Hewlett-Packard Target Market, Essay Example

The company Hewlett-Packard (HP) started business back in 1947 in California. This followed the partnership of William R. Hewlett and David Packard back in 1939 (Hewlett-Packard Co., 2011). Today, this company provides their products globally and also extends other services such as technological, software solutions as well as individual service to customers to large enterprises. These services are also not limited to private sectors; they offer services to the public as well as educational sectors.

HP is in the Diversified Computer Systems industry in the Technology sector (Hewlett-Packard Company, 2011). They provide their products to individuals who purchase mostly at reseller stores and other authorized dealerships and also target small businesses to large enterprises, providing them with all their information technology needs from computers, to printers up to customer service support (Hewlett-Packard Co., 2011). The growing number of customers and account acquisitions following HP, they have opened up a number of offices across the globe. This company has well penetrated the global economy and has made HP a household name, mostly known for their desktop computers as well as their printers.

The main marketing strategy of HP is targeted specifically at small to mid-sized businesses. Marketing is highly important for the IT giant who devotes over 86 marketing departments for the brand. The size of the market is currently being seen at around 3-4% of the industry, and penetration is seeing to rise by around 10% thanks to the partnership with Compaq back in 2004. This is along with their expanded entrepreneur program. They do this by driving at growth, improving overall productivity and protecting important assets. They am to provide assistance for these small to medium sized businesses by keeping their current clients and generating new ones by utilizing a marketing scheme. They retain current consumers by relying on their Customer Relationship Management program. This enables them to create a more efficient and effective marketing strategy. This market strategy is customer-driven and raises the profile of the brand’s image to other potential consumers.

Their main competitors are seen as CAN, DELL and IBM. HP comes in as the second largest in the industry, right behind the IT giant which is IBM (Hewlett-Packard Co., 2011).

Back in 2008, when there was a decline in the economy, HP saw that there were still opportunities available for the company to expand (Walsh, 2008). Although, instead of trying to generate new customers or capture new businesses, HP saw that they could grow revenue with their existing clients to be able to keep their costs in check. During this time, HP was said to have a new marketing tactic. Many criticized this move as being very controversial, with HP going for an outbound marketing directive with over 100 call center representatives trying to generate new accounts even though the center only has 500 seats. In defense to this criticism, Channel Chief Adrian Jones States:

“In SMB, we’re looking for co-investment, not just HP putting a bunch of money into the partner. ROI is key. Analytics is [showing] which technical and customer that they’re going after. I don’t want to dilute business; I don’t want the partners to go after the same customers. All of the customers that we’re going after today have never bought HP products.” (Walsh, 2008) Jones says in an interview with Channel Insider by Lawrence Walsh.

The program marketing campaign, which launched some time in 2008 was aimed at consumers who have never bought HP products in their lives (Walsh, 2008). The accounts to be generated are supposedly in cooperation with HP resellers around the globe. The investment in business as well as revenue growth is very important for HP and other companies alike. With the acquisition of these new accounts, HP can reap in revenues of $135 billion annually. During this time, HP was looking towards the acquisition of EDS which would add another $22 billion to their already jaw-dropping annual revenue (Walsh, 2008).

HP is looking to seize the market, targeting new customers with the revolutionary technology (Hewlett-Packard Company, 2011). They are currently looking to new marketing schemes, promoting their new products that claim to be breakthroughs in technology. The most popular and the newest in products now are HP’s Smartphone, the Palm Pilot which is targeted for the teen market. Along with these, new and high-tech printers with great wireless capabilities are also now the new rave in the market.

References

Hewlett-Packard Company. (2011). Yahoo Finance Summary. Retrieved from    http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=HPQ

Hewlett-Packard Co. (2011). Business & C ompany Resource Center. Document No. DC304290

Walsh, L. (2008). More Hewlett-Packard Coverage. Channel Insider. Retrieved from             http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Hewlett-Packard/HP-Welcomes-Proposals-That-Target-NonHP-Customers/