Podcast of the Experts A Few Minutes with McCain Lyrics

John McCain PoE InterviewJohn W. McCain Podcast of the Experts Interview
Sandie Marrinucci: Hello everyone and welcome to C&I's Podcast of the Experts.
I'm Sandie Marrinucci and with me is John McCain. John was recently hired as the
Senior Vice President for HP's consulting and integration business and this is
the first in what we hope will be a new series of podcasts we're calling "A Few
Minutes with McCain".
You'll be glad to hear that John has a rich history in both sales and consulting
and has successfully led startups, turnarounds and multi-billion dollar
businesses. Today we hope to learn more about John and his ideas for taking C&I
to the next level.
John, welcome to the show.
John McCain: Thank you very much, Sandie.
SM: I think we should start out by addressing what everyone wants to know right
now - who is John W. McCain? Certainly the esteemed senator from the state of
Arizona hasn't decided to suddenly give up life in the capitol to join HP. Tell
us a little bit about who this John McCain is. What is your background and
experience prior to HP and what attracted you to this company and particularly
to the C&I organization?
JM: Thanks Sandie, I get to disappoint people from time to time with the name,
especially when he's running for president, but it is a great ice breaker.
From a background standpoint, I've been married 23 years. Margie and I have a
couple of kids (young adults, 20 and 17). I come from a very large family of
seven brothers, so there were eight boys in our household growing up, which
always made things interesting. I've lived probably in a dozen different cities
over the last 25 years, but never in California so I'm looking forward to going
there.
I think of myself as a Hoosier, because I grew up there from high school and a
college standpoint when I attended Indiana University. I began my career in
sales first and went to work for a company called Norton, based up in New
England. I sold for them for about five years and then joined EDS. I spent about
16 years at EDS in a number of sales and sales management roles, and some global
sales leadership roles. About 1993 I a__umed my first P&L; to run the consumer
food and packaged goods unit.
I had the opportunity while at EDS and while at Capgemini to lead some start up
operations, turnarounds on businesses and to also lead multi-billion dollar
global operations. So, I've gotten very comfortable in this s___e that we think
of as home today.
In terms of why HP and why C&I - HP has always had a great world brand, and I've
always admired the company. I've had a chance to compete and partner with it and
have met a lot of good people along the way. I've been particularly intrigued by
what's been going on with HP during the past year with Mark joining the company
and the new direction he has set it on. In terms of C&I, I really like the
solutions consulting s___e and know it well. I've got a lot of gray hair, and a
lot of experience to bring to the table and I'm very familiar with it. So that's
it.
SM: It sounds like you've been pretty busy for the past 19 years or so. What are
some of the lessons you've learned along the way that you think might be of
benefit to you in your new role as leader of C&I, and do you have any words of
wisdom that you'd like to share with our listeners today?
JM: Sure, well there have been a lot of experiences during my 20-25 years in
business. In the consulting s___e, just a short catch phrase says a lot, "every
day is a dollar". In our business where it is so intense, it's very important
for us to stay really focused on what we're doing. Everybody is making 100
decisions a day. We have to have a great sense of urgency and we really have to
execute the plays we call. It's very important. That's whether we're chasing a
new engagement or cutting back on costs somewhere. We are a massive collection
of moving parts. Rules can't be written for every situation so a lot of common
sense is required for us to run the business effectively. Clearly, collaboration
is a critical ingredient, with our being part of a great big corporation, for us
to get our job done.
SM: Yes, and knowledge sharing and knowledge management are pretty important as
well, but with that being said we've been told time and again that we're an
inwardly focused company. However that's beginning to change. Since you've
worked at both EDS and Capgemini, can you provide us with any insight on the
perception of HP's consulting organization in the industry at large? And if you
could change that perception, what would you like it to be?
JM: Well, a couple points Sandie: One is our perception in the general
marketplace is not as strong as it needs to be. We are a three billion dollar
organization and we are a bit unknown in terms of our capabilities, results,
horsepower... those types of things. We have some work to do to get us more
front and center in the a___yst communities who can help us in the market and
with our clients. There's a lot of room for us to make a lot of progress in that
area.
I know our current clients, when we visit with them, have a lot of great things
to say about the company and the team. They are typically hungry to buy more
from us, which is terrific so what we're doing we need to keep doing. But we do
need to work on our external.... I'll say "message in the marketplace". We're a
global powerhouse. We should be recognized for half a dozen capabilities or
offerings that we just dominate the market in. Clients should want to seek us
out for those, alliance partners will want to engage us for those kinds of
things so lots of room, lots of room to work on our perception.
SM: Yes, I couldn't agree more. As you know we've had quite a turnaround in this
business over the past year. We've had a lot of success - but as they always
say, we have a long way to go and we all believe that. What do you see as our
biggest challenge as an organization in the coming year? What are you're initial
ideas for overcoming some of these?
JM: Well the team has a ton to be proud of. They've heard Mark and Steve,
myself, Luigi and others commend them for the past two quarters results of
putting the business in profitability for the first time in its history.
