ME Printer had a candid chat with the newly appointed General Manager of the HP-PPS division (Printing and Personal Systems), Salim Ziade. He talked about the growing potentials of print business and how HP is proving it’s prudential in the printing space. Interview excerpts:
How do you rate the performance of HP in the printing space?
HP printers are packed with more technology and innovation. At HP, we have re-invested a major chunk of our profits into our R&D, so that we can bring new features and enhancements to our products. Our business motto is Invest to Innovate and Differentiate by Innovation.
How much future of HP depends on printing?
We see ourselves as a global print company. Printing is an essential business to HP. Though we are covering only a small percentage of what is being printed globally, I can say that the print business of HP is doing very well. Our investments and R&D are focused to penetrate that market space. We at HP believe that digital printing will take over a major portion of analogue printing. The innovations done by HP will help us to capture the digital business and promote our growth in this sector. We are investing in the printing move from analogue to digital, while maintaining our innovation stream in our current mainstream business.
HP is a technology driven company, then why didn’t the company grab the opportunity to enter into the tablet and smart phone market?
HP did its part in bringing forth innovations and developments but so did others. We were the first company to introduce desktop touch screens and we are still leaders in that segment. We are not the only one investing in R&D; the key technology is there in the market and others follow the trend. The most important thing is to keep an eye for the trends and technologies. If a company identifies an interesting trend, which will create a market for them, then others won’t shy away from adopting it. They will capitalize on the trend by adopting and by bringing in their own contributions.
If you see the tablet market, yes there are more and more tablets in the market now and we are not the only ones to have introduced tablets. We will soon be launching the second generation of our tablets by the end of this year. The HP tablets will be produced in cooperation with Microsoft. Smartphone’s is not in our agenda, as of now.
Why HP is more successful in the Middle East, unlike other countries?
For the last 3 years, our business has been steadily growing. In 2010 and 2011, we recognized that the PC market was undergoing a complete shift. When the market is witnessing a complete evolution, either you have to move out of it or you have to do the right investment to stay on top. Either you should be leader or you should get out of the business, that’s our philosophy. We have always maintained that we excel in whatever business we are into. HP has increased their investments, particularly in R&D and we have launched new PC’s and will continue to do that in the future.
Can you tell about your journey so far?
I am with HP since 1995, which means that I joined the company 17 years ago. I am an engineer by trade, an industrial engineer. During the first 9 to 10 years at HP, I was working in the operations supply chain department. I have even done some R&D. In 2005, I moved out of the supply chain operations to become more and more involved on the business side that includes product development, marketing and sales. When HP merged their printer and PC business, I was promoted to head this new division.
