Designing Innovative Products for the Future

APPLY AND ASSESS REPORT

Apply and Assess Introduction

Research Outcomes

Outcome Statement. As a result of researching the cause of Hewlett-Packard’s loss of revenue, the researcher will supply a guide for the company to use to ensure that it can once again be competitive in the tech industry and once again produce revolutionary, innovative new products that are in demand by consumers and that can thus effectively increase the company’s revenue.

Research Question. What led to HP’s loss of revenue and how can it reverse this trend?

Research Hypothesis. It is hypothesized that by getting away from its core founding principles and values, HP engaged on a losing path. By returning to its core founding principles—namely a focus on innovation—HP will be able to strengthen its brand and become dominant in the industry once more, leading it to increasing sales of in-demand products and thus increase of revenue.

Research Design

The type of research conducted was a descriptive study of the variables that led to HP’s loss of revenue in the first place from the start of the 21st century, when the company was eclipsed by Apple and Microsoft, till now when HP is trying to right itself and get back lost revenue. The descriptive study approach is most appropriate as it provides a suitable means of collecting data to analyze and identify themes and issues that can help to describe the reasons for HP’s loss of revenue (Houghton, Murphy, Shaw & Casey, 2015). De Massis and Kotler (2014) point out that a descriptive study “should be adopted when the aim of the research is to convince someone” of a phenomenon’s basic characteristics (p. 16). Since the goal of this research was to identify the basic characteristics of HP’s loss of revenue and compare them to the characteristics of HP’s earlier years when its revenue was much higher, descriptive study is a logical approach.

Review of the Literature

Outsourcing and Bad Acquisitions

HP began turning over its talent and labor to workers in other parts of the world (Mourdoukoutas, 2014). As a result of HP’s outsourcing, much of its manufacturing went to other countries, and more than half of its production was done overseas by the early 21st century (Bandler & Burke, 2012). This caused big problems for worker morale in the States as no one was quite sure whose job was safe and where the next relocations would occur. There was no incentive to commit oneself to the company and no long-term vision. A revolving door of CEOs with murky led the way to HP’s decline as outsourcing and bad acquisitions continued for years (Woolley, 2010). The company tried to buy its way into relevance again with strategic acquisitions that proved costly and ineffective. HP made a number of unwise acquisitions in an effort to be relevant in the tech sector. However, the company was looking backwards instead of forwards. By purchasing Compaq, Palm and Autonomy in 2001, 2010 and 2011 respectively (at substantial cost to the company), HP thought it would be able to scale in the PC, mobile phone, and software markets (Bandler & Burke, 2012).

Falling Behind Competitors

HP was constantly having to play catch-up with its competitors (Kalb, 2012a). Even when it had the opportunity to invest in a new idea, HP let the idea get away—as was the case with Apple’s Wozniack who offered his new PC ideas to HP 5 times before linking up with Jobs at Apple and going on to produce some of the most dynamic, ground-breaking equipment in the tech world (Ong, 2010).

Competitors like Apple, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon were arriving on the scene with new products that were changing the face of tech (Felsted, 2017) and HP was nowhere to be found. It lagged in every way, from PCs to tablets to phones to automation. Apple led the way with innovative new software and hardware and Microsoft quickly caught up to speed. Amazon took tech in a different direction by linking markets, supporting cloud computing, and taking business online in a way that had never been seen before.

In its early days, HP was focused on innovation. Its humble origins were in a garage in Palo Alto in 1939, but innovation was always at the heart of the company’s vision, and with the development of precision audio oscillator, which HP called the Model HP200A, the company blasted onto the scene of the tech world in a big way. The Model HP200A used a small pilot light to stabilize the device’s output—something that made the device more effective and efficient and made businesses want to use it. The product beat competitors’ products in terms of pricing by more than half and brought the company to the attention of major corporations like Walt Disney, which used HP’s oscillators in its theaters. Over the next several decades, HP’s dedication to innovation made it into a leader in the tech industry—but when the company got way from its innovative principle (and completely missed out on advancing the designs of Steve Wozniak, who was an HP employee before going on to form Apple with Jobs) HP essentially began its downward spiral into decades of losing revenues and stagnant product lines (Ong, 2010).

