Microsoft Packard Faces Intense Competition Essay

Dell and Hewlett Packard (HP) are two of the most influential companies in the PC market. The CEO of HP requires an understanding of how dells strategy allows it to achieve a competitive advantage so that he/she can counteract it. This report has been carried out to provide the CEO with the necessary information to do this. Therefore the objective of the report is to provide the CEO with detailed information on Dell as a business and its strategy. In order to achieve this, first the main strategies of Dell and how they provide competitive advantage will be identified, then the business models and e-business initiatives used

Changing Market Conditions In the early 1990's, while technological innovation continued to drive the company's success, many business units were being forced to compete on other dimensions. In consumer product lines, low prices, broad availability and ease of use had become competitive requirements. Lew Platt, HP's current President and Chief Executive Officer, once acknowledged the importance of improving customer service and responsiveness, We're not doing as good a job in order fulfillment as we need to. In fact, it's where we get our lowest marks from customers. We have to be a lot easier to do business with. Improvement in order fulfillment will strengthen HP's competitiveness, increase customer satisfaction and reduce expenses, so this is an

Computer technology is constantly advancing over software and hardware that is available at any one given time. These constant changes affect how long computer products can sell for a premium price but also can make it cheaper for those consumers that are not interested in the newest and latest components. Personal computers (PC), also known as desktop computers, are common place in jobs, schools and homes. The demand for personal computers is constant and revolving since components of computers gets better and more powerful with time. The target market then becomes anyone that uses a personal computer for home or work. HP uses the fact that computers are a common item in any office or home to their advantage and offers not only PC’s but other accessories pertaining to computers as well. While HP currently excels at providing a product for a decent price they are missing out on consumers that Equalus will focus

The PC group within HP PPS has been refocused around customer needs. The PC group changed its product line which had a stronger focus on product design. New business models have been the focus of the print group. Business models such as Ink Advantage, is a program designed to target price-sensitive customers in emerging markets. Ink in the Office is an initiative of the print group that targets business customers. The group has expanded differentiated services and solutions by leveraging HP's portfolio of hardware and software, including combining multifunction printers with Autonomy management solutions to develop cloud-based document management services (HP,

The large capital requirements to enter the computer industry combined with established brand identities of the current incumbents make barriers to entry high, not to mention the economies of scale and distribution channels that incumbents enjoy which make entry barriers even higher. The current PC incumbents enjoy demand-side benefit of scale in the business sector where PC buyers prefer to buy products from large trusted companies, raising the level of entry barriers.

Dell Computer Corporation was founded in 1984 by Michael Dell. From the early 1990s until the mid-2000s, Dell was ranked as a PC market leader relying on their distinctive marketing pattern “Direct Model” which undertook direct communication with customers and provided customized products. Recently, the PC industry is facing inconceivable worldwide competition, and Dell is gradually losing their competitive advantages by using its direct model in critical business segments. The company is facing shrinkage of growth, increasing competition, declining quality of customer service, and limitation of expansion. These issues have an enormous impact on Dell’s position as a technological giant in the PC industry.

The website is well organized, making it very simple to find what a person is looking for. Unlike Microsoft, it is well spaced, which helps to grab the reader’s attention. Microsoft’s homepage is setup fairly differently from Apple’s. Instead of having a main ad like Apple, its site has a set of highlights advertising their information. Highlights do not catch a reader’s attention as well as Apple’s large ad. Furthermore, Microsoft’s homepage is also packed with a lot of information in such little space. The information is broken down into bullet points, but the font is small and there are hardly any images to differentiate between the items. There is little to attract the reader to make him/her want to read through this content because it just appears to be boring. Therefore, the homepage of Apple and Microsoft differ.

The PC industry is highly competitive and constantly changing as technology evolves and customer needs change. Some of the top competitors in the PC industry are IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple. Theses rivals are constantly jockeying for the top competitor’s position. They compete in prices, product innovation, advertising, etc.

As indicated in the table above, Dell and HP are the strongest players in the computer industry. These results are also supported by the market share statistics presented in case Exhibit 3. Conversely, the table above indicates Acer as the industry’s weakest rival in part because it focuses on producing low priced computers,

2. What do you think of the way the team set out to find a market for the Kittyhawk? What correct turns and what wrong turns did they make?

By the late 1990s, HP’s business was facing major problems which are reflected in its financial results. Despite a 9.71% increase in total net revenue, HP faced declining net earnings of 6% from 1997 to 1998. The company had also experienced a slow and decreasing growth in revenue in comparison to its main competitors. From 1996 to 1998, HP’s annual revenue growth decreased from 21.89% to 9.71%, while one of its main rivals, Dell, was able to maintain an over-40% revenue growth in each year within the same period. Moreover, HP’s failure to satisfy customer needs and catch

In contrast, HP has a very valuable printer business that Dell does not have in their PC maker. The reason that printers are so profitable is because demand of ink and other necessities. In the PC market HP could not afford to Dell's price margin as they need to spend on their marketing and physical supplies.

Both Dell and HP are two strong players in PC industry which refers to an industry where companies produces PCs (desktops and notebooks), handheld devices (smart phones and tablets), and workstations. However, with growing global expansion, Dell and HP’s performance differs. Dell, once the world’s largest PC maker in 2001, has continually lost its market share to HP and Acer since 2007 (Guglielmo 2009). The cause is rooted in two differences of these companies: company diversifications and core competences. Therefore, how firms can continually survive in the PC business is more of an issue for Dell than for HP.

Acer's dominance as a global manufacturer of IT hardware products can be attributed to the company's extensive electronics component expertise, depth of experience managing global electronics component supply chains, and well-planned acquisitions. Through a series of successful acquisitions, the company has four successful brands including Acer, eMachines, Gateway and Packard-Bell (DiDominico, Kartika, Sibeck, 1996). Of these three strategic areas that Acer excels in, their logistics and supply chain expertise across each of the geographies they compete in continue to deliver the greatest time-to-market and cost gains (Honi, Taring, Po-Young, 2000). Acer is organized into two segments, the device business group and consolidated products and services or other business group. This second group continues to be instrumental in the success of the "divide and conquer" strategies that Acer is successfully using relative to Lenovo. It is also a critical success factors in their success with global markets and local market competitive strategy. The combination of their depth of expertise with electronic components and supply chain prowess in the high technology industry also give the company a formidable competitive advantage against Dell and the troubled PC marker Hewlett-Packard (Honi, Taring, Po-Young, 2000). Despite all these strengths however, Acer continues to struggle with the areas of consumer branding and consumer awareness

Page eight of the case begins to outline some of the challenges that the HP-Cisco alliance had already faced concerning the sale of joint products. For example, we learn that at HP, Cisco products did not count towards a sales representative’s quota and this resulted in a decline in sales of Cisco equipment by HP sales representatives. Further, if HP or Cisco sales staff had to master not only their parent company product line,