Strategy

Strategic Focus on the Hewlett-Packard (HP) Company: Chapter Summary

The Hewlett-Packard company is among the major providers of the imaging and printing-related products, computing devices, enterprise IT services, as well as outsourcing and consultancy services. In the recent past, HP has made some important acquisitions like the purchase of the Electronic Data Systems company in order to gain a competitive advantage over the industry rivals. This step has increased the companys revenues, as well as expanded its profit margins due to the internal cost-cutting and efficiency systems implementation.

The Information Technology (IT) infrastructure is considered to be one of the most successful and efficient programs of HP. The IT infrastructure was created mainly to provide reliable information, reduce costs, simplify the system, improve the business continuity, and support the companys growth. The advanced steps such as a strong balance sheet, more than half profit increase from the recurring services, and diversified revenues are considered the significant competitive advantages of HP enabling the company to operate effectively among the highly competitive rivals.

The company believes in the implementation of strategies and ideas aimed at bringing a visible effect into the organizational objectives. It has recognized the idea that as a rule, the strategic execution goes in line with the strategy formulation. The idea, therefore, has enabled the company to create a new chapter in the business level regarding the implementation of the corporate level strategies for dealing with further diversification. In such a manner, the company managed to consider many segments in its strategic planning and implementation (Bruch, and Ghoshal, 2003).

Functional Strategy

At this level, the distinctive competencies and competitive advantages that are sought by the company are supported with skills, capabilities, and resources. Therefore, it is crucial to match these skills, capabilities, and resources with the business and corporate strategies of the respective business. The detailed action plans concerning the competitiveness and growth strategies of the company, as well as its functional tasks, are created according to the collective patterns of the daily actions and decisions by the employees in charge of the value activities. The functional strategy is, hence, considered effective in terms of responsibilities and patterns of decision making on the human resources, finance, marketing, operations, and information systems. It is employed with a major emphasis on various functional areas of other systems and coordination, which is considered essential for the effective strategic execution. A well-developed functional strategy is characterized with the consistent decision-making (Bruch, and Ghoshal, 2003).

Marketing Strategy

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The strategy is responsible for marketing the employees of the company extend the organizations boundaries to interact with the potential customers. Therefore, it is responsible for the information flow on the projected demands, new business opportunities, competitors actions, and new market opportunities. The information considered in these segments influences the strategies of the future workforce expansion, new technology, as well as the new products and services. In such a manner, it is considered a plan for the market effort investment in resources to achieve the goals of the business. Even though, the diversification increases the scope of business operations, it is considered effective in the implementation of the companys business level strategy.

Operation Strategy

It is a plan for the alignment of the companys service operations with the targeted business strategy to ensure that the multiple interests of all stakeholders are managed in the decision-making. The supply chain management ensures that the interests of the customers and suppliers are integrated. However, it faces challenges in aligning the priorities to a specific strategy.

Research and Development Strategy

It is very essential for the effective implementation of strategies as it defines the priorities in the development of services in terms of new products, property protection, long-term innovation efforts, and other partnerships required for the advancement of the innovation goals. The R&D managers can always extend the product application to other markets or ensure the product efficiency through certain modifications (Bruch, and Ghoshal, 2003).

Human Resource Strategy

The strategy is responsible for defining the approach for selection, recruitment, training, and evaluation of the performance or performance rewards. The human resource managers are charged with the responsibility of coordinating the organization management with its employees, as well as external stakeholders. The managers, thus, play a major role in shaping the selection criteria, monitoring the employee performance, deciding on the need for training and salary level determination.

Financial Strategy

It plays a vital role in controlling the funds needed for acquiring, developing, and utilizing the strategic resources as they are vital for the successful implementation of strategies. The two financial plans are given concern; the expense budget is crucial for supporting the continuous daily business activities while the huge capital is required for the development strategies in providing sufficient resources to maintain the stiff market competitions. Being supervised by the Chief Financial Officer, the financial department decides on the efficient levels of equity, debt, and internal finances needed for the continuity of the services that the company offers.

Information System Strategy

The strategy is to provide the organization with the technological services that are vital for planning, controlling, and operation of the business based on the knowledge creation, as well as distribution and storage of information. The IT serves a major role in connection of the companys employees and relevant stakeholders; hence, it is creating a platform for the competition with a more aggressive financial management. It must be well coordinated in terms of the strategies and overall functions of the company as it functions within all business plans of the organization.

Even at the lowest-level employees are able to make an informed conclusions and decisions with the help of the IT services such as spreadsheets and expert systems, among another computer software. Therefore, the strategy is vital for manufacturing, marketing, production schedules, product designs, speed, and flexibility in meeting the customer demand. Many organizations fail in creating the effective systems to be used for planning the enterprise resources and managing information throughout the whole organization (Bruch, and Ghoshal, 2003).

The Organizational Structure

The structure specifies the types and number of units, departments, or teams and provides formal reporting relationships and lines of communication between the stakeholders within the organization. For proper structuring of an organization, it should consider that there is no perfect structure; hence, there is always room for a corresponding structural change to eliminate the inefficiencies and ensure appropriateness of the performance. The strategic business unit, therefore, enhances the information flow and coordination of activities within the company.

The foreign subsidies are also implemented to meet the internal needs. They bring special contribution that is effective in an interdependent network and subsidizing the business with a worldwide mandate for the entire global business services. The support of the strategies implementation also plays a vital role through the organization culture and energy.

In conclusion, different companies employ the strategic directions and culture leaders that ensure creativity, awareness, and risk taking. They build effective human resource and communication systems for facilitating the new products creation and effective provision of services. Therefore, the financial ability enables them to be flexible in the new ventures in the market.

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