So super big milestone crossed, but that's only hurdle number one. I look at our
business to date and I see that we are a $3 billion organization with about 17
thousand employees - when you add in all of our contract support - and we're not
making enough money: a) for the corporation or b) for what the market would
think of as a stand-alone entity.
So we've got work to do to figure out - do we have cost problems, do we have
labor rate multiplier problems - do we have utilization problems- do we have
go-to-market solutions problems? We have a lot of areas to fine tune to get us
back to the profitability level that is competitive in this marketplace. I
wouldn't say it's any one thing, but several different things.
SM: Do you see the company doing any acquisitions in the consulting s___e in
order to get us to that standalone entity s___e that you just talked about?
JM: Now that's a good question. I've been intrigued in the two weeks I've been
here at the number of acquisitions the different regions and countries are
exploring at the moment. We have a big appetite in that s___e. I'm sure there
are areas that are naturals for us to acquire to improve our geographic presence
maybe or an offering capability or an industry capability in a lot of different
parts of our market around the world.
I'll be a little hesitant to move lightning fast on those at the moment, because
we need to have our shop in perfect order before we go buy another consulting
business. I've had the fortune to be on the receiving end of three or four of
those types of deals. In the consulting business they are very hard to make
work.
I'll be cautious on [acquiring] other teams. I'm hungry and looking at several
deals as I've been reviewing them with them, but I don't see us going to make a
big acquisition any time soon to change our face in the marketplace. We've got
great talent and great capabilities. We just need to work on ourselves for
awhile.
SM: That being said, what do you hope to accomplish in your first 100 days as
C&I leader?
JM: Well, obviously I want to meet as many of the team members as I can. With
your help and others we'll do some "round tables", continue to do some "town
halls" and those types of things.
I need to meet the broader HP team; Ann's leadership team and the other two
groups that run the rest of the business, so that's going to take some time.
Clearly I want to spend a lot of time in front of our clients and prospects to
see what they are telling us about our business and what we can do to improve it
or win some new business. There's a lot of operating mechanisms that we have
underway to do deal reviews, or portfolio reviews or financial reviews. I want
to sit in on those and listen and learn all those processes quickly. We have
some, I'll say, "pent up demand," on a few issues that need addressing and
resolution so I'll personally get involved in those with the different leaders
to get those started.
SM: Sounds good. As you probably know by now, C&I strategy and priorities have
been pretty constant for the past couple years I would say. A lot of people
would say the operational word for C&I has been "focus." I understand it might
be a little early to put a stake in the ground at this point, but from what
you've learned so far, do you see us making any significant changes in the near
term to our current strategy of focusing on 700 enterprise accounts and 12
solution focus areas? And if so, how do you see that changing?
JM: Well...I know a little bit about our business today after the first two weeks
but I clearly don't know enough to say enough to say, "this is our strategy."
I do know that from an understanding point of view there's been a lot of
homework completed on it, by the industries and regions and the other folks, the
marketing folks to "deep dive" into it and to understand where we're at. I know
we have 12 SFA's today but I was visiting with someone the other day who told me
we have 202 capabilities that we sold last year. That's probably a little bit
more than I want to do going forward.
In terms of the 700 accounts, I know that the majority of the revenue comes from
our top 200. That doesn't mean I don't want revenue from the other ones - I do.
I just want to make sure we have the right resource balance in how we go to
market and attack those kinds of accounts. There isn't one big thing that says,
"Boom! Here's our new strategy and here we go." I think we have dozens of pretty
big things that we have to go pay attention to, study and go implement some new
changes that make the business run a little bit smoother.
SM: Right, we probably will be communicating this to our C&I employees as we
move along through the quarter, I would a__ume?
JM: Oh yes, as time goes on, and I get a little bit more aware. The leadership
team and I will make some calls and we will communicate it wide and fast.

PART 2
SM: I'm speaking with John McCain, newly hired leader of the C&I organization.
We're going to talk to John now about his vision for C&I and learn a bit more
about who he is and what advice he may have for the rest of us.
Knowing what you know about us and the company, what is the John McCain vision
for this organization over the long term and how do you think we can realize
this vision together?
JM: Thanks, Sandie. Well, I don't have a vision today; it's just too early to
nail down. However I suspect the corporation has one and we will lean close to
it, as close as possible.
I don't believe in creating multiple visions. I think the team can have
different ambitions, in terms of how we show up in the marketplace. Priorities
for me are: sell and deliver profitable engagements. Another priority would be
to exceed our client's expectations in terms of the SLAs (Service-Level
Agreements) we have to deliver.
Another priority would be that I want to get our regions that are performing as
empowered as they possibly can feel to run their business without adult
supervision. So, that's a hard thing to get done, but it's an exciting thing for
a country to get that kind of position and horsepower.
