HTC CEO tells staff ‘kill bureaucracy,’ improve communication, be more decisive

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Android Central

It’s no secret that 2012 hasn’t been kind to HTC. Despite releasing strong products as part of its HTC One line earlier in the year, the improvement in the HTC’s smartphones hasn’t been reflected in the company’s financial results. The Taiwanese manufacturer recently reported 45 percent year-on-year fall in revenues for July, and the second quarter picture was similarly grim.

As such, CEO Peter Chou recently emailed employees, HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang and the company’s board of directors calling for a change in HTC’s inner workings. The internal email, leaked to Bloomberg and confirmed as authentic by an HTC spokesperson, calls for staffers to kill the “bureaucracy” that “crept in without clear ownership.” Chou said, “We agreed to do something but we either didn’t do it or executed it loosely.”

In the Aug. 9 email, the HTC boss also bemoaned the fact that HTC’s sales were sliding, while the overall smartphone market was going. And in possible reference to Samsung and Apple, he added “our competitors can leverage their scale, brand awareness and big marketing budget to do things which HTC could not do. The fast growth from the last two years has slowed us down.”

Chou noted that HTC needed to “build on its culture, ‘committed’ employees and customer relationships,” according to Bloomberg. On products, he praised the HTC One X, saying it had “the industry’s best rating,” and revealing, without going into specifics, that more strong products were in the pipeline for late 2012 and early 2013.

The company will be likely hoping that its rumored refresh of the One X, in addition to its Windows Phone efforts and possibly an upcoming 5-inch phone will help to reverse its fortunes later this year.

Source: Bloomberg