Hewlett-Packard: The Flight of the Kittyhawk (A) Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

Question 01: What mistakes did HP make in executing the Kittyhawk project? What did they do well?

The major mistake made by HP while executing Kittyhawk was that although the project had the approval of its most reliable and senior management, however some of the employees involved in the project were concerned over the reliability of the project. Along with this, the team felt that making an investment in a new market with small architecture has been conflicting with the overall needs of the division to stay in the competitive market.

Another major mistake with the launch of Kittyhawk was that in the competitive next generation higher gigabyte market, launching a tiny device without the market, whichwould be targeted was a loophole left open by the management.

The company was unsure of the market; therefore it decided to attract customers from different corners of the industry. Another mistake with the execution of Kittyhawk was that it lacked reliability. The product before being launched in the market was not tested; therefore, it lacked quality and completeness.

The thing, which HP performed well while executing Kittyhawk project was that the company and its management decided to cater and attract all the potential markets. While identifying the customer base and the target market, Kittyhawk attracted the gaming industry, the PDA market, fax machine market and the mobile gaming market. This was a major advantage, which led to the increase in customer base for Kittyhawk.

Along with this, another major advantage with the launch of Kittyhawk was that it was a nontraditional product. The product was an innovation, which involved latest technology. The company with the execution of Kittyhawk was also rather keen to sell it at a reasonable price.

Since the company targeted more than one market, therefore it had customers from different industries and all of them approached the management themselves based on the product attributes that were presented at different meetings by the management of the company.Therefore, it can be said that the product was a decent one, however, because of the unsure market, the product failed after being successful in the initialphase.

Question 02: What uncertainties did the team face? How did it attempt to resolve them?

The major uncertainty faced by the team working on Kittyhawk project was that since it was the first of its kind therefore, the management was unsure of the target market and the audience that needed to be catered in the initial phase. The element of uncertainty that was faced by the Kittyhawk team was that it had to decide the market, as it actually wanted to target in the initial phase since targeting more than one market was a difficult task.

The uncertainty was regarding the potential target market. In order toovercome this uncertainty,Kittyhawk narrowed down its strategy to two options, which were either to launch the disk drive focusing on the mobile computing market or to in fact launch it at such a low price that it could be used in all the applications where disk drives have been expensive.

Another uncertainty faced by the company while launching Kittyhawk was that the company was unsure or doubtful about the price that would be set in the initial phase. However, a unanimous price was set for Kittyhawk it was not the decision that the company took easily. In order to overcome the issue of the price for Kittyhawk, the company decided to make it a product that is priced between $50.

Along with this, since the product was a new entity, most of the rivals for Kittyhawk were competing in larger drives; HP decided to launch a small sized disk drive. This was the risk which the company took because being a player of an already developed market is an easy and convenient thing to do. Over here, the decision taken by the management to focus on a market that was unexplored was a definite risk.

However, in order to overcome this uncertainty, the company decided to carry out a research where it tried to find the possible attributes which the customers have been looking within the drive market. Moreover, the biggest achievement of Kittyhawk is that it created an entirely new market.

Question 03: Was this a tale of bad luck or poor judgment?

In the initial phase, Kittyhawk was an instant success, however, within the next two years; the product launched by HP was facing issues in meeting its sales targets. As the case states, the product was ideally placed, where the market research conducted by the management ensured the target audience that needed to be catered..........................

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