Hewlett-Packard, otherwise known as the company HP, is one of the largest suppliers of hardware, software and services to small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises in the world. They supply technology to the government, health and education sectors. One could say that without the technology that HP provides, a lot of businesses and other corporations would be in trouble. The article above talks about how HP has gotten into some recent trouble of their own. They were caught giving bribes to Russian government officials in turn for a large government contract. The Canadian government, after hearing this, has invoked a 10 year ban on HP providing them with their technology. Canadian government is not as lenient as other countries when it comes to stuff like this. They stated that they are only going to do business with suppliers who “respect the law and act with integrity.”
This affects both the Canadian government and HP in a very drastic way. The government now loses all the technology that HP has been supplying them over the years. They now have to go and search for another corporation that can provide the supplies that HP has given them for many years. That could be tough to do because HP is arguably the top technology supplier in the world and it is hard to find someone else that has the expertise and efficiency that HP maintains. On the other hand, HP is probably affected by this more than the government. They are losing not only the business that the Canadian government has provided them for many years but could possibly lose more because of it. Their other consumers may follow in the steps of the Canadian government and not purchase their goods anymore. This negative burden is now attached to their brand name. When someone decides on purchasing an HP product or another suppliers they may now choose against HP due their mistake. On that note, HP’s competitors take advantage. This now creates a new market for other technology suppliers since businesses may be looking for new suppliers to replace HP. If a business can produce products that are better than or equal to HP’s they could seriously challenge for this market.
The whole situation that HP has put themselves in could prove to be extremely harsh on the overall value of their company. They are going to have to come up with a well thought out business plan that will get them back to where they were. No business wants to have something like this labeled to them. Only negative things can happen when you are caught doing a criminal act and they can be very difficult to recover from. I am very interested to see what kind of plan HP is devising to overcome their wrongdoings.
Here is a video that sums up HP’s situation: