HEWLETT PACKARD THE FLIGHT OF KITTYHAWK.Case Solution
Question 1: what do you think are the causes of failure of the KittyHawk program?
Answer:
The new product of the company,KittyHawk, was an exceptional innovation in the industry however; the management of the organization could not achieve the target goals and objectives of the company as the product failed to secure the desired market share in the target market of the company. (Okpara, 2007)
However, there were various secondary issues in terms of the policies and practices within the organizational culture and environment that also acted as barriers in the success of the product. Some of these secondary issues of the company were that the top management of the company did not have any technical expertise and knowledge regarding the specifics of the product and the internal conflicts with in the organization.
These technical and operational level issues greatly contributed towards the bigger problem for the organization and its management as well and thus, caused the failure of the product in terms of revenues and operating margins in the markets where the business operates.
These critical causes for failure of the product in the markets were the failure of the management of the company to target the right market segment in terms of customers and the failure of the management of the company to attend the needs of the customers of the industry.
Right customers:
The management of the company failed to identify and target the most feasible markets in the industries based upon their requirements and results in terms of revenues and sales of the company are complete reflection of this issue.
The management of the company planned to target the mobile and handset industry primarily however; they failed to realize that the industry was relatively young and in early stages of maturing.Therefore, banking too much on an industry that has not even matured yet was the biggest blunder of the management of the company.
Need of the market:
The management of the company relied on the innovation and the technological breakthrough that the organization could achieve and although it did achieve that however, the end product that the organization came up with was not the need of the market and that it was opposite to the actual needs of the major customer segment of the industry.(Overton, n.d)
Most of the target customers of the organization were more interested in a product that was cheaper and came within the price range $50 and not a product that had the feature of rigidness. The business could not achieve the economies of a positive demand to attend this need of the customers of the industry and therefore, the product failed to penetrate the markets.
Failed to capitalize on the opportunities:
The other major issue was that the management of the organization failed to cash in on the opportunities that presented themselves in the markets because they were focusing on their proposed target markets. The most promising opportunity for the business that arose in the market was the interest in Kittyhawk product shown by the Nintendo Company, which the business failed to capitalize upon......................
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