Oliver Hill (HP)
HP New Zealand has put the pandemic behind it, reclaiming not just momentum but market share as customers settle into a new and distinctly different normal.
Country manager Oliver Hill told Reseller News the PC and printing giant's local operation had better supply chains and better ETAs on product now than before the pandemic.
"What we are seeing is market share has really bounced back for us in quite a significant way," Hill said. "For example, in the last calendar quarter we grew 13 per cent year-on-year when the market was down almost 17 per cent."
In the commercial market HP was at 43 per cent market share and growing 16 per cent year on year while the market was down 11 per cent, he said.
"What we are seeing is our amazing channel and end user communities have really pivoted back to HP now that our supply chain is back to where it should be," Hill said. "We are very grateful for that support and loyalty."
HP had also done a lot of work over the course of the pandemic, especially around digital transformation, that was now delivering for partners.
Thirty-five per cent of pricing requests from partners were now being turned around instantly instead of it taking hours or days for them to be authorised to bid. Partners could now order from such a quote within about 20 minutes.
"It is making their sales operation more efficient because they can sit in front of a customer and say 'here’s your price' and not have that delay," Hill said.
"Sometines that can be the difference between winning and not winning – give them a price before they can get alternative quotes."
As reported late last month, HP New Zealand posted strong financial results for its year to 31 October 2022 to recover ground lost during the pandemic. Revenue increased from $358.1 million in 2021 to $385.3 million, while net profit surged from $2.5 million to $10.1 million.
Credit: Reseller News Hill said "outstanding" momentum had continued beyond the financial year-end as a new normal emerged that played to HP's strengths.
HP New Zealand had shifted to a more resilient multi-source supply chain from from single source and was making sure parts holdings were increased to ensure resilience in customer service.
"Pre-pandemic, lowest cost was the best supply chain," Hill said. "Now it’s resilience that is important. We are far better than we were pre-pandemic."
Where price, build quality and service used to be the dominant factors in sealing a deal, customers were now looking for more insights and additional services.
"Now, really, all the conversations are about how we use our proactive insights to use data analytics about how people are using their compute to get the most out of it," Hill said.
"Through things like our Active Care, we can alert people before there is a fault on their PC and they can schedule a time to fix it before it fails."
Conversations like that, about things that used to be a "nice to have", were now top of mind.
"User experience is most important rather than just providing a tool to do the job," Hill said.
The COVID-19 experience had also left its mark on the way PCs were built. They were now "designed for hybrid" with quality cameras and good audio with noise suppression.
"The requirements around PC AV is much higher," Hill said. "It's not just about working from home, but about working from anywhere."
The pandemic also accelerated the digitisation of business processes that in turn left its mark on HP's printing business.
"People want to be able to do all the smart things but after working from home we see a lot more A4," Hill said. "That plays into HP’s strengths – we have always been a really strong player in A4 before the acquisition of Samsung print."
People still wanted A3 around the office, but while volumes had dipped a bit there, the A4 market had strengthened.
ESG was a further factor in market change and in that cause HP was aiming to be "forest positive".
The company has partner with WWF in Australia to plant trees and create a positive impact rather than just buying carbon credits.
"We report back to customers quarterly where their offsets came from and how it was achieved," Hill said.
"Offsetting is good but it’s not the best. Being able to demonstrate how you can affect the planet in a positive way by either reducing or doing something that wasn’t going to happen otherwise is better.
"By 2030 we will have created 75 per cent circularity in our products: that’s how we are aging to halve our emissions, not by offset.
"It’s by taking the stuff we have already made and closing the loop and putting it back into our products. That’s the future of the circular economy – that is the circular economy."
