Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) is a global leader in the research, development, marketing, selling and service of high technology products including laptops, desktop computers, minicomputers, printers and plotters and enterprise storage products as well. The company generated $120B in revenue and an operating income of -$11B according it its latest financial statements on the investor relations section of the HP website. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is known for its strong engineering culture and commitment to quality processes including Six Sigma (Walter, 22). HP also is a leader in the field of Design for Environment (DfE) a sustainability initiative started in 1992 that continues today, with over 750 million printer cartridges recycled and extensive reverse logistics of packaging materials now commonplace in their supply chain (Preston, 26).
HP's Design for Environment (DfE) Initiative
HP's DfE initiative is aimed at reducing the environmental impact the company has on the global environment, while also streamlining its own supply chain operations and management processes and systems. The company's senior management team uses analytics to continually measure the performance of is supply chain, also evaluating how effective tis reverse logistics strategies are on a continual basis (Laval, Claude, Feyhl, Kakouros, 239). These measures of performance quickly provided HP senior management with insights into how a broader DfE initiative would make it possible for the company to attain its sustainability objectives, it could also potentially drop supply chain, production and recycling costs as well (Laval, Claude, Feyhl, Kakouros, 240). This led to launch of the DfE initiative which today has three major priorities. These designing new HP products to minimize their use of energy, while also continually improving manufacturing processes to use less natural resources including electricity (Preston, 26). The second and third priorities are materials innovation and design for recyclability (Preston, 26). HP, being a very analytically-driven company, continually focused on measuring these three priorities using balanced scorecards and metrics of performance overall. This measuring of performance has given the company the ability to attain ISO 11469 compliance faster than any other high technology manufacturer today (Walter, 22).
HP Budget Improvement Recommendations
Clearly HP could be more profitable and it has come away from the brink of major financial challenges since CEO Meg Whitman took over. The company is still trouble financially as illustrated by its $-11B loss in its latest fiscal year. What needs to improve is the company's ability to better anticipate and react to the needs of the market. The forecasting processes and systems in place need to be better aligned to the many distribution and selling channels the company operates in today (Stanton, Robert, and Edward A. Drury, 45). There needs to be greater integration at the process and system level between their long-standing enterprise customers and the company if it is going to succeed. A big part of this is turning around the entire forecasting process to better understand customer needs.
Recommendations and Conclusions
You’re 75% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.