Hp Vs. Dell

When Todd Bradley joined Hewlett-Packard Co. in June 2005 H-P's PC line was hardly profitable and many investors were suggesting that H-P get out of PCs altogether. At that time Dell was the top PC maker and leader in PC sales. Jump ahead two years to 2007 and now H-P is the world's leader of PC sales.

When Bradley arrived at H-P he found they were focusing on the wrong areas. H-P was spending its time fighting Dell where Dell was strong, in direct sales over the internet and phone. He soon decided after visiting many retailers and H-P factories, and hearing bad things about late deliveries and incomplete orders that H-P needed to focus on its strength, which was there presence in retail stores, where Dell had no presence at the time. Well that is until just recently when Dell announced it would be selling two desktops at more than 3,500 Wal-Mart Stores.

In order to revamp H-P Bradley laid out a 100-day road map to make sure H-P's deliveries to stores were reliable again. He built up a better relationship with retailers and pushed attention getting products in store displays and commanded a premium price. H-P's operating margins on its PCs rose to 4.8% in its fiscal second quarter from 3.6% a year earlier. As H-Ps stock doubled and Dell's went down about 32%, Dell became the underdog. Just last Thursday, Dell announced its first layoffs since 2001 in its efforts to increase profits.

Weeks after Bradley joined H-P he began refocusing on retail. Bradley toured H-P manufacturing sites in Europe and Asia and found that factories had multiple spots where components were piling up, and that manufacturing, engineering and operations teams didn't communicate frequently enough. Therefore H-P's logistics had a problem and deliveries were late and partial PC arrived at stores.

He also formed his own marketing group, since previously H-P had no marketing of its own. Bradley approved a new PC ad campaign aimed at consumers, the new "The Computer is Personal Again" campaign featured celebrities such as hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and fashion designer Vera Wang talking about what