No Focus on Innovation as CEOs Turn Backs on Core Founding Principle

For HP, the revenues started sliding as soon as the company began focusing on cost-cutting measures as opposed to innovations (Taylor, 2011; Kalb, 2012b; Zook, 2016). It laid off workers, and its leadership stumbled. Under Fiorina accelerated its lackadaisical approach to the tech industry: its performance declined and she was criticized for “transforming a company that was an innovative market leader focused on high-growth, high-profit businesses into a company that was a market follower focused on low-growth, low-profit businesses” (Kalb, 2012b). Fiorina’s arrival and departure from HP cost the firm almost as much as it paid in penalty fees to the SEC for its bribery violations. Mark Hurd followed but only covered over HP’s problems by cutting costs: nothing new was actually being developed and put to market. Leo Apotheker replaced Hurd and HP’s value continued to decline: its stock price plummeted by nearly 50%. Apotheker completely lost sight of HP’s vision and principles and employee morale disintegrated under his watch. He left Meg Whitman to clean up, but she inherited a company in 2011 that was facing extensive lay-offs, a deteriorated organizational culture, a loss of innovative focus, and a lack of principles within the organization’s structure (Taylor, 2011). Whitman attempted to fix the problems that HP was facing by splitting the company into two entities (Hardy, 2014). This did not immediately solve HP’s issues and revenue losses continued. The company again began looking to make strategic acquisitions, making the same mistakes the company had made earlier in the decade, by purchasing companies like Autonomy which led to a nearly $9 billion write-off.

Cutting Corners

HP among other companies violated SEC and other FTC laws in order to pursue contracts using bribes (Lawrence, Solomon & Bosworth, 2014; Saintvillus, 2014). Like so many other companies engaging in cost-cutting to save the bottom like (Hargreaves, 2010; McNulty & Pfeifer, 2010; Urbina, 2010; Mitchell, 2015; Mourdoukoutas, 2016; Druck, 2017; Gruley, Voreasco & Deaux, 2017), HP was trying to reduce spending to stay relevant—but consumers were not interested in what the company was bringing to market. Cutting costs did not bring anything new to their lives. That is why so many consumers flocked to Apple with its revolutionary new iPhone and then to Microsoft when it came out with a similar design. Innovation was the key to their success (Bloomberg, 2017). HP was not paying attention to this fact, however. Under CEO Mark Hurd, HP saw an increase in net income—but this did not last long as his main instrument in achieving this outcome was not innovation but rather cost-cutting—which was not a specific core founding principle or vision of the company but rather a tool for masking over deeper underlying problems related to the organization’s departure from its core values and vision as an innovator (Saintvillus, 2014).

Conclusions

Summary

This research was focused on identifying the characteristics of HP’s loss of revenue over the past two decades since Fiorina took over as CEO of the company in 1999. Instead of looking forward in terms of innovation to see how it could make the markets better for consumers through the development of new products, it was playing catch-up and the companies it purchased brought no real added value to the firm in the end; instead, they left HP with mounting debts (Mourdoukoutas, 2014). Bandler and Burke (2012) note that HP “didn’t boast a single hit consumer product even as 67% of its revenue stemmed from hardware.” Competitors like Apple, IBM and Oracle were forward-looking and innovation-focused, delivering products and services that consumers were clamoring for in the new Digital Age (Kalb, 2012a; Felsted, 2017). HP was viewing the market as though it were still in the 1990s and letting its talent get away to competitors (Ong, 2010).

HP suffered from a decline in the quality of its organizational culture, which stemmed from a lack of leadership (Woolley, 2010). Under CEO Leo Apotheker, employees had become “disengaged” and the workplace felt “traumatized”—layoffs were just around the corner, creativity had been stymied, and workers were uninspired to perform (Taylor, 2011). Indeed, workers were fatigued from more than a decade of lackadaisical leadership, from Carly Fiorina’s appointment to the top spot in 1999 to Mark Hurd’s tenure, Leo Apotheker’s aloofness, and Meg Whitman’s survivalist mode of cold, calculating cost-cutting (Hardy, 2014).

