HISTORY, ACHIEVEMENTS, PRODUCTS, SUCCESS, PROBLEMS AND WAYS TO IMPROVE
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Organization 3
History 3
Timeline 4
Achievements 5
Products 6
Problems and Ways to Improve 7
- Organization – Hewlett-Packard
- Key points
- Hewlett-Packard is a multinational information technology company
- Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, US at the heart of the Silicon Valley
- 75th on the list of Fortune 500 largest U.S. industrial companies
- Average revenue of US$4.7 billion
- History
- Key points
- Started in a rented garage on January 1st in 1939
- David Packard and William R. Hewlett founded the company in 1939
- The company started with US$534 capital
- HP 200A audio oscillators was HP’s first product
- Timeline – see lists of events in the timeline section
- Achievements
- Key points
- Deming Prize award for the excellence in product quality in 1982
- American Society for Training and Development citations
- CRN Annual Report Card for reaching the highest benchmark in the tech industry
- Best Global Green Brand award
- Products
- Key points
- The first products that HP launched when it started its venture are a line of oscillators with 200A model as its first product
- Microwave devices
- Medical equipment
- 300A wave analyzer
- 400B voltmeter HP, 197A Camera, 9100A calculator, HP-85 computer and HP’s first laptop HP-110 in 1984
- Inkjet and deskjet printers
- Problems and ways to improve
- Problems
- Restructuring plans
- Cost cutting measures
- Job cuts
- Way of improvement
- Flexi time employee preference
- Close down operations on non-performing locations
Hewlett Packard
Organization
Hewlett-Packard is a multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, US at the heart of the Silicon Valley. Its current President heads the American company and CEO Meg Whitman backed by highly qualified executives in continuously spearheading the world’s Information technology market. The US$4.7 billion company is hailed as one of the best-managed corporations in the world rank’s 75th on the list of Fortune 500 largest U.S. industrial companies.
History
The idea of Hewlett-Packard or relatively known as HP as a company started in a rented garage on January 1st in 1939 when David Packard and William R. Hewlett tossed the coin to decide the order of the name to appear for their company. Packard and Hewlett are classmates at the Frederick E. Terman’s radio engineering program at Stanford University in 1934 when they started thinking about forming their own company. Armed with confidence and US$534 in their pockets, Packard and Hewlett gave birth to a now considered as an information technology giant in the world. Before the company started, Packard was working for General Electric in New York while Hewlett continued with his graduate studies in MIT. The two founders continued with their separate endeavors until they decided to concentrate on developing products for their HP Company and before long, Walt Disney Studios is already knocking on their garage door to order eight of their HP 200B audio oscillators to be used for the production of the movie Fantasia. The next events in the history of HP led to the further growth of the company establishing the company as one of the premier manufacturers of IT related products.
Timeline
1938 – Packard began his part-time work for the first products of the company.
1939 – HP officially established the company and its brand name.
1947 – The company officially incorporated with revenue topping at US$1.5 million.
1957 – HP went public offering its first public stocks.
1959 – The company entered the international markets with its marketing operations situated in Geneva, Switzerland.
1966 – HP Laboratories was formed as its central research facility.
1970 – When the US economy went to recession, HP instituted 10-hours a day work period with pay reduction to insinuate cost reduction without sacrificing the jobs of its employees.
1972 – HP introduced its first handheld calculator HP-35 and HP 3000 minicomputer.
1973 – HP became the first American company to institute flextime that allows employees to choose their desired flexible working hours.
1976-1977 – HP earned its first billion-dollar revenue mark.
1980 – HP introduced its first personal line of personal computer products.
1982 – The company earned the prestigious Deming Prize for Excellence in Quality.
1984 – The company created the market for fast and affordable printers.
1987 – The founders Packard and Hewlett retired from their board positions and appointed the new generation of executive leaders for the company.
1995 – HP have expanded its product lines from computing to medical equipment.
1996 – Co-founder David Packard passed away and the same year, the company’s revenue bloomed to US$38.4 billion, the biggest in its history at that time.
The new millennia to present – HP became a US$97 billion company with 156,000 and operating in 170 countries worldwide.
Achievements
HP is continuously making history and its legacy remains significant in today’s age of technological advancement. Through the years, the company gained important achievement not only as a manufacturing and technology innovator, but as a company that promotes diversity and people-centric organization. This includes the promotion of work environment that incorporates trust, teamwork and reward programs for employees that made significant contribution to the company’s success. In addition to product achievements, the company is also proud to have the Deming Prize award for the excellence in product quality in 1982. Currently, HP won two of the ASTD (American Society for Training and Development) citations for learning and development in 2012. Furthermore, the international segments of the company is also earning recognitions such as the Global e-Business Operations Center in Bucharest, Romania gaining the top spot as the best company in Bucharest for 2012. Other industries such as the Technology Service Industry Association (TSIA) also recognize HP as a top company that provides excellent commercial support and services. Vendor partners gave HP the highest award for CRN Annual Report Card for hitting the highest benchmark of a solution provider based on the satisfaction rating of the vendor partners and innovators of volume servers, netbooks and mobile computers. Environmental protection has always been a top priority of HP given its product initiatives to go green and gained the Best Global Green Brand award. These achievements are only short lists of the several recognitions that HP gained and the company continuously commit to improving its products and services in order to realize greater success.
