020.
HPE Next is a three-year program that will fundamentally redesign the company,” a HPE spokesperson told Reseller News.
“The program includes both making investments and finding savings across our operations, manufacturing, IT systems and go-to-market, with the goal of setting HPE up to compete even more successfully in the years ahead.
“While we did not disclose a global headcount target, we said that about two-thirds of the overall program will be associated with workforce restructuring.
“These decisions are reached after careful consideration of a number of factors and every attempt is made to minimise the impact on employees.”
The changes come as new CEO Antonio Neri bets the business on three core areas: culture, innovation and customers and partners.
“While we already do a good job in these areas, I want to bring an even stronger focus to help us push our company forward,” said Neri, who replaced Meg Whitman on 1 February.
In outlining the vendor’s priorities for the years ahead, Neri cited the “borrowed” phrase of “customers first, customers last”, emphasising deeper engagement with both end-users and partners.
“I truly believe that HPE will win because we keep our customers and partners at our core,” Neri said.