Because of all this, profits were declining substantially. In the third quarter following its announcement that it would write off $8.8 billion because its acquisition of Autonomy was worthless, HP had already lost $6.9 billion (Kalb, 2012b). The company’s shares were sliding dramatically. Its leaders had no good solutions to solve the problems; the company was under investigation by the SEC for a number of issues stemming from bribery and its attempts to cut costs through outsourcing (Lawrence et al., 2014), which put it right in line with other companies that were engaging either in outright fraud or neglect from attempting to stop losses (Hargreaves, 2010; McNulty & Pfeifer, 2010; Urbina, 2010; Saintvillus, 2014; Mitchell, 2015; Mourdoukoutas, 2016; Druck, 2017; Gruley, Voreasco & Deaux, 2017). From Fiorina to Hurd to Apotheker to Whitman, none of HP’s executives seemed to realize that the way to save the company was to get back to its innovative roots, as other companies were showing (Bloomberg, 2017; Felsted, 2017): indeed, HP’s core founding principle had been to focus on innovation, and having an innovative vision was what had catapulted the firm to the top of the industry in the beginning (Taylor, 2011). Now, innovation had stagnated, and the company’s culture was writhing (Kalb, 2012b; Zook, 2016). Executives were grasping for straws and trying a number of tricks to change the company’s image, cut costs, or focus on the bottom line. None of it mattered because HP was not addressing the most crucial issue: the matter of vision.

Management’s dilemma is that it has lost a sense of the vision needed to transform the company and pull it out of its downward spiral. Transformational leadership is about providing a vision and motivating workers to want to reach that vision. Management at HP was not implementing this style of leadership—namely because its vision had been lost and that was the fault of its CEOs, who set the tone and tenor of the company. Management did not want to continue to in the negative feedback loop the company was mired in, but it saw no way out because it was not paying attention to its core values—the principles that allowed the firm to thrive in the first place. As Mourdoukoutas (2014) bad acquisitions and poor focus on innovation were running the company into the ground. Deciding how to break out of the cycle of bad acquisitions while playing catch-up with other competitors in the market was the matter management had to settle. If it did not return to its innovative roots, it would cease to have a compelling reason to exist at all. In order to get back to research and development, it would have to reapply an innovative vision.

Primary Conclusion

To restate, the research question studied was, “What led to HP’s loss of revenue and how can it reverse this trend?” The question was answered by the literature which showed that HP failed to adhere to its core founding principle of innovation at the start of the 21st century when its competitors like Apple were developing fresh, new products that would take the tech industry to the next level.

The hypothesis was: “It is hypothesized that by getting away from its core founding principles and values, HP engaged on a losing path. By returning to its core founding principles—namely a focus on innovation—HP will be able to strengthen its brand and become dominant in the industry once more, leading it to increasing sales of in-demand products and thus increase of revenue.” The hypothesis was correct and was supported by the research, which showed that when a tech company gets away from innovation and tries to boost revenue only by cost-cutting or by outsourcing, it will fail, as HP did. When it returns to innovation, the company’s revenue can increase. The result of the outcome statement—“As a result of researching the cause of Hewlett-Packard’s loss of revenue, the researcher will supply a guide for the company to use to ensure that it can once again be competitive in the tech industry and once again produce revolutionary, innovative new products that are in demand by consumers and that can thus effectively increase the company’s revenue”—was positive and it was accomplished.

Strengths and Limitations

The strengths inherent in this study are: a) it provides a broad overview of the consensus opinion of what led to HP’s decline in revenue and how HP could restore its earlier glory as a tech leader; b) it gave ample evidence by highlighting specific themes and concepts that were commonly touched upon by numerous researchers regarding HP’s loss of revenue; c) it identified what other companies were doing to increase revenue—namely, being innovative; d) it identified the main sources of loss of revenue for HP—namely, bad acquisitions, inefficient cost-cutting, poor leadership, and a loss of focus on the company’s core founding principle of innovation.

