Hp-Kittyhawk Case Write Up

HP Kittyhawk

What did the HP Kittyhawk team get right?

* Technology Innovation: First mini hard disk with 20Mb capacity ability to stand 3 foot drop.

* Visionary: They envisioned the need for small factor disks to be used by personal computers, handhelds devices…etc

* Startup mentality: Isolated the Kittyhawk team to operate in startup mode and autonomy to make timely decision.

* Public visibility through launch.

* Few design wins in new PDA’s being developed

What did it get wrong?

* Customer Scenarios: They did not really understand key scenarios where such small factor storage device is required and why. More of an engineering approach to create something cool and innovative.

* Goals: Not sure realistic goals were defined. Most are of the defined based on basic existing market info rather than well defined/analysed market data.

* Finding market: They ignored the desktop and notebook vendors and just focused on cutting edge mobile computing products. Beachhead strategy.

* Customers: In the absence of strong scenarios and market analysis, they jump from one customer profile to another, found themselves selling to customers they were not intended at the first place.

* Design goal for drop from 4 feet: Is this a key scenario to design for and required by market and customers? For sure it was cool, but it added complexity and additional cost.

* Project team: Setup project team with folks with can do attitude exceptional superstars, instead of than mixture of can do and subject matter experts.

* Performance and Capacity: Performance was not enough for key mobile device scenarios. And limited capacity.

* Cheap: In their marketing pitch used “being cheap” as the most important element. Quality is more important.

* Cost of competitors: At the time cost of competitors for flash drives for example was very high but it decreased in time.

* HPs own division decided to use another small factor disk instead...