Polajnar: HP is currently printing stem cells, in a few years we will see if we can make kidneys

Last year, Hewlett Packard (HP) recorded very good sales results globally, a range of innovations was presented, and investments in new products and design continue. Primož Polajnar, the General Director of HP for the Adria region, reveals to Lider readers what is being prepared for this year, which devices are the most popular, and how much interest there is in 3D printing technology in the region.

HP was one of the dominant players in the market in the last quarter of last year, and its market share has significantly increased. What do you attribute this to?

– Primarily, we attribute it to the fact that we are doing well, and secondly, we have refreshed and improved our entire portfolio of computers and printers, making them better for use. Users can see that they are more satisfied, which has increased our market share, which is now really high.

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What are the most significant differences between working with business and private customers?

– In the business segment, we work with large customers, buyers who purchase in bulk through tenders or seek offers from multiple parties and different suppliers. Service is quite important to them, meaning that after implementation, their software image is placed on the device, they receive a three-year warranty service, and have a good service network available. Private customers are different; they buy in stores or online, are guided by design, are usually price-sensitive, and do not explicitly seek, for example, a three-year warranty, but if they receive it, they are happy.

A little over two years ago, HP split into HP Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. What has changed since then?

– For us as HP Inc., not much has changed, except that we have become more flexible and quicker in responding to market inquiries and simpler when looking at business processes. We are investing even more in research and development compared to when we were one HP.

We are focused on what we do. We do not engage in things that are beyond our control; we are working hard to follow the strategy created two years ago to build infrastructure. We have also placed greater focus on the design of the products themselves to get as close as possible to market and user demands. In that process, we have created a range of new products and innovations that we have launched on the market and will continue to launch.

For example, our innovations include 3D printing, 3D cameras, new laptops, new desktop computers, workstations, and even a printer that we sent to the space station.

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What are currently the best-selling devices and what else does HP plan to present in the near future?

– HP laptops are the best-selling, where the HP name is one of the most popular in the world, but also in Croatia. We are known as a printing company, and in that segment, we are still number one, while consumables remain our core business.

Among the interesting innovations coming is definitely 3D printing, which will be interesting to a large part of the industry, especially in medicine, in the near future. We are in a leading position worldwide when it comes to workstations. We do not only work on virtual reality (VR) for gaming and gamers but also for the business world, and there is also augmented reality that enriches VR. A range of innovations is coming; the current project is printing stem cells, so in a few years, we will see if we can make kidneys or not. I hope that HP, with the support of scientists, will play an important role here.

What is the current interest in 3D technology in the Adria region?

– In Croatia and the entire region, we are slowly starting with 3D technology, and the process of launching it on the market is quite complex because we need large and strong partners who can invest in such technology, buy demo devices, have stocks of consumables and various other materials used. We have received more than 100 inquiries from the entire region, and the interest is high primarily because we launched two new 3D devices on the market a few months ago that fall into the segment of cheaper 3D printers.

What is the strategy and what are the plans for the upcoming period?

– The corporation always mandates that we must grow in every quarter, which we are trying to do. In principle, we stick to the idea that we keep our core part, which gives us bread at the end of the day, within those frameworks, meaning in the segment of laptops, printers, and consumables, we will try to grow even more than before. At the same time, we are focused on things that currently do not have much interest, but in the near future, there will be great interest, such as gaming, PC, VR, 3D technology, and similar. Our strategy is, therefore, to keep the core part of the business in continuous growth and to invest in the part that will be significant in the future and from which we will one day create profit.