Why HP Is Failing And How You Can Avoid It

HP is not a bad company. I’ve been using their laptops since 2005. Just bought a new business laptop, an HP laptop. Unfortunately, the company is struggling now.

Being an HP customer for a while now, I do have few things to say. Hopefully, someone at HP will read this. HP is suffering from two major issues: 1. lack of brand personality, and 2. lack of innovation. I’ll tackle each separately and at the end bring them back together.

1. Lack of Brand Personality

When was the last time you associated HP with a feeling? Besides frustration with their customer support. When I bought my last laptop two weeks ago I felt nothing. I thought to myself, “Great price!” If your brand is solely judged around your low pricing, then you won’t last long. Look at Apple, its laptops are way overpriced. But people wait in lines and buy them. Look at HP, heading for another tough quarter.

Leo Apotheker, HP’s CEO, is probably a good manager; but a great leader? Not so much. Just like 99% of other CEOs, he manages HP without leading it. Why does it take a negative news article for me to hear about him since he took office? Really, CEOs need to come out of their cocoon. Come on, you’re humans not just some robots without any feelings or emotions. News flash: you have a personality.

Apotheker might be funny, he might be adventurous, he might be a health freak, or he might be a World of Warcraft geek. Why doesn’t his personality reflect in HP’s brand? I don’t think he’s dead inside, is he?

People love connecting with people. They don’t like connecting with companies, companies are dead. But, if you infuse your personality into your company you will give it life. It’s not that hard, you just need to quit letting the marketing and PR departments dictate your brand personality. Did you see that HP video about WiFi mouse? It’s horrible. Where’s human touch? Where’s personality in that?

HP needs a leader, not a manager. A leader would go straight to his investors and tell them that the next quarter will be tough, but reassure them that upcoming projects will pop the company back in its financial spot. It’s hard to do though with HP, there’s a lack of innovation.

2. Lack of innovation

OK, HP just reinvented the mouse by implementing WiFi connectivity, hence increasing battery life to nine months. Awesome! Can my laptop battery do that? I’m lucky to get 3 hours out of it, and I hate extended batteries. So bulky.

HP is not an innovation leader in the industry, it’s a follower. Not a very good one at that either. When was the last time HP introduced a laptop (or PC) so revolutionary that people lined up outside BestBuy to get it? It makes laptops, whoop ti doo. There’s nothing original about them, there’s nothing interesting about them, there’s this sleek shiny casing they think is really cool. It looks like it was shoe-shined. Disgusting.

HP tries really hard to innovate in the design department, but it fails due to one concept: simplicity. If HP went back to the basics: simplicity and minimalism, it would rock! My new laptop, G series, was chosen (other than price and features) for its clean, simple look.

I looked over HP’s upcoming tablet with WebOS. You might as well call it iPad with iOS. Where’s the innovation? It’s not that hard to innovate, just stop reverse engineering your competition and think!

HP has some good printers, that’s one product line they were able to be successful in. But one product won’t keep a giant company afloat.

Tips For The Road

Lack of brand personality and innovation are two major issues keeping HP down. I really don’t want to get into HP’s lack of inbound marketing strategy here. That’s for another post. In the meantime, few tips that will help HP come back up (but it really applies to anyone).

1. CEO (and the rest of C-suite) should start blogging and get on social media. Get your hands dirty, you get paid enough to do that.
2. C-suite spends one day a month in their call center, talking and helping customers.
3. Twitter account needs to be less narcissistic. Every other tweet has HP in it, come on!
4. Crowdsource a laptop/PC design, or whatever product you might offer.
5. Go back to your drawing board on tablet design. Don’t stop until it looks nothing like an iPad (or other tablets). Make your product unique, not a disposable copy. Unless you’re selling your products at the dollar store. Unique + useful = higher value!
6. If you’re afraid of doing something, do it!
7. Why not do town hall meetings with your customers? Face to face, not a pop-up survey that we will most certainly close.
8. Make your website simple, friendly to navigate, and you don’t need to put everything on one page.
9. Ask a 4-year-old what makes him or her happy. Then build your product around it. No limitations, it’s up to you to interpret it.
10. Actually, do it! Don’t just read it. Commit to at least one tip and go through with it.

Though I focused on HP in this post, it really does apply to any business. Maybe someone at HP will read it and a light bulb will go off in their head. Probably not. But, hopefully, you will benefit from these tips. Just remember, be yourself and let it be part of how you do business.

What do you like about HP? What do you hate about HP? Tweet me.