Bringing Sprinkles Of Magic To Market

Lionel Chng, Managing Director, HP Singapore.

- Zachary Chan

HP isn’t just #1 in PC shipments again, but it’s the only brand showing a strong uptrend in both PC and printer businesses. What is HP’s secret sauce?

There’s a lot of hard work that goes beyond the fact that consumers see our end products, 3D printers and A3 multi-function copiers. There are also these cool devices that we’ve been able to create; innovations in our products that our CEO likes to call ‘sprinkles of magic’; our investments into AR and VR. Those are the areas that are more cutting edge, but at the same time our core base of PCs and printers get to be evolved into the next level: thinner, lighter, more powerful, more secure.

But isn’t everyone else doing the same thing with their products?

From a HP perspective, it’s important to stay on the curve; as in the latest products being thinnest, lightest, more powerful, etc. Then we bring in the sprinkles of magic. It allows us to play in fun areas which is profitable, but also create amazing experiences. Even something as simple as the Sprocket pocket printer. Such things require investment in R&D, consumer testing, and marketing to bring it to market, differentiating ourselves versus the run of the mill offering beyond the box.

So would you say these sprinkles of magic have helped HP reconnect back to your user base?

As we keep to our theme of keep reinventing, we reach out with products that can be a lot cooler, more hip, more relevant; creating needs where people may not have thought of in the past. And that puts us in the forefront. People talk about them.