Hewlett Packard Essay Example For Students

Hewlett Packard Essay Hewlett Packard started in 1939 in a garage by two people, Bill Hewlett andDavid Packard with just $538 of working capital. After a string of failures,their companys first successful product, an audio oscillator better thananything on the market, earned a U.S. patent and an order from Disney Studiosfor eight units to help produce the animated film Fantasia. From 1940 to 1950they moved from their garage to a rented building on Page Mill Road in Palo Altoand then constructed their first HP-owned building that was 10,000 square foot. In 1957, HP had their first public stock offering November 6, 1957 and netrevenues were $30 million with 1,778 employees and 373 products. In the1960s, HP was listed on the New York and Pacific exchanges as HWP and had itsfirst listing on Fortune magazine as of one of the 500 U.S. companies. HP in1967 started operations in Boeblingen, Germany introducing a non-invasive fetalheart monitor that helps babies by detecting fetal distress during labor. In the1970s revenues increased to $365 million with over 16,000 employees. ( HP.com) In the 1980s revenues again increased to $6.5 billion with over 85,000employees. They introduced their first personal computer, the HP-85 andintroduced HP LaserJet printers, the companys most successful single productever considered a standard for laser printing today. HP moves to the top 50 onFortune 500 listing 1 at No. 49. Finally in the 1990s, HP opens researchfacilities in Tokyo, Japan with net revenues of $13.2 billion and over 91,000employees. ( HP. com ) HP also introduced portable computers that lasted onbatteries that would last a flight across the U.S. All these products moved HPto the No. 2 position in the U.S. market. Today HP has ballooned into amultinational company with 104 divisions, 123,000 employees worldwide, 19,000products and sales over $47 billion. ( HP.com ) Great products ultimately comefrom the minds of motivated and capable employees, the second key to HPssuccess. After the Second World War, the company began to hire talented engineerand scientist that were no longer working in the war that were from othertechnology companies and government funded labs. These were high pricedexperienced workers that helped HPs development of different successfulproducts. ( personal Journal ) The company structure looks like a pyramid. Atthe top are the board of directors followed by President and Vice President. There are Presidents and Vice Presidents in different divisions of the company. Finally, there are general managers, middle managers, lower managers andemployees. Hewlett Packards Mission statement is to improve the waysindividuals and organizations around the world create, access, use andcommunicate information on the road or from the desktop, in the office and inthe home. HP is a worldwide leader in personal computing; setting new standardsin such areas 2- as Mobil computing network management, 3-D graphics andinformation storage. Computer products include eight manufacturing divisions inNorth America, Europe and Asia, with sales and support in more than 110countries. These divisions are separated in Mobile Computer Division, BusinessDesktop Division, Home Products Division, Asia Pacific PC Division, WorkstationSystems Division and information storage group. ( Information Week ) Asexplained above HP global market place allows the company to expand in differentcountries and people in two ways. First HP.com allows virtually anyone withInternet access to log on under the URL and actually order online. One problemthat some companies are having is that 65% of the Internet cites are only inEnglish. ( www.firstsearch.com ) On Hewlett Packards website you only need tochoose the country that you live in and the pages will translate the text intothat language. There is product information about you future or presentpurchases, software updates of the product, and also technical support throughemail. Finally HP has 24 hours a day 7 days a week of customer supportthroughout the countries that have operators to assist you on the product. People are more willing to buy products and services from a manufacture that canprovide both the support and the opportunity to buy easily from Hewlett Packard,and HP provides this! One example is that Dell a online company that buildcomputer as they are order from the customers and the business offer one of thebest support and 3 warranties in the computer industry. HP is followingtheir online strategy closely to Dells way of operating the sales andcustomers. As this company expands in growth it leaves other smaller companiesbehind that cant compete with this computer giant. These smaller companieshave trouble to match HPs prices and customer support. One example of this isa local owned family shops in a country that are not able to compete with theytype of products and services offered by HP and these companies either have tostop selling or move away from the competition. With communication andtechnology growth, it will be easier to climb the cultural boundaries that othercompanie s had trouble overcoming in the past. This would be in having othercountries buying an American made product. The Internet is helping in crossingthose boundaries by offering global support and products. With the support andproducts offered by HP, other companies may have troubles trying to match oroutperform. This leads to closing down of shops and other smaller retailer thatcan affect jobs in that country. People of other diversities may have problemaccepting these changes and may not want to make the change. The oldergeneration that is not ready or unable to use computers may have troublesadapting to buying over the Internet. Another problem is not all people fromother countries are financially able to pay for a computer like people in theU.S. This could be another problem that HP is not yet ready to overcome. Food in genetics EssayPrices doubled 100% in August and then again in September. This suspended thedemand in PCs during the holiday season. In entry-level computer HP was againbehind IBM with 12% of market share compared to IBMs 21%. HP has gainedmarket share in the midrange PCs with 21% compared to IBMs 23%. ( Standard Poors ) HP grew in market share during the end of 1999 from 6.2% to 8.4%. HPs growth rate worldwide is 39.6%, which is the second fastest growth ratebehind Dell computer. In revenues HP is 2nd behind IBM with $47 billion and 2ndagain in net income behind IBM with $2.9 billion. Under operating profit marginsHP ranked 6th with 8.16%and with return in capital of 15.51% also 6th in theindustry. ( Moodys Industry Review ) One thing that HP does lack in is incomputer sales in other countries outside of the U.S., like Canada where theyare not even ranked in the top 5. Globally HP leads the printer market withtheir HP inkjet printers and is gaining market share in the PCs. HP is growingrapidly into the worldwide market and is growing at a faster rate than beforebecause of the global access offered to business and customers over theInternet. 10 BibliographyGlobal Computer Industry, New York Times, New York; Jan 29, 1999; LateEdition; pg.C.18 Hoovers Online Business Network; computer industry analysis;hoovers.com Tobi Elkin; Advertising Age, Chicago; Jan 31, 2000; Vol. 71, Iss. 5;Midwest region edition; pg. 32, 3 pgs Laabs, Jennifer J. (1993), HewlettPackards core values drive HR strategy, Personal Journal, 72, 9 (February)38-48 History, (2000), http://www.hp.com (accessed 2-9-00) HewlettPackard Company (2000), http://www.firstsearch.oclc.org (accessed 2-9-2000)Korzenowski, Paul (1999), Hewlett Packard Makeover Starts Turning Heads, InformationWeek, 761, 9 (February) 189-192 Moodys Industry review (1999), Comparative Rankings. Computer Hardware, (1999), Standards and PoorsLazich S. Robert; Market Share Reporter, (1999) pg 190-192 11