Ketan Patel, Director-Computing Category, Printing, and Personal Systems, HP, talks to itVARnews about HP’s offering for enterprises and how the channel partners are moving up the value chain for the company.
What is the present focus of HP?
We are clearly focused on providing best of the technology to our customers and also ensuring technology advantage to our channel partners in order to really take care of the latest trends in the market while providing latest technology.
What are the latest trends?
There are four big mega trends right now in the market which are cloud, mobility, security, and Big Data. Clearly HP is focused on these four pillars of new style of IT and our total device strategy is focused around these pillars. This will help us to integrate our devices offering with enterprises which are focused on these areas. This also helps us be sure that we are in line with technological trends in the market.
HP has recently launched string of products and services to help enterprises. How much has this been accepted by them?
We continue to launch products for enterprises, as we have been doing for years. Every year we make sure that every time we redesign or refresh our products, our overall offering to customers is of increased value. The current line-up for enterprise products in case of Desktops, notebooks, workstations, thin clients, is in line with latest technology trends and new designs. With changing customer lifestyle as well as changes in commercial and enterprise customers, everyone is looking for products which are sleek, stylish but do not compromise on performance, security, and manageability. We understand this trend of customers, and all our device strategies are in line with that logic to make sure that we are able to give trendier and better looking machines , without any compromise on performance and enterprise device security or manageability features.
What is the success rate of HP commercial notebooks?
HP commercial notebooks have been in the market for many years and we have been reinventing ourselves in terms of offering designs. This year designs are phenomenal in terms of design language. There are 30-35% slimmer designs from HP business notebooks with increased battery life without compromising on performance. So, I think we are clearly focused on getting product design better without compromising on performance, and that is our strategy on business notebooks as well. We are also able to provide the entire range from value buyer in SMB, to the biggest enterprise customer, where you have the highest level of ultra books. We have top end product HP1040 Ultra book , which is an enterprise class device. So we have a complete range of SMB and enterprise offering.
What are the value added services HP is offering to enterprise?
We have a bouquet of service offerings – starting from our regular warranty services to extended warranty services to customized services, specific installation services, maintenance services, post warranty maintenance services, according to customer requirements.
Which are the potential verticals for HP?
SMB is a big segment where we see huge growth in India. Apart from that we see growth in education, banking and financial institutions, manufacturing and IT/ITEs. These verticals are investing heavily into their IT refresh and technology upgrade. From my point of view, these are my opportunity areas from vertical stand point.
What is your approach to the verticals?
We have multiple GTM strategies and a strong HP commercial channel partner network which operates throughout the country , reaching our enterprise and commercial customers. We also have HP’s own enterprise sales team that has a healthy relationship with all our accounts, so that we now use HP’s own sales force and partners’ network to reach out to our customers effectively, ensuring we understand their needs and provide for them effectively.
Where is the growth coming from for HP?
The growth is likely to come from multiple verticals that are today focused on refreshing their technology.
What is your go to market strategy?
We have solid network of partners which provide us reach across small and medium businesses, mid market customers, enterprise, government and educational customers. So, that’s a huge channel partners’ network which we are focused on. We have HP sales team at enterprise and SMB level which also works with channel partners very closely and also approach some of the large accounts on account engagement perspective and give us coverage and we work continuously with customers through our go to market strategy in order to provide best value to the needs of customers.
With various laptop manufacturers launching two-in-one products, do you feel the need to develop one as well?
HP is the pioneer in two-in-one technology in India and we are making sure that we extend that range. For the commercial side we are likely to launch a product called X2612 enterprise class two-in-one detachable, which is non-compromised enterprise class notebook cum tablet that gives all enterprise class security and manageability features with standard specifications. This will make sure that the reliability and durability of the product is never compromised. Moreover, the latest edition of processors and performance are built into it. So, clearly it is top of the line two-in-one for enterprise. We also have another product, X2410 for commercial customers which is another detachable hybrid. Similarly we have a range of detachable and hybrids in our consumer products range.
What is the USP of your enterprise offerings?
Our USP is that we provide an uncompromised range of products for enterprises – entry level business desktops to full class enterprise series of business desktops. We have world class mini desktops which have recently been launched and an enterprise class mini desktop which is a huge advancement in technology, saving significant level of power and work space.
We have a range of business notebooks – from a Value Notebook to Enterprise Class Ultra book, a whole range of workstation products to ensure high performance quality desktop workstations for applications which require high performance graphics and computing. We also have thin clients for virtualization which make sure that we are able to give the best solution for virtualization customers coupled with accessories, and all required products and peripherals
We also have printers across enterprises which HPPS provide with warranty services, maintenance services as well.
As per our channel survey HP is on number 2 position in commercial notebook market. What steps are you taking to be a leader?
We are focused on customer satisfaction. Clearly we want to provide product, design, performance, and support in order to make sure that our customer gets the best value. As long as we continue to provide that I think the numbers are actually outcomes of our efforts . We are focused on our business notebook clients to make sure that we are really giving our best of our product and performance to customers. Our new products for 2014-15 are in line with the new generation’s requirements and we believe that will really help our customers to get the best out of HP.
How do you look at Enterprise channels? How do you make sure your partner moves up the value chain?
Enterprise channel is very dear to us and we are working with them for many years. Working together as partners, developing each other, we make sure that our channels’ sales force is trained, aware of HP line up services and solutions so that they are able to effectively talk about the value provided by HP to their customers.
We are also focused on various channel programs for our channel partners in order to make sure that we have a continuous relationship with them and we understand each other. Our solid feedback sessions also improve our offerings or channel policies.
Kindly comment on your Brand pull and customer marketing initiatives?
We are focused on marketing across various segments – Consumer, SMB, enterprises . There are a lot of activities we do across print, television medium, online and digital media. I think we provide unique value propositions through our market strategies, educating them about the value we are bringing to each customer set . That is clearly our focus through various media available across different verticals.
