Fiorina: HP's Top Four Systems Integrator Partners Are Posting Gains

At an HP Analyst Day, Fiorina said HP's joint sales efforts with Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, BearingPoint (the former KPMG Consulting) and Cap Gemini Ernst and Young have grown 35 percent in the past year. On their own, those four partners have increased their sales of HP products by 75 percent in the past year, she said.

Accenture alone has done $1 billion in joint business with HP since the merger with Compaq was completed in May, said Fiorina. Overall, she said, the Accenture relationship has resulted in 40 global outsourcing deals in the past three years and 170 major deals.

Fiorina said HP is leveraging its major systems integrator partners to augment its 35,000 HP presales and sales representatives and its 65,000-member services team.

As for IBM's $3.5 billion acquisition of PwC Consulting, Fiorina said she walked away from that deal seven times, including a $3 billion deal two weeks before IBM made the acquisition on July 30.

"A decision not to acquire PwC was a deliberate and conscious [choice that was tested and retested over about an 18-month time frame at everywhere from $22 billion down to $3 billion and at most price points in between," she said. "The reason we walked away from that opportunity consistently is because we are not engaged in the creation of a vertically integrated stack."

HP's internal consulting and systems integration resources, Fiorina said, are "best focused where we can make a real contribution and to acquire in that area would fundamentally disrupt go-to-market relationships that give us better bang for the buck and give us greater reach in our customer environments."

Fiorina pointed out that "profitability and growth in the consulting industry has deteriorated dramatically because customers are simply not willing to spend in the same way they were in the past." She said HP's focused approach to consulting is a better approach for shareholders and provides increase value to customers.

Fiorina said there is "absolute alignment" between the company's professional services teams and enterprise go-to-market teams. Those teams are focused on alignment around industry segments and vertical markets.

"I think our vertical strategy is one that continues to need ongoing attention and support, and it will get those," she said. "But we have a degree of alignment engagement in the field that, frankly, we haven't had before."