One of the trends driving HP to change involves the fast-growing tablet market. As a result, HP has introduced new models that have been well-received in the market. Another trend facing the market is the reduction in the size of the printer market. New technology is moving towards ink-free versions.

The impact of the changes in the printer market on HP is that it has been forced to adopt ink-free technology. The technology market has also changed as more corporate customers are demanding technological products. For this reason, HP has placed more focus in serving the needs of corporate customers.

HP has developed products such as servers, storage, and networking. Consequently, corporate technology customers contribute up to 43% of HP’s overall operating profits.

Similarly, Holmes Jr, Zahra, Hoskisson, DeGhetto, and Sutton (2016) identifies corporate technology customers have boosted their demand for technology products due to as organizations have become  more reliant on technological products when performing tasks or delivering product offerings to consumers. The supertrends affecting HP have led the company to changes in its strategies and operations.

HP has been forced to undertake major organizational change due to changes in industry trends. Due to the growth in the tablet market, HP has embarked on gaining market entry in the industry.

Its first attempt occurred in 2011 when it introduced the TouchPad model. The attempt was unsuccessful, and HP introduced other new models in 2013 that were more successful. HP embarked on an upgrade of its sales force after it engaged on research to evaluate the effectiveness of its sales tools.

Employees had provided poor rating for its internal sales tools. In response, HP upgraded its sales processes by using tools from salesforce.com. Thirdly, HP embarked on enhancing its perception among customers by conducting one-on-one meetings with sales-channel partners, customers, and aides.

Thirdly, HP changed the organizational culture to enhance consistency between the company’s strategy and culture. The change was aimed at promoting a culture of consistency and aligning performance with organizational objectives. Therefore, external and internal forces of change led HP to implement new changes.                                                                                                                             

Meg Whitman should utilize change models to boost the likelihood of attaining positive organizational change. Kurt Lewin’s change model

Lewin’s change model contains three distinct steps identified as unfreeze, change, and freeze, processes. The unfreeze stage involves preparing the organization to accept the necessity of change.

Whitman may prepare employees to accept change by highlighting the positive changes that will impact the organization. The change process involves undertaking the change, where organizational change is implemented by allocating roles and responsibilities and providing resources for the change.

The refreeze process involves monitoring the change to determine whether change objectives have been realized. Whitman may use performance metrics such as sales and market share to determine the performance of the change initiative.

Kotter’s model of change may also be used in the change process. The difference between Lewin’s and Kotter’s change process is that the latter has more steps to be undertaken in change implementation (Hornstein, 2015). Kotter’s change process involves a series of eight steps, starting with the preparation for change and ending with monitoring the change.

Every innovation follows a four-step process involving idea, concept, solution, and market (Kazmi, Naaranoja, Kytölä, J., & Kantola, 2017).

Idea: The step involves considering innovation potentials, which is influenced by observing problems and brainstorming ides that could solve it. Similarly, HP evaluated the market and determined opportunities for advancement such as the growth of the tablet market.

Concept: It involves the analysis of the ideas with the aim of determining the best ideas that will be aligned with organizational objectives and market potential. The changes introduced by HP are aligned with market trends. The company realized that the tablet market is lucrative, and it decided to take advantage of the change by developing tablets.

Solution: The solution stage involves developing and testing the solutions. HP has utilized the solution process by evaluating stakeholders’ responses. For instance, HP conducted a survey to analyze the impact of its internal sales tools to gauge its impact on the market. Based on the response, HP adopted more efficient tools.

Market: HP has engaged in production, marketing, and sales of innovative products and services.                                                                                      

HP’s innovation has not paid off, as the company has garnered considerable financial downturn as its revenue in 2017 was $58.57 billion, an reduction from the $120 billion earned in 2011 (Statista, 2018).

The poor financial performance confirms Goldman Sachs’ forecasts that the changes taking place at HP will not be sustainable. He went ahead to estimate that HP’s financial performance will deteriorate.

The poor performance signals that the implementation has not been successful. However, HP would have engaged in better change implementation processes that would have produced better results.

The use of Kurt Lewin’s 3-step change process of Kotter’s 8-step change process would have been successful in preparing the organization for change and in enhancing the effectiveness of the change process.

For instance, had HP communicated the change process to organizational members at the early stages of implementation, it would have identified how each member could positively contribute to the change process.

This way, the change implementation would not have been left to Whitman to execute, but the whole organization would have taken part in it