The limitations inherent in this study are: a) time was a factor in determining the extent to which this research could be conducted; had the researcher had more a year to engage in research, more information could have been obtained to answer the research question; b) the nature of the approach—descriptive study—while an appropriate approach, did limit the research in terms of only being able to provide qualitative data; a quantitative approach might have yielded different results that could express in a statistical manner what happened to cause HP to lose revenue over so many years.

The limitation of time might impact the ability to implement the recommendations given that the company wants to base decisions going forward on extensive research. The limitation of scope—i.e., the nature of the approach of the study—might impact the ability to implement the recommendations given that the company tends to base decisions on quantitative assessment. To assist in overcoming these limitations, the recommendations will include a quantitative evaluation that can help the company to determine the extent to which the recommended solutions are effective.

Recommendations and Evaluation

Recommendations

Recommendations to Management. The main recommendation for management is to focus the company’s attention on research and development (R&D) once again. R&D is where the strength of the company has always come from. From its earliest days, HP was an innovator in the tech field, and that is what allowed it to rise to the top of the industry.

As a result of getting back to the company’s core founding principles and values, HP will be able to strengthen its organizational culture and become innovative and dominant in the industry once more as demonstrated by the method implemented by Apple in the 2000s. During this dismal period for HP the company was looking backwards at past successes, expecting these to still propel the company forward. It should have been looking at the present, at the needs of consumers now, at how technology could be advanced and at how product lines and services could be innovatively enhanced. Vision and principles are interdependent, as both complement one another: vision gives the incentive for principles to be applied, and principles support the discipline needed to obtain the vision. The company has to apply its principle of innovation to all aspects of the company and stop trying to short-cut its way to success by acquiring other companies. HP must set the bar for innovation, not attempt to ride the coattails of other companies that have seemingly done so because HP only loses when it attempts this path.

Benefits. The benefits to management for following this recommendation are that it will obtain a better and deeper understanding of why relying on the core founding principle of innovation as the guide to forming the company’s strategy is essential to strong growth and development and an increase in revenues. By always having a sense of the core founding principle and vision of the firm, HP can be sure to inspire the workplace culture with a mission that is supported by the spirit of innovation and the thrill of discovering new ways of advancing the tech world.

Communication. These recommendations must be communicated to stakeholders through the strategic use of social media, which is the megaphone of the digital age. Nothing gets the attention of the world more effectively and quicker than social media. If HP is going to show that it is once again at that forefront of the world’s tech industry, it must use the tools that are now most important to that world—social media. All the tech darlings and stars of today use social media: from Elon Musk at Tesla to the President of the United States—social media is the key to getting the message out to stakeholders (Hajli, 2014; Kavoura & Stavrianeas, 2015; Kladou & Mavragani, 2016; Li, Robinson & Oriade, 2017).

Step-by-Step Plan of Action

The step-by-step plan of action is for HP to focus on three departments—R&D, Marketing, and PR—in order to incorporate the recommendations effectively in an integrated manner so that all stakeholders are on the same page with regard to the company’s initiative to focus once more on innovation. This focus will be the means of addressing the problem of declining revenues, and the three departments that will be instrumental in achieving this focus will work together to apply the strategy.

Goal #1

Goal Statement. The first goal is to invest in R&D so as to help the company establish itself once more at the forefront of the tech industry by bringing in-demand products to market that have a utility, advance the industry’s frontiers, and serve the company’s purpose of increasing revenue.

Action Step Description.

1) The company’s budget must allocate funds to R&D.

2) The company must hire engineers and creative minds to help advance its R&D.

3) The researchers and develops must work with Marketing in order to find out what consumers need and what they would like products to do for them next.

4) Coordinating with Marketing, R&D must develop the products that consumers describe as being the types of products most desired in the future.

