As a business founded in 1939, HP is no stranger to wartime turbulence and geopolitical volatility. But the recent conflicts and their resulting economic uncertainty pose challenges for every business. In this first installment of a new series, we check in with Neil Sawyer, HP’s managing director for Northern Europe, on how he’s leading his team through an unsettled period.
Priorities: What’s your big focus for 2026?
Navigating our business—as well as our clients—through a lot of macroeconomic conditions. This sort of disturbance can create a lot of new opportunities for us, but we also need to make sure that we manage the status quo within our business.
It’s an interesting time, technology is forming a big part of the investment envelope for our customers, so our second priority is understanding our customers’ objectives more as technology transitions into being their primary cost.
The third point is making sure that, from a prioritization point of view, we continue to diversify our business into longer-term solutions and services-oriented value propositions. We’re looking at that from a supply chain perspective, in terms of where we produce, but also making sure we deliver on the security criteria that many of our customers need.
Pep talks and preparation: How did you motivate your team at the beginning of the year?
I seem to give a motivational speech almost on a daily basis at the moment!
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HP’s rank on Fortune 500
My current pep talk is: ‘HP is a commercial entity and there will always be winners in a market where there is macroeconomic turbulence. We have a very strong proposition that is diverse, that addresses different technology needs, that we can deliver through our partners and to our customers. So, let’s make sure that we are the winners. Let’s not look at the downsides that can present itself. Let’s look at the upsides and make sure that we retain and build on our winning culture.’
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When it comes to this macroeconomic turbulence, it wouldn’t be right, as a leader, not to recognize that there are concerns for people, both personally and professionally, and we’ve got to make sure that we support our people throughout that. But we are a big, resilient, diverse business and we should capitalize on winning because we know that technology choices are directly shaping how companies invest and how people work.
Worries: What’s keeping you up at night?
Well, I have a new, six-week-old dog, so that definitely keeps me up at night, wondering what it’s eaten today!
“‘HP is a commercial entity and there will always be winners in a market where there is macroeconomic turbulence…”
Neil Sawyer, HP’s managing director for Northern Europe
On the business side, it would be remiss not to acknowledge what is happening in terms of the military action that’s happening in many countries across the Middle East. It’s important for me to maintain our focus on how we deliver confidence in supply in this time.
We also recognize that, because of some of these macroeconomic considerations, some of our customers will need to make tough choices about the technology that they invest in, looking at what they’ve invested in in the past relative to what they will invest in in the future. To that end, I want to make sure that we continue to deliver the highest level of customer satisfaction possible.
We know that there is more turbulence in the market, not created by the industry itself, and we need to navigate that as a manufacturer and a supplier. We not only have to be reliable, but we also have to demonstrate stability.
So that, aside from the dog, is the thing that keeps me awake at night, and I’m very pleased to say that we’re making good progress.
Trade-offs: What’s one compromise you’ve made this year to reach a more strategic goal?
We’re letting go of the way in which we’ve adopted practices previously. A good example of this is how we respond to our customers. Where previously, we have worked through our supply chain and had an order book that is largely driven by what our customers want and need to buy, now we have also introduced the opportunity to shape demand as well.
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HP’s rank on Fortune Global 500
What we want to do is make sure we maintain the highest level of customer fulfillment, so we’re making sure that we’re consulting more than ever before with our customers around what technology is available and what the alternatives are that can deliver the same solution, oftentimes in a more cost-effective way.
Magic metrics: What is one number you’re looking for at the end of this month to signal it’s been a success?
We spend a lot of time focused on our Net Promoter Score.
Of course, there are commercial metrics around revenue, profit, market share, but those metrics are cared for by the fact that we deliver a high level of customer satisfaction. So, if pushed for just one metric, I would say always our net promoter score, because it fuels the results that we see in the others.
