HP: Analyzing Properties and Opportunities Essay

Introduction

The case is about Hewlett Packard company which has just seen a new chief executive officer appointed and is trying to transform the company to a more competitive and profitable company. He is faced with many challenges among them complaints in sales force, poor performance, bureaucracy etc. he is determined to eliminate these huddles in business. He decides to implement reforms in the whole operations processes of the company especially the sales force (Peters, 112).

Opportunities and problems in the case

Hewlett Packard has an opportunity of increasing its sales as well as efficiently utilizing its workforce to increase their capabilities. The current structure in the sales force is not conducive for the workforce to fully exploit their potential and thus reforms are needed (Doyle and Phillip, 17). The company is faced with the following problems;

1. There exist a lot of layers between the management and the consumer which made the customer satisfaction difficult and also identifying their needs.
2. The company has a high reputation in supply of high technology and it needs to maximize on this by focusing on the largest consumers of their products i.e. corporate customers.
3. There were also some problems in the corporate sales as it consisted of inconsistent earning and lack of growth.
4. Lack of employee motivation and morale especially when it bought the shares of a rival i.e. Compaq.

Analyzing the Solutions for these problems

These problems had to be addressed by the new management in order to make the company better and more profitable. The existing problems had to be addressed. Firstly the management decided to reform the sales force by eliminating those groups which sold a large portfolio of products and were divided according to different products they offered. He also eliminated three layers of sales management to eliminate bureaucracy and also shorten the process chain in the sales department (Pul-wing, Para 8).

Secondly they had to shift focus on the private consumers and put more emphasis on the corporate consumers to stabilize sales and also increase the return on sales.

Thirdly changing the organization culture to fit the new sales management format also experienced difficulty. This was a strategy designed at changing the earlier perception about the company to a more proactive stand which would bring some competitive advantage to the company (Bradley, 22).

And finally the supply chain was to be made more proactive in increasing the sales as the workforce was ensured that it had more time on the clients and also faster and efficient system of data dissemination and storage was adopted from Oracle.

Merits and demerits of the alternatives

Hewlett Packard had the opportunity to reform especially with the new and experienced management, they had to transform to the dream company. However this process has pros and cons, they include;

1. Advantages to the company may include; the company was able to cut down the sales management layers, this enabled it to increase its ability to manage the budgets and also the market. The sales force gained a commanding role as it got a direct control in sales. The restructuring enable the company gain and advantage over both the private and corporate consumers since it got a lot more publicity and space in shopping outlets (Pul-wing, Para 13-9).
2. Despite the benefits that were brought these were disadvantages which came along with the restructuring e.g. layoffs made many jobless and also increasing workload on the remaining workers (Bearden and Thomas, 93).

Recommendations

Restructuring comes with more benefits as compared to the problems and the core motive of being in business has to be put in mind thus the better the production and operations processes the more the sales and return on investment. The brand is also recognized by the aggressive marketing thus becoming the favorite brand (Hooley, 223).

Works cited

Bearden, William, and Thomas Ingram. Marketing: Principles and Perspectives. Chicago: Irwin Publishers, 1995.

Bradley, Frank. Strategic Management: In the customer driven organisation. West Sussex: John Wiley and sons. 2007.

Doyle, Peter, and Phillip Stern. Marketing management and Strategy. 4^th ed. London: Pearson Education press, 2006.

Hooley, Graham. Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning. 4^th ed. London: Pearson Education, 2008.

Peters, Paul. Marketing management: Knowledge and skills. 8^th ed. New York: mc Graw-hill 2007.

Pul-wing, Tam. “Hurds Big Challenge at H.P: Overhauling Corporate Sales.” The Wall street Journal. April 3 2006. A2, A13.