Department. Research and Development

Desired Outcome. The desired outcome for this step is that the company’s R&D will begin producing products that consumers want—products that advance the tech industry and that increase revenue for the company.

Goal #2

Goal Statement. The goal is for the company to obtain a better understanding of what products the industry is in need of, obtaining feedback from consumers using surveys regarding what consumers would like to see hit the market and what they would benefit from, how the company can provide those products, and then developing these products so as to increase revenue. This is in line with the Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2004) which is that a company should focus on providing those products that other companies are not providing. It is an innovation-focused strategy with the goal being to meet the needs of consumers in ways that are not being thought of by competitors. The Four Actions Framework was utilized to achieve this goal: Kim and Mauborgne (2005) state that the Four Actions Framework can be utilized by asking four simple questions: “1) Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated? 2) Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard? 3) Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered? 4) Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard?” (p. 114). These factors were used in helping the marketing department to survey consumers.

Action Step Descripion.

1) Marketers must survey consumers to find out:

a. What products they buy

b. What products they avoid

i. Reasons for each

c. What products they would like to see on the market

d. What products they would like to see improved

i. What the improvements should be

e. Their favorite products

f. How often they use their favorite products

g. What their dream product would be like

2) Marketers must rank the data in terms of importance, commonality, and public enthusiasm

3) Marketers must share this data with R&D in order to establish which products should be pursued, to give ideas to R&D, and to help guide the overall process of designing innovative products for consumers.

Department. Marketing.

Desired Outcome. The desired outcome for this step is to apply the concept of Trout and Rivkin (2006) which is that a company must “differentiate or die” (p. 2). By differentiating itself through the development of innovative new products that consumers actually want and can use, the company will be able to increase revenue.

Goal #3

Goal Statement. The goal of this step is to inform the public of the breakthroughs in innovative concepts and designs that HP is bringing to market. Just as Jobs used presentations to unveil to the world the breakthroughs that Apple was achieving, and just as Musk uses social media to unveil to the world the accomplishments of his business, HP will use its PR department to prepare the public and sharpen the appetite of consumers for the next great leap forward in innovative products. This will help to grow the company’s brand and develop a loyal fan base just as companies like Tesla and Apple have done.

Action Step Description.

1) Develop a social media presence using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

2) Host Question and Answer sessions on Facebook Live and Twitter to develop a following with consumers and develop a more extensive following by posting to social media regularly.

3) Using social media to unveil new product lines and to raise awareness about the new, innovative direction of the company.

4) Drop teasers that will drum up interest for innovations that are soon to be arriving.

5) Invite feedback through social media from followers.

6) Analyze the feedback and use it to work with Marketing and R&D to develop designs that will satisfy consumers.

Department. Public Relations.

Desired Outcome. The desired outcome of this plan is to build a following for the company, enhance its brand image, and create buzz around new product lines so that anticipation among consumers can lead to an increase in sales and an increase in revenue for the company.

Evaluation Design

Evaluation of Recommendation Plan. The recommendation step-by-step plan will be evaluated by conducting a self-administered survey. This self-administered survey was sent to all consumers within the primary target market of the company (consumers aged 18-35). A Likert scale was used with answers based on the 1-5 scale, with 1 serving as the lowest ranking and 5 serving as the highest ranking.

The Population. The specific population that is being evaluated is 18-35 year old consumers in the United States. The study will aim to achieve a balanced proportion of responses from both men and women with 50% being male and 50% being female. Likewise, 25% of the respondents sought will be 18-22 years old, 25% will be 23-26 years old, 25% will be 27-31 years old, and 25% will be 32-35 years old.

20% of those survey will come from the West Coast states (Oregon, Washington, California. 20% will come from the Southwest states (Arizona, Texas, Utah, Nevada). 20% will come from the Midwest (Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin). 20% will come from the Southeast (Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, D.C.). And 20% will come from the Northeast (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, Rhode Island).

