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Cisco, HP chiefs stress need to stay ahead of change

Sukhjit Purewal
India Abroad Correspondent in Santa Clara

If you need to inspire a roomful of hopeful entrepreneurs and wary venture capitalists, you need the gospel-like ebullience of Cisco Systems chief executive officer John Chambers.

And that is exactly who got the second day of TiEcon 2001 started with a keynote address filled with optimism about what lies ahead and insights into what has made Cisco an industry giant.

Chambers, often called the best CEO and the best boss in America, told the riveted audience that by building applications that its own employees could use and increasing productivity by as much as 200 per cent in some cases, Cisco has helped improve its bottom line.

"Transitions are where you gain market share," said Chambers as he strolled back and forth on the stage and then among the first rows of convention-goers. "The leading company will always be one or two steps ahead."

Both Chambers and a more subdued Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina who followed him, hammered home the notion that their companies' success was contingent on their commitment to stick with the basics of business, as is the theme for the eighth annual TiEcon, 'Entrepreneurship -- Back to the Basics'.

For Cisco that means constantly increasing productivity and keeping costs down. And in HP's case, it has meant going back to the innovative principles championed by company founders David Packard and William Hewlett, who founded their company in the one-car garage that has come to symbolize the birthplace of the Silicon Valley.

"Prices are going to go down and unless you increase productivity you won't be successful," warned Chambers. "In the end it is all about profit and cash flow."

Fiorina, who became CEO and chairman of HP two years ago, said the company had to fight off the image of being outdated and wearing the nickname of 'the gray lady of Silicon Valley'.

The company's various subsidiaries had become too concerned about their own success rather than the overall success of HP.

The problem, Fiorina said, was that the company had been looking inward too long because of its successful past without paying attention to what lay ahead and adapting to change. Now it adheres to Fiorina's philosophy of 'preserve the best and reinvent the rest'.

"The company that thinks it's done [changing] is done," quipped Fiorina.

HP doesn't always have the same hype as its competitors, according to Fiorina, but what sets it apart is its depth.

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TiEcon 2001 gets off to an enthusiastic start

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