Innovative Strategies For Reducing Churn And Growing: A Case Study Of HP Norway

Analysis of the issues identified

Hewlett-Packard company (HP) is a pacesetter in provision of products, technologies, services and solutions to consumers and businesses the world over. In 2002 the company merged with Compaq computer Corporation in what was and still is the largest tech-merger in history [1]. Crucially though, the operations of the new tech giant, retained HP as the name, went on in all parts of the world as if nothing had taken place thanks largely to the company’s impeccable application of enterprise architecture. This report takes a look at a case study of HP Norway, who were able to relocate and swiftly continue their operations, and analyzes how they were able to seamlessly move on from the old order of things to the new order.

Chief among the issues that HP Norway were faced with was integrating former HP and Compaq employees and fully understanding their behaviors so as to identify where changes needed to be made in order to achieve the company’s vision of a unified HP with a new business model that would see the company become a dominant player in its markets. Further this integration process would be complicated by the company moving to a new location that could house both the employees as well as the resources of the previous two companies. The company recognized that they needed to complete the relocation without losing their market momentum as this would mean loss of potential revenue and hard time trying to again catch up with its competitors in the market. This was the point at which the vision of the new company would come into the fore.

HP Norway also realized that in order for them to continue being competitive, they needed to maintain and continually uphold their core values which had initially helped them to continually grow their business while still taking care of their responsibility to the customers, shareholders and the employees themselves in their fifty years of existence. This had to be done in a seamless manner without causing any potential resistance from some of the staff who were not familiar with the ‘HP way’. To this end, HP Norway quickly realized that they had to acquire the services of a reputable consultant company to ensure everything goes on smoothly.

Anywhere in the world where people of different ancestry come together, integration is key to their peaceful coexistence and ensuring growth if need be [2]. We always need to understand each other in order to get the best out of one another and avoid potential problems. This is like a rule of the thumb for without it not much progress can be achieved. Organizations and businesses are no exception to this rule. As businesses continually seek stability and growth and a reflection of the two in the revenues and profits generated, one of the key things that they always look into is how to integrate new people into the organization and ensure smooth transition or how to quickly adapt to new markets during their expansion expeditions and quickly endear themselves to the customer base the said markets [3]. Indeed, the most profitable of businesses and the very best in their lines of operations are quite adept at this. They recognize the fact that you need people coming into the business and be up and running as fast as possible to avoid derailing the business as much as possible. Moreover, they recognize that for new markets, they need to convince the customer base that they mean well and that whatever they are offering is up there with the very best if not the best of such products available in their markets. This is partly why HP Norway has managed to remain a leader in their line of businesses despite the stiff competition offered by other firms in the same line of business. This case indicates how key integration is to the success of a business.

Retention of customer base

When a business shifts it premises and does not execute it well, it can result into losses for the business as for some time, the business will not be able to operate to full capacity or not be able to operate at all as they will struggle to come to terms with the unforeseen circumstances accompanying such moves. Apart from just losses, the business also stands to lose its customer base because the period for which they are not able to operate at full strength means that they are not able to meet their customers demands in case they had not taken care of that before moving places. The customers will turn to alternative solutions and as most businesses can testify, it can be a daunting task to gain customers. Businesses must therefore intricately plan their relocation and identify and work on potential challenges they are likely to encounter during the whole process. They also need to address how their customers needs will be met during the process to ensure that they do not lose customers. If this the relocation process is done well, the business will be able to reap from the benefits of its new premises as well as be safe in the knowledge that they have retained their customer base and have remained competitive. In the HP Norway case, they were able to recognize this and what resulted was a seamless relocation with operations continued as if nothing had actually taken place. They were also able to retain their customer base in the process.

Retention of customers and acquisition of new ones is the goal of every business as it directly means increase in revenues and profits generated by the business [4]. No business can run without customers since businesses cannot sell their products or services to themselves. Generally speaking businesses need to device ways of keeping their customers and acquiring new ones [5]. Indeed, the very best of the businesses do this. But the real determinant of whether the business will be able to retain its customers or lose them is in how the business operates. That is the culture and core values of the business. Businesses with a culture that augurs well with their customer will always retain their customers and gain many more because the customers will always be happy with what they get. Generally speaking, each and every business has its only culture and core values but the quality of service or product offered and superb customer relations make for a good business culture for indeed these are what most customers are looking for. This why the HP way has greatly helped HP to maintain and dominate its market while at the same maintaining its obligations to its employees and shareholders.

The above zachman framework [7] captures among other things what prompted the need for office relocation, what HP Norway had to do to ensure a smooth relocation. It also covers why there was the need for the said smooth relocation and what had to be done to ensure everything falls into place before the actual relocation. Also captured in is HP Norway’s insistence on the HP way, a system of core values which have kept the company going for the last 50 years.

The framework is a good one as it is exhaustive and covers all the tenets that HP Norway had to put into consideration before relocation and the actual cause of the relocation.

Conclusion

The HP Norway case provides a clear example of the strength of the Zachman framework if well applied. The fact that they were able to merge and relocate without affecting their business or its market momentum is recommendable and should be used as a case study for businesses that are undertaking such changes.

References

Accenture, “Managing change at HP Norway,” 2003.

J. A. Breaugh and S. Mary, “Research on Employee Recruitment: So Many Studies, So Many Remaining Questions,” Journal of Management , 2000.

The Economist, Labours Lost?, 2015.

The International Customer Service Institute, ” The International Customer Service Standard,” 2009.

N. Mehta, D. Steinman and L. Murphy , Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue, Wiley, 2016.

B. Terry , B. Rick and D. Jesse , “The Zachman Framework Populated with Baseball Models,” Journal of Enterprise Architecture, 2006.

S. Jaap, How to Survive in the Jungle of Enterprise Architecture Frameworks, 2003.

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