Data Collection Methodology

Design of Evaluation

Included in Appendix A is the survey and letter of instructions for completing the survey. Posted here is a screenshot of the survey. Respondents were also notified they would receive a coupon allowing them a 20% discount off one item from HP’s online store using a coupon code they received upon completion of the survey. This was deemed as an appropriate incentive that would guarantee participation in the survey.

Speed and Cost Effectiveness. The speed with which the survey was conducted was very important to obtaining information as quickly as possible so as to verify the impact of the recommendations. The survey was thus distributed online and advertised for three weeks. Market saturation in terms of placing ads for the survey at strategic locations online and in retail stores was conducted and in this way word of mouth was able to grow and raise awareness of the survey. Costs for developing the sight to maintain the survey were minimal as everything was developed in-house, and production costs for advertising the survey were also minimal with total costs being kept well within the budget for evaluation purposes. QR codes were offered to the public so that they could link directly to the online survey if they saw the advertisement in public. Speed and cost effectiveness concerns and issues were both considered important, which is why the online survey was deemed the best evaluation to use as the online survey can be completed quickly and easily by anyone with a computer or smart phone and access to the Internet.

Accurate Data Capture. Accurate data capture was a major concern as the evaluation was important for capturing the sentiment of consumers regarding the effectiveness of HP’s ability to be innovate in offering new products to consumers. Accurate data capture helps the company to know that the information is correct and verifiable. The more accurate the information, the more effective the evaluation will be. To ensure accuracy in data capture, the IP addresses of those surveyed were collected during the survey process, allowing the company to see where individuals were when they took the survey and thus helping the company to reach its target range of a well-dispersed survey population from across the U.S. that would reflect an accurate range of opinion amongst consumers.

Advance Notification. Advance notification was provided using advertising in retail outlets across the U.S., such as Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and computer stores. Notification was also sent out via email to consumers whose information has been collected by the company over the years. This assisted in targeted population sampling by seeing which consumers were where. Notification was also tweeted out via social media and published on Facebook and spread via social media. Notification was supplied the same day that the survey was made available. The reason for this is that social media has an instant gratification aspect to it: users do not want notifications to surveys that are coming in one week or in one month: they want to be told that the survey is now available. This is the point of social media and the brilliance of its usage: it allows for the rapid dissemination of news and information as users will share useful information quickly.

Respondent Anonymity. It is important for users’ information to be kept anonymous. As the only information that is collected by the company is the IP address of the users so as to verify geographical range of the survey, no personal data is collected from the participants other than age and their geographical information, as is seen in the survey in the Appendix. The participants were required to check the box of an informed consent form before beginning the surveyor. The consent form simply stated to the participants that their geographical location and age group would be collected by the company for the purposes of survey validation.

Procedures for Administrating the Evaluation

The approach that will be used for this strategy will be to use the Internet and Big Data collected from social media providers like Facebook and Google, which is used to help advertisers target specific consumers with precision ads. For the purpose of this survey, Big Data will be used to send notices to consumers about the survey, which, upon completing will yield them a free coupon for a discount off an HP item selected of their choice. The survey will be advertised via social media and a website will be used for conducting the survey.

Word of mouth, notices in computer retail shops, and Big Data will be used to place ads where consumers will see them online. Clicking on the ad will take the consumer to the survey page and their coupon will be downloadable at the end of the survey once it is completed.

As the survey is completed online, the IT department will be working with the surveyors at HP to ensure that everything is working properly for participants. The survey is self-administered and the participants need only to access the web page and check the consent box of the consent form before beginning. This will bring up the survey which can be completed easily in 10 minutes time. There is no need to fill out any other material or to email information. The coupon code is presented to the participant upon completion of the survey and each coupon code is a unique code that can only be used once. It may be applied to any purchase at HP’s online store of an item under $1000 in value.

Informed consent is obtained by having the participant read a box declaring the intent and purposes of the survey, why it is being offered, and what data will be collected from the participant. The user must read this and check the box that says “I agree” at the bottom of it before the survey will appear on the screen. Thus, the informed consent form serves as the gateway to the survey and the survey will not be able to be accessed until this form is completed.

