Creating the ‘Wow Factor’ in Consumer Tech

DUBAI, 6 November 2007 — While IT in the Middle East still remains an industry dominated by male executives, a few women are finally making a mark. For HP Middle East, Sherifa Hady, the Consumer Business Manager, Imaging & Printing Group has set out to change the perception that IT is a “guy thing.” By bringing products and services to the region that fill the needs of a wide range of users, Hady is not only increasing HP’s footprint in the consumer space, but by making available the “right” products, she’s enabling the brand to reach out to families who may never have invested before in computers, cameras or printers. Hady has visited the Kingdom’s retail outlets and knows the market well. She is constantly enhancing the mix of HP products available here with the goal of convincing local consumers to think again and again, “Wow, HP has just what I need.”

“One size does not fit all,” Hady explained. “At HP we’ve been trying to look at the needs of different types of consumers and create products that will appeal to them. For example, the white edition of our notebook, was launched just for women. It was very, very successful. We believe that women are more interested in making a fashion statement, so this is an example of something HP has done to meet this desire. On the printer side, we have been thinking of how we can develop products to meet needs — not just in terms of consumers versus business, but also in regards to countries which are in different phases of development and have different requirements. This could be different specifications, it could be a different price point — the fit is important.”

The fit is important, whether it’s a product for an enterprise or the home and Hady believes that these days it is women who are increasingly making the technology decisions for their families. HP is aiming through more informative advertising, participation in local exhibitions and training for retail channel staff to empower women to make better decisions in regards to technology selection. But Hady emphasized that before setting out to purchase any IT product, consumers must first decide what needs that product will fulfill.

“I’m a mother and I want to provide the best for my children. But to do that, first I need to understand what their needs are,” remarked Hady. “If this is in regards to a printer — how many pages are they going to print and for what purpose? If they need a computer — what are they going to do with it? Is it just for e-mail, writing homework assignments and browsing the Internet, or they are going to do gaming or graphics design? I would look at the needs and then select the product that meets those needs. No one is pushing consumers to take the higher-end products and HP creates such a wide variety of products. At the end of the day though, you don’t want to purchase something that doesn’t have all the features or performance you require.”

The Middle East’s consumer market is important to HP. With printer sales reaching saturation in the consumer markets of Europe and the US, in the Middle East, many families are buying their first printer. Hady stated that in the region there has been phenomenal growth in printer sales, particularly in the “all-in-one,” multifunction printers that print, scan, copy and fax. The growth of Internet connectivity in the Middle East is also driving printer sales. HP’s research has shown that 60 to 70 percent of people print what they find on the Internet.

Middle East consumers may be a little behind the curve in terms of IT adoption but once they understand a technology, they are often enthusiastic in using it. This means that very quickly, price is not the only consideration in a tech purchase.

“In the last few years there was a demand for low-cost PCs and now that demand has largely been met in the Gulf,” Hady observed. “Now we are seeing that there is increasing interest at the higher end. These days the Middle East’s consumers go and compare. They are more informed. They look at a PC or printer and say, ‘This is the lowest cost, but for just a little bit more I can get these other features.’ There is definitely an interest from consumers in purchasing products that can do more than just the basics.”

For the future, Hady believes that the Gulf’s enormous youth population will continue to drive the consumer technology market forward. HP is actively examining how young Arabs use technology and catering to those needs is a priority. For instance, after HP channel partners returned from conferences in the US last year, HP Middle East received feedback that there was enormous interest in the photo kiosk technology that had been on display at those events.

Photo kiosks are stand-alone, self-service photo printing equipment that produce 4x6-inch prints quickly — in as fast as five seconds per print. The kiosks print from a variety of digital storage media such as flash memory, SD cards and mini SD cards — so they could print photos taken by both cameras and mobile phones. It is thought that when set up in places such as coffee shops, supermarkets or even universities, that there would be huge demand from young people to print photos with the kiosks.

“We understand the strong interest in photo kiosks. However, when HP wants to introduce a product into a market, we need to make sure that we’re not just putting the product on the shelf, but that HP service and support is also provided as well as the channel to sell it,” said Hady. “All these aspects of photo kiosks are being investigated. There has been a lot of interest from people who have seen the kiosks at expos abroad and want to have them in the Middle East, so work is in progress to make that happen.”