How Dell vs HPE Workforce-Data Analysis Can Help You Evaluate Your Business Strategy
One of the most actionable tricks of the trade within the current tech/business landscape is to take a peek over the fence to see what your competitors are doing right (or wrong).
The best way to stay ahead of the curve is to be the very one who bends it.
And to do that, modern businesses must gain access to deep analytical insights into what the industry A-listers are doing, how they are doing it, and then try to come up with their own Business Intelligence strategy on how to course-correct and become/stay relevant.
But accessing, processing, interpreting and deploying this type of data is not an easy task to do. This is why we did it for you.
Here we break down deep workforce-analysis data about two leading computer tech brands — Dell Inc. (Dell) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) (Germany). Both are successful multinational tech giants that develop similar products and target the same markets, but have different business approaches and underlying workforce frameworks.
Signal Through the Noise
By using the Osterus workforce analytics feature to accrete and analyze a wide range of data points that give us a raw overview of Dell’s and HPE’s workforce, we are able to compare the gathered data and put it in a more focused context. This helps us gain tangible insights into how these companies are prioritizing their processes and in which baskets they are allocating their proverbial eggs.
Dell Vs HPE Workforce Data Comparison
Let’s take a quick look at some of the charts and data that show the difference in some of the key metrics between the two companies.
Previous Companies Employees Worked at:
Both companies currently have employees who worked at numerous overlapping companies, including IBM, EMC, Siemens, BMW, etc; with a certain percentage of the HPE workforce who moved to Dell, and vice versa.
Average Job Experience:
Both companies have the lowest number of employees with less than 3 years of experience, and the most with over 16 years of experience, while Dell has significantly more employees with 11–16 years of experience.
Job Positions Held:
Our report shows that Dell has three times more Account Managers, whereas HPE employs more Managing Directors, Project Managers and Tech Consultants.
Insights Drawn
At a first glance, it seems that there’s not much insightful information provided by the data listed above.
Yes, we immediately notice that certain metrics go vast in Dell’s favor, but that can be attributed to an entire-decade longer history this company has on their competitors. Ten years is a nice head start, which is why Dell has a substantial advantage in terms of:
- the overall number of employees
- the number of previous companies their current employees worked for
- the number of attended universities, etc.
And that’s pretty much the main difference that stands out right away. But once we start looking at the big picture and we put it within a Business Intelligence context, some valuable insights start to arise from this seemingly raw data.
Loyalty Vs Expansion
If we take a look at the average number of previous companies the employees worked at before coming to Dell or HPE, we realize that this metric is 26% higher with HPE. Similarly, HPE’s average number of previous job titles exceeds Dell’s by 29%.
The insight we can glean from this indicates that Dell tends to prioritize loyalty and commitment of its employees to the company more so than HPE, possibly due to HPE’s need to increase and expand its workforce. On the other hand, Dell, as an already established brand within its target market, is likely gearing towards stabilizing its workforce.
When we throw in the average experience length metric, which is again favoring HPE — 2.6 years higher than Dell’s average — the above-mentioned insight only gets strengthened.
Key Takeaway:
If you have a relatively young business that seeks growth and expansion, perhaps you should consider putting employee loyalty to the side for a bit and focus on a more dynamic and pragmatic workforce structure.
At least until you establish who your star players are.
Once you have your core crew of true MVPs in place, building and scaling up from there shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.
Customer-centric or Operation-focused?
Almost 16% of Dell’s employees are Account Managers — individuals who offer product and service customer support, maintaining and expanding existing accounts. HPE’s account managers make up only 4.4% of its workforce — a third that of Dell’s. They also have more than twice as many Project Managers and Managing Directors when compared to Dell, indicating that HPE has a higher and more robust chain of command.
These numbers speak to Dell’s more customer-oriented approach to managing its business and ensuring customer satisfaction.
HPE, however, is likely focused on implementing strategic guidance and leadership during the course of its operations. As well as allocating many resources to quality control in an attempt to ensure high levels of IT service provision.
Key Takeaway:
More-established businesses tend to invest heavily in keeping their vast customer pools satisfied in order to maintain brand reputation.
Younger companies, on the other hand, are more likely to invest in strengthening their core processes and operations i.e. the main cogwheels of their service’s underlying architecture. Once they have a strong and consistent service to offer, they can leverage it to build their own vast customer base.
As for high brand reputation? It ensues organically from that point on.