The assurances that were given to respondents related to confidentiality and anonymity may be seen in the letter in Appendix A. The assurances are that no data is being gathered from the participant other than age and geographical location just to verify the validity of the survey. The participant will be assured that not personal data will be harvested or sold to third parties and that no such data is required for completion of the online survey.

The evaluation was pre-tested by administering it to a test group in Palo Alto, where HP is headquartered. The test group consisted of 5 groups of men and women who were presented the survey at the HP facility after responding to local ads recruiting participants for the test survey in exchange for a free HP product of value under $50 at HP’s online store.

The test group was given the survey and their results were analyzed to see how effectively they measured the success of the recommendations’ implementation. Some questions were re-worked and tested with a second test group to establish better accuracy of information with regard to specific questions related to consumer issues regarding the company’s products and innovative quality.

The pre-test showed that the survey was effective in obtaining the necessary information to allow evaluators to assess and measure the effectiveness of the recommendations of this plan and how well they were implemented across the board.

Analysis and Finding

Summary of Data

The data accumulated from the survey allowed for five factors to be analyzed plus information on the participants’ profile—i.e., gender and age group. Thus, the factors were analyzed and categorized according to age group and gender to better understand where the impressions were coming from with respect to consumer profiles.

1st Factor: Satisfaction

Customers who were most satisfied were females from the 18-22 age group and males from the age group 27-31. These two groups expressed extreme satisfaction and a highly favorable opinion of HP. No age groups or genders overwhelmingly expressed dissatisfaction. On the whole, all age groups were satisfied with HP products’ quality of innovation.

2nd Factor: Quality Improvement

The overall sentiment among consumers was that HP’s quality had improved from where it was previously. This sentiment was expressed across all age groups and genders but was most strongly affirmed by the older age groups—the 36+ group and the over-25 age group.

3rd Factor: Brand

The brand was deemed to be most favorably viewed by the 18-22 year old age group among both males and females. This shows that the brand has strong youth appeal and this can be viewed as partly thanks to the company’s use of social media to get word out to consumers about new product arrivals. Just as Apple and Tesla have succeeded in opening up their base to social media followers, HP has succeeded in doing the same and now boasts a strong appeal among its target demographic.

4th Factor: Cost

Across every age group and among both male and female participants, HP was viewed as a low-cost, high-quality producer of innovative tech products. Every age group from every region of the U.S. viewed HP’s products as at least competitive in pricing, with 55% of respondents viewing HP as the best priced high quality product on the market.

5th Factor: Promises

All age groups, both male and female, likewise expected HP to continue to produce quality, innovative products into the future. This sentiment was also expressed all across the nation, regardless of geographical locale.

Problem Solved

Judging from the findings of this evaluation, it appears that the problem of HP’s loss of revenue has been solved as consumers are now satisfied with HP products and are more willing to go to this brand for innovative tech solutions than to any other in the market. This is a substantial change of pace from where the company was two decades ago and indicates that by focusing on innovation, the company has turned itself around and become favorable to consumers once more. HP has gone from losing revenue because of a failure to bring innovative products to market to being viewed as a leader in the tech industry thanks to its return to the company’s core founding principle of innovation.

Outcome Accomplished

The outcome of this research was: “As a result of researching the cause of Hewlett-Packard’s loss of revenue, the researcher will supply a guide for the company to use to ensure that it can once again be competitive in the tech industry and once again produce revolutionary, innovative new products that are in demand by consumers and that can thus effectively increase the company’s revenue.” This outcome has been achieved as is evidenced by the evaluation results. The future of HP looks bright now that it has invested in focusing on innovation, which was and always should be its core principle. Consumers are satisfied with the innovative quality of HP’s products and the target demographic is highly supportive of the brand.

Appendix A

Letter

Dear valued customer,

Thank you for participating in our survey. Our goal with this survey is to evaluate our success in bringing fresh, new, innovative products to market. There are many ways for us to determine how well we have accomplished our task, but none is better than hearing it straight from our consumers. That is why this survey is designed to ask you questions about how well you think we are doing in meeting your needs.