Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has a new ace up its sleeve. The tech giant announced a new global go-to-market (GTM) approach in early September, in terms of its sales teams, and a new focus on certain regions for future growth.
The newly appointed chief sales officer, Phil Davis, in a mail communication last week to the HPE team globally, mentioned the sales blueprint and company roadmap in detail.
Davis moved into a global role after a three-year tenure in Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) as regional managing director and senior vice president-Enterprise Group, and earlier leading storage for HPE in the region.
Replacing HPE veteran Peter Ryan as chief sales officer, Davis will report directly to HPE CEO Meg Whitman.
As per the communication mail by Phil Davis, HPE will embark on a new sales structure for the global teams effective from 1 November 2017.
There will be 11 single country or multi-country groupings called geographies (by HPE). The geographies will represent HPE in markets where it has the greatest growth opportunities, stated Davis.
HPE Next is a reinvention of the company aimed at enabling its team members to be more successful and to realise HPE’s full potential.
“The guiding principles of HPE Next are customer first, focus and simplicity. And the new structure premised on these principles will bring our resources and decision-making closer to the customer,” he said.
Leaders for the new geographies
The leaders for these new eleven geographies are well in place. The leaders and their regions are Gilles Thiebaut: France, Heiko Meyer: Germany, Austria and Switzerland (also known as DACH), Marc Waters: United Kingdom and Ireland, Jose Maria de la Torre: Southern Europe, Luc Opdebeeck: Northern Europe, Johannes Koch: Middle East, Africa Eastern Europe, Dan Belanger: North America, Alfredo Yepez: Latin America, Narinder Kapoor: Asia Pacific, Hitoshi Yoshida: Japan and Som Satsangi: India.
The new sales structure is very different and highly focused compared to the earlier one followed at HPE.
The company had three key regions as its GTM or sales organisation: Americas; Europe (includes Middle East) and APJ (including China, Australia and New Zealand).
But the new structure divides the Americas region into two, Europe into six regions and APJ has now been split into three regions.
Interestingly, there are only three countries as stand-alone focus geographies and two are from APJ region – India and Japan.
Som Satsangi, MD for HPE India will lead the company operations for the region as per the new structure.
HPE’s industry expertise from Global Industries, Strategic Alliances and Inside Sales (GISA) and Business Development, Enablement, Solutions Technology (BEST) will be embedded into the geographies so that the company’s customers can benefit the most from these capabilities, said Davis.
Right partnerships and right team
Davis also mentioned the importance of extending the reach stating that partnership is in the company’s DNA and is one of the company’s three core values.
To better serve partners and enhance its engagement with customers, HPE is combining its channels and alliances organisations under the leadership of Denzil Samuels.
Steve Lutz will continue to lead strategy, planning and operations as per the communication by Phil to the HPE team
Providing an update on new leaders driving HPE business, Phil mentioned that Lee Chew Tan and Marylou (ML) Maco would remain a part of the extended team. Lee Chew will lead sales for Hybrid IT, reporting to Alain Andreoli and ML will lead sales for HPE Pointnext, reporting to Ana Pinczuk. Kelly Ducourty will join HPE Pointnext, reporting directly to Ana.
Olivier Suinat, departing HPE in early FY18, will help Samuels launch the integrated Channel Alliance team over next two months and further help the sales leadership team with the transition to the new geography structure.
HPE veterans Jim Merritt and Andy Isherwood too will be retiring from HPE.
Davis mentioned few guiding principles – the top one to keep focused on delighting customers and partners.
“A key goal of HPE Next is to make it easier to do business with us,” he said.
