Strategic Training and Needs Assessment

Hp. com (2008) asserts that HP has always been committed to provide the best products that customers demand and deliver the highest quality in order to gain customer value and loyalty. It also aims to earn enough profit to sustain its growth and form shareholder value and make available necessary resources for the purpose of achieving its objectives. It envisions itself to continually grow through the offer of noteworthy products and services to its present and potential customers.

The company also aims that its employees contribute to the success of the firm and that they are continually learning by providing the needed training and development programs for the advance of knowledge and skills. Part of HP’s mission is to be aware that it is responsible for becoming an asset in the global community it is rendering services to. To further describe HP, let me mention a few of its strength, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. The strengths of HP as mentioned by (HRM) can be summarized as: the strong industry status it has, its wide range of products, and vast geographic presence.

HP has gained the position as one of the best IT companies all over the world. It is the market leader for the sale of printers and other imaging technologies. It is also first in the sale of notebook and desktop PCs and is pioneer in operating systems servers. The company also has better market share because of the wide range of products that it offers. From notebooks to desktop PCs, printers, pocket PCs, and other imaging technologies, the company surely has better reach to customers of different needs. HP operates from over 170 countries around the world, thus posing a great deal of gain for the company.

The availability of its products and services in a wider geographic range is a strength that HP is intending to keep. The following are weaknesses of HP: profits from services are declining; pension obligations are not funded; and performance in US is weak. The second biggest contributor of HP revenues – that is services is declining in profits. This caused the decline in total operating profits of HP in 2005. HP in the United States is underperforming which affects the overall profit of HP even if its operation is diversified.

The opportunities that HP is faced to are the fast growth in business printing opportunities and expanding demand for PCs in the US. The company can take advantage of the fast development of commercial printing in the market since it has always been the best printing service provider. The increasing demand for PCs in the United States is an opportunity for HP to provide the wide product portfolio it offers. In this sense, it is able to generate better profits for itself. The threats that HP is faced with are the standardization of PCs and coverage to foreign currency fluctuations.

PCs nowadays are being standardized to enable a wide range of consumers to afford to get a personal computer. There is a decline in demand for branded PCs because people are opting to rather purchase unbranded PCs because of cheaper prices. Because HP is operating in more than 170 countries across the world, fluctuations in foreign currency can greatly affect its total revenues. The key competitors of HP include: Apple, Inc. , Dell Inc. , International Business Machines (IBM), and Electronic Data Services (EDS) corp. Among task, person, and organization, I think that the most important variable for HP is the person.

HP is involved in shaping its employees to perform at the greatest level of capacity. The task of a person is based on his intellect and abilities. This means that each contributes at the highest level of his capability and performance. The organization is comprised of the workforce and the senior managers who are responsible for the attainment of corporate strategies and the performance of the workforce. I think that the least important for HP is the task of each individual. Since responsibilities given to each employee based on his abilities, it can assure that it fully utilizes the best of its human resources.