Products
Hewlett-Packard has long been a household name before the brand became well known in the computing industry. The company has established a wide variety of product lines throughout its seven decades of existence. The first products that HP launched when it started its venture are a line of oscillators with 200A model as its first product. Audio oscillators are used to generate a single pure tone at a time at a precise frequency. Oscillators are very expensive during the 1930’s and HP and its founders have found a way to simplify the circuits and stabilize the equipment’s operations while keeping the cost down. The oscillator devices have continued to evolve until new products were developed such as the 300A wave analyzer, 400B voltmeter, HP197A Camera, 9100A calculator, HP-85 computer and HP’s first laptop HP-110 in 1984.
One of the products that HP is very much well known about is its long line of printer products starting with Deskjet printer introduced in 1988. In the dawn of the age of modern technology, HP continued to develop its products to more sophisticated equipment that caters to medical field, communication, imaging and computing. Currently, the company is focusing its efforts on mobile and computing innovations, which includes raising the bar of online e-commerce services through the introduction of more powerful networking infrastructures. Much of the company’s revenue came from imaging (printer) and computer sales. However, the company is also gaining new grounds in solutions services as part of the customer value package intended to provide corporate clients with computing solutions to that enables operational efficiencies. The continuous expansion of product lines, innovation and development fostered by HP’s own research laboratory opens greater opportunities for future growth.
Problems and Ways to Improve
Despite the relentless success of the company in terms of revenue growth, product diversity and operational expansion, there are still problems that the company is constantly battling with. For instance restructuring plans needed to ensure that the company is constantly adhering to the changing market trends pushes the company to cut cost, which encompasses the risk for massive lay-offs. In 2005, the then CEO Mark Hurd announced the cost-cutting initiatives that the company is about to implement to address the issues of rising overhead and operational cost. The encompassing problem is this plan is the massive job cutting in several locations of the company. Such problem is always apparent for the company since its early years when economic recessions call for desperate measures for the company to cut significant cost to sustain operations. In addition, HP is also seeking to integrate global operations in its current business segments in order to achieve greater efficiency and accountability.
There are several ways that the company can improve in terms of cost reduction. HP is found to be operating in 170 countries around the world. However, not all locations are performing well in favor of revenue. HP can allocate its investments on more feasible locations and close down operations on non-performing countries to reduce operational cost. In addition, the flexi time approach was considered as an effective method in keeping employees from losing their jobs. Flexi time is effective in such a way that employees can be given a chance to find other jobs and dedicate preferred time to HP. This approach will allow the company to set minimum overhead targets that align with the company’s current financial limits. Although HP’s annual revenue is still considerably high, the room for improvement with the company is towards its marketing efforts, which is perceived to be weaker as compared to industry competitors.
Bibliography
Burt, Jeffrey. "HP Realigns Global Operations." Technology News, Tech Product Reviews, Research and Enterprise Analysis. Last modified June 20, 2006. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-and-Notebooks/HP-Realigns-Global-Operations/.
The article provides significant insight to the developments in HP and future plans for the company’s expansion programs. The realignment plans laid upon by HP to address the need to sustain the company’s momentum of growth was clearly elaborated in the article. EWeek published the article as source of useful information that highlight HP’s future initiatives, which includes cost cutting measures in response to the company’s restructuring.
Hp.com. "HP Newsroom: HP Awards & Honors." hp.com. Accessed October 8, 2013. http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/awards/.
This source comes from the collection of webpages from HP’s official website. This is where all the historical and current achievements of the company were posted. The significance of the information stipulated in the achievement page of HP website is to justify the reason why HP is a reliable brand. It is helpful for the company to have its achievements displayed to the public to show the dedication that the company has in further improving their products and services.
Moritz, Michael. "Getting Personal: Hewlett-Packard's Personal Computers - TIME." TIME.com. Last modified April 30, 1984. http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951058,00.html.
The 1984 edition of TIME magazine featured HP and its story that helped shape the trends of today’s computing era. This article encompasses the relevant historical milestones of the company in reaching its current status through the introduction of personal computers among its long line of popular products. The significance of the information contained in the article is geared towards the evolutionary phase that the company has gone through the years.
Rigby, Bill. "HP to restructure, may cut jobs - analysts - CIOL." CIOL: Information Technology News. Last modified July 15, 2005. http://www.ciol.com/ciol/news/92636/hp-restructure-cut-jobs-analysts.
This article features the challenges that HP is often facing from time to time due to the shifting economic conditions around the world. Restructuring on the other hand is a way for the company to position itself in the past-paced information industry. However, restructuring means cutting cost, which entails loss of employment for most of HP’s employees. The information contained in this article is a key point in determining the relevant actions that HP needs to undertake in order to avoid potential risks.
Santa Clara Valley Historical Association. "Hewlett-Packard." Silicon Valley Historical Association. Last modified 2008. http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!hewlett-packard-company-history/c38e.
The Santa Clara Valley Historical Association highlights the significant events in history taking to the account the humble start of the company from a small rented garage into a multi-billion dollar empire. The article delivers the historical events on the development of HP as a company including the important year in which significant milestones were achieved by the company.
Schwartz , Ephraim. "HP helps users meld business with IT." InfoWorld. Last modified May 31, 2004. http://www.infoworld.com/t/business/hp-helps-users-meld-business-it-758.
The article features the future plans of the company in terms of technological integration of new platforms to its current product line. One example is the implementation of e-commerce in its services to enable a more interactive experience for the customers. This is in response to the company’s perceived need to have alternative process that will render convenience to the customers and innovation on the part of the company.
