Analysis of Strategic Factors: Handspring, Inc.
Jeff Hawkins, Ed Colligan and Donna Dubinsky founded Handspring in 1998 with the mission of creating the most up-to-date handheld technology available. Today, “Handspring is a leading innovator in personal communications and handheld computing. The company’s products include the award-winning Treo family of smart phones, and client and server software for fast web access from handheld devices” (palmone.com, 2005).
Internal Strengths:
Handspring Inc., has an ultimate goal of advancing the handheld electronics of the world. Some of the internal strengths that Handspring has are a knowledgeable governance, marketing partnerships, and sources for the latest technology.
Handspring’s three founders were considered to be at the top of their profession when they started this business. In fact, “The three veterans of handheld computing were credited with reviving the industry through their successful launch of the Palm Pilot in 1996” (Hunger & Wheelen, pg 11-1). However, “In response to these frustrations and armed with a license for the Palm operating system as well as the confidence that they could develop improved handheld computing devices, the three executives let Palm in July 1998 to form Handspring” (Hunger & Wheelen, pg 11-6).
Marketing partnerships have also helped to increase Handspring’s profitability. The company once stated that “by working with the best integrators and back-end software providers in the industry, we can leverage each other’s experience to give corporate customers exactly what they want” (Hunger & Wheelen, pg 11-12). This strategy has helped the company gain a competitive advantage by planning “to maximize its existing relationships with retailers, enterprise-focused resellers, corporate systems integrators, and wireless service providers to branch out toward a broader set of corporate clients” (Hunger & Wheelen, pg 11-12).
Lastly, Handspring realizes that technology is always changing and evolving. That means that their company must always stay up to date with these current changes if they want to be competitive. Handspring does this very well currently.
Internal Weaknesses
The two most strenuous weaknesses that Handspring faces is the lack of financial profit, and a self-demotion of Jeff Hawkins.
Handsprings stocks have took a down swing in the past couple of years. Although the main reason is still uncertain, the fluctuation of sales probably has a lot to do with this financial burden. Some analysists claim that Handspring is on its way back up, but there is no way to know for you
Jeff Hawkins, one of the main founders of the company, announced in 2002 that he was going to spend less time working at Handspring and more time with his new non-profit organization “the Redwood Neuroscience Institute” which could have a negative outcome for the company.
External Opportunities:
Market diversification and strategic alliances are probably the most optimistic external opportunities currently available to Handspring. Instead of just focusing on handheld items, they could possibly explore other electronic options as well.
Strategic alliances are also very beneficial when the market is slow. A strong partnership with a well known company can always boost sales and consumer optimism.
External Threats:
Handspring’s external threats are mainly comprised of its competitors. Companies such as “Nokia, Sony, Ericsson, Siemens, and Motorola had more financial strength to compete in the market for smart phones and smart handheld devices” (Hunger & Wheelen, pg 11-9), then Handspring. Microsoft is also a huge competitor for Handspring with both companies striving to be superior in handheld technology.
Mission and Objective:
Handsprings current mission is to make handheld technology successful. This mission seems out of date and in need of change. Handheld technology seems to be successful already. This should therefore make Handspring look to change their objectives to, offer consumers the most convenient, up-to-date and successful handheld technology available. This would allow the firm then to shift its train of thought from purely workable technology to the most desired.
References:
Hunger, J. David & Wheelan, Thomas L., (2004), Strategic Management and Business Policy, Ninth Edition, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
PalmOne.com. (2004). PalmOne Inc. Retreived on June 24th from www.palmone.com