Long term, I want to see us continue to have our double-digit revenue growth,
which is outstanding. We'll need to put some laser beam focus on getting our
operating profit improved to a goal of a double-digit operating profit. We'll
need to rationalize our portfolio, because I know we have a couple hundred
capabilities today, and we need to get down to a handful of offerings we want to
dominate the marketplace globally. In terms of a go-to-market strategy, I need
to understand better the dynamics between our TSG sales force, our CP
organization, and our other related sales and client principals around the
world. We'll get that focused as one team in order to protect that double-digit
revenue growth and take us forward.
SM: Back to your experience with consulting organizations, as an employee and as
a partner, from what you've seen what do you believe are the most important
characteristics of a world class consulting organization?
JM: There are a lot of characteristics that make up great organizations. I've
been a part of four different companies in the last 24 years and each of them
have been unique in terms of different things that they have demonstrable
capability at.
I think there are just some basic things. If we operate with a sense of urgency
to turn things around for our clients and our team members, it helps us beat the
competition. I'm certainly sure that focus does, because if you do too many
things in a thin veneer kind of way versus deep in a select few areas, it
changes how you show up in the market and how you can apply your resources and
get things done.
Accountability in a consulting model is very important. We have 17,000 folks,
plus or minus, and I'll bet close to 16,000 of them are billable or carry a
quota in some way, shape, or form. That's a great thing because those
individuals know what they have to go do for us on a daily basis. That type of
accountability is very important.
Lots of team work is required because you can never put something on a little
island and say "go run" in this kind of business...a) not with HP or b) not
within C&I, there are just a lot of intersections and lot of collaboration
required.
Also, we want to see desire; desire to excel, desire to fix problems, desire to
move us to the next step, and that comes from a lot of heart and souls in the
building. So I'm looking forward to us giving the empowerment for the desire to
be there, for us to get our job done.
Last but not least, if you're talking about front line soldiers, we need
intellectual horsepower. They've got to be content rich. Whether it's a
technology or an industry, a function or a process, our front line has to be
deep in a subject because we're going to sell that I.P. to our customer base. So
a lot of different characteristics make up good consulting shops.
SM: That kind of knowledge is very important to the team as they move forward
and that goes throughout the organization. That also takes, I believe, a lot of
teamwork and collaboration. One of our phrases here at HP is that "we're better
together" and we've had a number of formal programs that we've used to work
better together. Since we're all interested in how we can work better together
with you, how would you describe your leadership style and what are some of your
expectations for us as a team?
JM: Well, time will tell if I describe my leadership style correctly. You'll get
to make an a__essment or the team will, pretty fast.
I like to be inclusive, but counter balance to that is I'm pretty demanding in
terms of the results I need to achieve. I want to be very transparent on the
topics I can be with the entire team. So at least quarterly we'll sit down
together in a "meet me" call or whatever and we'll do a deep dive on our
operating specs and our financials and some of our strategy just so people can
put in input. But they can also see how they can personally shape and drive the
organization.
I'm pretty decisive in decision making, but also coachable. I can take a point,
but I can move on it some, sometimes, not always though. I've got several points
of view on how to run a consulting organization because I've run four or five of
them. One of the characteristics is that I'm fine with delegating providing who
I delegate things to follows up to complete it. So, that's probably a good
description of a little bit of "life with McCain".
SM: Sounds good, sounds like it requires a lot of energy...
JM: It does...
SM: ...and we look forward to working with you. As a last question I'd like to
ask you, as it's important to everybody, I'm sure to you and to me and to
everybody on the team, is the issue of work/life balance. It's important to
everybody. We hope you already have it. What are your thoughts on this for the
team?
JM: That's a good topic and I've seen a lot of folks that can manage it well and
a lot of people that don't.
I believe while we are in the office that we ought to be engaged, fired up and
diligently applying ourselves for the 40 plus hours we need to put in a week.
But I also know that sometimes we have a 60 hour week and a 35 hour week. Our
employees and our teams get to manage those dynamics.
I really believe holidays and vacations are important for everyone to get what
you've earned because it's a good time to just "check out" and recharge.
Everybody needs to do that otherwise you just get too close to the business,
which can stress you out. I think there's a very good balance in sharing down
time and being very engaged when you're in the shop.
SM: John, do you have any other comments or suggestions you'd like to give the
team before we close this interview?
JM: My closing is that I'm very excited to be here. I've learned a lot in the
first two-and-a-half to three weeks. There are a lot of bright people, there's a
lot of good ideas, there's a lot of good energy in the building and we're
building off a 3 billion dollar foundation so we have great footprint for us to
go to the next step.
I'd say be a little patient with me as I come up to speed. And I will come up to
speed quickly. Then expect a fair bit of action for us to fine tune our
operation to get to a world class growth and profitability.
SM: Thank you John. Thank you for your time today; it's been a pleasure talking
with you. I hope that we can do a few more of these Podcast of the Experts
"Minutes with McCain" moving forward so our team can get to know you better and
we can move forward with a lot of vigor for the rest of this year.
JM: Thanks Sandie, enjoyed it.