Intel has historically derived most of its sales from its PC business. Since the PC market has been declining over the past few years, the chip maker has been exploring ways to grow its business and has also changed its culture a bit to accelerate this shift, says a report from Business Insider.
Changing culture to accelerate shift
To offset the decline in PCs, Intel is making headway into other areas, including chips for data centers and connected devices. To accelerate this shift, the chip maker has been making a huge change in its culture by hiring more executives from outside the company, the report says.
Principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy Patrick Moorhead told BI that Intel has historically followed a practice of promoting its senior management from within, but recently it has been pulling folks from outside. In recent times, the chip maker has hired many external folks in areas it has struggled with, such as mobility, and also in new markets it is going after like the Internet of Things, the analyst said.
“Intel is taking a pragmatic approach in many of its newest areas where they are placing some people with the most experience in specific areas of expertise,” Moorhead said.
Renduchintala the next Intel CEO?
In November, the chip maker made its most high-profile external hire by appointing the former co-president of Qualcomm’s main chip unit, Dr. Venkata “Murthy” Renduchintala, to lead its Client and Internet of Things (IoT) Businesses and Systems Architecture Group. This is a newly created unit that includes the chip maker’s PC, mobile and IoT businesses.
Intel generates more than two-thirds of its revenues from this group alone, and this makes Renduchintala a front-runner to take over as CEO in the future. In a recent column, Linley Group’s principal analyst, Linley Gwennap, wrote that Renduchintala is the most powerful Intel executive ever hired from outside the company, and he “immediately becomes a leading candidate to succeed [Intel CEO] Krzanich.”
Gwennap noted that Intel’s PC-centric mind can be blamed for slowing its decision to move beyond the ailing PC business. But a series of recent outside hires will be “disruptive” to its internal culture, and “improve workflows whenever possible,” Gwennap said.
