Who let the cat out of the bag? Overall, our size, complexity and success tors have been given extra time to rethink make our activities increasingly news­ and execute their strategy. Your field sales worthy-whether we want that or not. people quickly sense the situation and be­ To see how it works, put yourself in gm to concentrate on other products. And the place of a division marketing manager: you may even have legal problems. All in Through a combination of marketing all it's going to cost a bundle-in loss of tactics, including news releases, press con­ sales, of company reputation and of sense ferences, industry showings and advertis­ of achievement. "Loose as a goose!" ing programs, plus product availability Such potential consequences are by and sales force briefiings, you have plotted no means limited to product introductions. "Leaky as a sieH~" a strategy that you expect will enable your The subject may concern new orders, dol­ at secrets? Arc there an}' left product to hit the market with maximum lar volume of sales, negotiations of various nd here?" impact. Your goal is to have the world of kinds, price changes, expansion plans, im­ customers aU of a sudden buzzing with portant contracts, and technical develop­ the news, clamoring to see and buy-and ments. Leaks of this kind of information getting a big jump on the competition. can be of great interest to the press-and Those comments may sound flippant, Instead, a number of weeks prior to very beneficial and instructive to com­ but actually they represent serious ap­ the grand unveiling, Corporate Public petitors. praisals of the manner in which some HP Relations calls you with news that a trade­ In all cases, the question is; How does people keep company information "HP press reporter is onto the story, and has it happen? And what can we do to stop it PRIVATE' They were uttered by HP caUed with a request for confirmation and happening over and over again? people who have been actively involved more details. Ray King, general manager of Ad­ in the process of introducing our new There is no one way to handle such vanced Products Division, acknowledges products or of putting new marketing pro­ situations, except the reporter will not be that products such as the HP hand-held grams into effect. Almost unanimously, told any lies. You hope that it will end up calculators represent a particularly diffi­ these people conclude that when it comes with no premature report, or at worst that cult challenge to the system of personal to preserving the confidentiality of such such rumors will be published as specula­ employee trust on which HP security tra­ projects-of keeping our products and tion only. Your well-founded fear is that ditionally has been based: strategy under wraps until we really are the cat is out of the bag, and that other "In developing and introducing new ready to reveal them-many of us are publications will pick up the story and models of these machines;' said Ray, "we rather casual and careless. dribble it out in bits and pieces or in dis­ depend on a considerable number of The main problem is-we talk. We torted fashion. sources both inside the company and out­ talk about confidential projects not only Assume that the worst happens: The side, for parts and services. Advertising, to people who need to know but also to leak becomes a flood of TUmors and pre­ public relations, and key field sales people some who don't. We talk about our plans maturely published descriptions. You be­ need advance information so they can in public places-to impress other com­ gin to see the steam going quickly out of make their plans. And production people pany people with how much we know or your introduction. But you have more also have a need to know. outsiders of how on-the-ball HP is, And than publicity to worry about. Customers "So there are all kinds of opportunities we na'ively assume it will go no further. and salesmen begin to call wanting to for information to leak out. The result is art of the same problem, of course, place orders for the rumored product-or that we've had to tighten up security • t today we are a multi-national, multi­ perhaps to cancel orders for an existing around here. Product development activi­ discipline, highly interactive organization. product that will be replaced. Competi­ ties have been isolated from visitor traffic (continued) HP private areas, and more and more we are reluc­ some other penalties that flow from pre· tant to offer tours to visiting groups:' mature disclosures; "As soon as there is Ray Demere, vice president and EPG wind of a new product or product price operations manager, said, "The most im­ change, the phones start ringing. This portant thing that can be done is to make places a double burden on the staff who HP people aware of the problem of se­ should be taking care of existing business. curity, and to ask them to keep informa­ But now they have to fence verbally with tion to themselves or only to those who people who are friends of the company­ have to have it for the sake of their work. salesmen and customers. They have to "Loveland Division was quite success­ fence because to take an order or to ful with that approach last year in intro­ demonstrate the product in any way con­ ducing the new hand-held probe voltmeter. stitutes a legal announcement of avail. As a result of making the situation known ability~' to everyone concerned, and asking them Commenting on that point, HP's gen­ to contain their enthusiasm and informa­ eral counsel Jean Chognard said that a pre­ tion, the 970A announcement had real mature product announcement can have punch:' expensive legal consequences. In one in· Jack Lieberman, marketing manager stance, it enabled one of our competitors at Santa Clara Division, said the security to refile a patent application so as to cover problem for his division is probably not our new product, resulting in a liability of as severe a challenge as for those with over half a million dollars. In other in­ highly conspicuous competitors: "But I stances, a premature product announce­ feel very strongly about the total image of ment could render HP's own patent invalid HP. Leaks affect all of us, and if they hap­ as a result of being shown prior to the pen too often they will quickly erode the filing date of HP's own patent application. overall credibility we have built with the Enough said. media~' Bill Harmsen, business manager at Advanced Products Division, pointed out o 4 They have the will... Rick Joy's employment records might read much like those of many other people at HP: He's in his early thirties, for example, and an assembler at the Santa Rosa, California, plant. Off the job, he enjoys amateur radio and Eagle Scouting. Nothing extraordinary---except that Rick happens to be both blind and deaf. "He's briUiant," says his supervisor, explaining that Rick does highly complex wiring and soldering jobs only slightly slower than a skilled assembler with Rick Joy no handicaps. He uses a special tip-touch soldering Among the thousands of people at iron, and reads with the aid of an Optacon. HP, there are many with physical handi­ caps. They don't ask for special treatment or to be singled out from other employees. Instead, they find ways-often remarkably inventive-of coping with a work environ­ ment that usually demands full physical faculties. People around them are often amazed at the skills the handicapped can master. It seems inconceivable that a blind person or one with the use of a single arm could do assembly work at all-let alone wire the compact, intricate circuitry that goes into our modern product lines. How does someone in a wheelchair get around well enough to function as a production super­ visor or a secretary? The answer is, simply, that it's a person's ability-not his or her disability-that counts. (continued) 5 Gerd Laner and Hermann Bruckner the wilL .. have several things in common. T. work at HP GmbH in Boeblingen, Olympic gold medal winners, and both are paraplegics confined to wheelchairs. In spite of their handicaps, Hermann is a champion archer and Gerd is a table-tennis star. The medals they won were for their performances in the 1972 Olympic games for handicapped people. Gerd is a 26-year-old bachelor, crip­ pled at the age of eleven by a leg infection. He learned assembly work in a boarding school, and attended evening classes in electronics after joining HP. He has been such a successful student that he has been offered participation in a six-month HP educational program that will qualify him and other assemblers to become test tech­ nicians. Hermann Bruckner, a tester in the winding department, worked as a mason in his family's business until a crippling accident in 1956 forced him to learn a Mark Hantusch new craft. His wife also works at HP, and does the driving to the Boeblingen plant Before coming to HP over two years about 24 kilometers from home. As in ago, twenty-three-year-old Mark Hantusch Paul Reid other HP locations, Boeblingen has re· had one year of business law at West served parking places and other spe. Valley College and some job training in provisions for its handicapped employ Gloom descended over the Stanford several skills at Goodwill Industries.