Comparing and contrasting HP and DELL

Essay by nitingupta83University, Master'sA, January 2008

download word file, 14 pages 5.0

Comparing and Contrasting HP and DELL


Scope and Outline

The scope of the report is to compare the practices followed in two companies, "Hewlett-Packard" and "Dell Computers", and the reasons for their success. The comparison is done on the basis of structure, technology, culture, fit with the environment.

The outline of the report is as follows:

Brief introduction

Organization structure

Technology and systems


Fit with environment

Future challenges and opportunities


Brief Introduction

"Third Wave" organizations, as per Alwin Toffler, are those post-industrialization organizations that bank on technology, digitization and continuous innovation. These organizations revolutionized the way businesses are done and for them innovation is the mantra for survival. So, when I took the task of comparing two organizations, the two companies I could only think of are Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell Computers. Both are "Third Wave" companies and are from the same industry, with a slight difference that HP has additional product lines.

In this paper, effort has been put to compare the two organizations in terms of organization structure, technology, culture and environmental factors. In most of the cases, the comparisons are drawn between HP group and Dell Computers. Whenever comparisons between HP Computers division and Dell are done, they were explicitly mentioned. Before going further, a brief introduction to the organizations and how they evolved have been laid out in the subsequent paragraphs.

Hewlett-Packard was established by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a small garage in Palo Alto, California. Initially they started making "high frequency receivers" and sold it to businesses and military. The innovative instincts of the founders lead the organization to start designing and developing innovative electronic products. Second World War provided an opportunity for the firm in terms of defense contracts and the company's production and product line increased.