The Business Sector Size Of Equipment

Teams were able to introduce a new line of microcomputers in four different regions. All five teams were entering the market at the same time and they started with exactly the same amount of resources and knowledge of the market. There were three business segments in PC market. The higher priced Mercedes segment, included high performance computer for use in engineering and manufacturing applications. The medium priced, largest group of customers was the Workhorse segment, which was based on easy to use PC. The Traveler segment included practical computer to use while traveling and their customers were price sensitive. In quarter one, the teams were to establish their firm and set up their shop. Following, in quarter two, the teams dived in to test the market. In quarter three, the teams had to make some changes and decided on market expansion. In quarter four, they made choices to invest in the future. In quarter five, they had to expand their business strategies. In quarter six, they were able to adjust their firm’s strategies, tactics, study the market, review financials, evaluation production data if it was

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

For big companies like Hewlett-Packard is very important to set goals and after reading more about his company, now I know why it has become one of the most important companies in the world.

Marketplace, especially in technology business is growing fast and constantly bringing the new offers to the consumers. As a society we have an ongoing strive for newer and better things. It’s a part of the nature and it might seem like a race, but we tend to think that we can always have something improved. We get a phone, but the new model comes out a month later. We are most likely to go and get the new one, because it has more functions than our other phone. Do we really need that new phone? Probably not, but it’s the need for the newer and better things that will always be there and rule the marketplace. It is a great opportunity for the businesses to grow and to satisfy the consumer’s needs.

In order to make this concept real, Staples has to build competitive advantage through finding the right management team who are experienced in this area, looking for the right location to open their stores in order to be close to the target customers, deciding on how many staffs needed in a store to be effective, establishing a distribution channel where suppliers will cooperate according to their operations, choosing the selection of the product required and the amount inventory to keep, managing costs and be efficient all the time, and communicating their value to the target customers. A key organizational capability that Staples realizes instantly is to have an information system that can help them to manage the process better in place, which greatly contributes to increase Staples' efficiency. Such system is able to help Staples to get the right merchandise mix in order to be profitable through monitoring customers' needs, and attain low cost structure by making sure that the inventories turnover accordingly. In sum, Staples is successful in building most of its intangible and tangible asset and develop organizational capability

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

Hewlett-Packard: Develops, assembles, and sells computer hardware and printers. The firm outsources many of its computer and printer components.

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,

And these analyses will be done with the help of Porter’s 5 forces (see appendix 1, 2, 3). This analysing toll deals with issues which are from outside the industry that impacts the nature of competition within the certain industry. Thurlby, (1998) stated “Understanding the nature of each of these forces gives organisations the necessary insights to enable them to formulate the appropriate strategies to be successful in their market”1. The analysis of the three industry are given belowPC industry (See appendix 1) This competition within the PC industry is extraordinarily high consisting with top companies like Dell, HP, Apple, Gateway and Sony. In order to gain competitive advantage, the key factors are advancement in technology, custom built PCs, reliability and standard customer service. The life cycle of PC industry can be seen as mature (See appendix 6); however the growth of PC’s has not decline. The reason is due to the globalisation trends taking place within the major firms. The barriers very high where there are already five main firms that dominate the market. Therefore, the chances of new PC companies entering the market and get significant hold of market share is very slender. The main two factors that are making the entry level high are mainly cost and distribution and the top five firms also control 70 per cent of the global personal computer market. Another factor may be is that

The advantages of Dells model are: The internet allows Dell an extensive scope and reach for its products at a relatively low price (Dedrick and Kraemer 2001). Using the internet Dell has been able to automate many of its business functions, such as product configuration, order entry and technical support (Dedrick & Kraemer 2001), therefore the company can achieve higher revenues without customer service costs increasing greatly. Online configuration ensures that the customer gets exactly what they want. Dells build to order strategy means that inventory levels are low, they only hold approximately 4-8 days of stock, therefore inventory costs are low (Breen 2004).

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.

MICROSOFT (windows server) 2. INTEL ( cutting-edge technology) 3. SAP ( IT infrastructure) 4. VMWaRE ( virtual infrastructure solutions) 5. ORACLE ( database solutions) 6. BMC (data centre automation.) 7. BROCADE ( networking solutions) Cost structure36 1. Cost of Revenue $48260m 2. Sales & Admin expense $7664m 3. R&D Expense $856m 4. Capital Expenditure $675m 5. Total Acquisition $2562m 6. Total Operating expense $57640m 7. Software&network 33 %&39% increase Revenue streams21 Key resources35 1. Acquisition 2. Brand equity 3. Long ability (as high per company) 4. Intellectual property 5. R&D and revenue stream 6. Human resource 7. Core competence Key activity37 1. Support & deployment Services 2. Cloud & security services 3. Software & peripherals ( Printer, TV, networking, wear less product, anti-virus) 4. Client product (PC, Monitor, note book, work station, tablet, Smart phone) 5. Developing technologies ( in 2011 its open the dell silicon valley research and development centre ) Value proposition 1. Dell customization 2. Direct sell approach 3. Product configuration 4. Pre & post sell customer

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.

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,

By grafting its system of custom direct sales onto the Internet infrastructure, Dell has transformed these activities, creating an innovative and efficient procurement, production, and distribution network. The innovative advance made by Dell in deploying Internet communication as the foundation of its production network, is a process innovation. Although to some extent, the Internet has enabled Dell to create a new product -- a PC custom-configured through Internet communication -- it is the process of organizing flows of materials and information within its network, from customer order to procurement, production and delivery, by means of Internet communication, that defines the innovation at the Firm. The case supports this notion by stating “While most other PCs were sold preconfigured and pre-assembled in retail stores, Dell offered superior customer choice in system configuration at a deeply discounted price, due to the cost-savings associated with cutting out the retail middleman. Additionally, an important side-benefit of the Internet-based direct sales model was that it generated a wealth of market data the company used to efficiently forecast demand trends and carry out effective segmentation strategies. This data drove the company’s product development efforts and allowed Dell to profit from information on the value drivers in each of its key customer