Coping with COVID-19: How we are helping our partners

At HP, we’ve always put our partners and customers at the heart of everything we do. Today, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve, this has never been more important.

 Globally, hundreds of thousands of small business owners have had to make the devastating decision to close their doors, and millions of workers have found themselves out of a job. Likewise, our partners will not be spared. Closer to home in Singapore, I’m seeing dozens of businesses in my neighbourhood alone find themselves in the same position, and grapple with the consequences.

 I’m proud that HP is bringing the full power to bear in helping our partners navigate this crisis. Our commitment to our partners success is stronger than ever. That’s why we’ve come up with a range of measures to help them cope with the financial and operational challenges they may currently face.

 Across our diverse region, businesses in different markets and countries face a huge range of issues, so we’re not taking a one-size-fits-all approach. We understand that so instead, we’re customizing our support for different markets so we can more precisely meet all our partners’ needs.

 That way, my hope is that our partners be able to keep doing what they do best – looking after our customers together – until things return to normal.

 Ease the cash-flow squeeze

As work dries up and chasing invoices becomes harder, we know that cash flow is a growing problem for many of our partners. That’s where our Integrated Financial Solutions team can help. It recently joined forces with our financial partners to come up with some solutions for small businesses battling cash-flow problems.

 These solutions include deferring or reducing payments until 2021, and using our short-term equipment rentals or sale leaseback program. For example, customers who need to upgrade equipment can now put off payments until their cash-flow situation improves. Alternatively, they can rent the equipment they need now, with an option to extend the contract, complete the purchase, or upgrade the items after 12 months.

Beef up cybersecurity

Many small business owners have told me recently that with multiple team members working from home, they’re losing sleep over cybersecurity. Security on personal devices isn’t always as sound as it might be in an office. And sadly, it only takes one team member to click on a dodgy link to expose an entire organization to a host of digital nasties like malware, ransomware, and viruses.

 To help give peace of mind, we’ll also be sharing tips and advice online on how to tighten up security. We’ll also be running free webinars to help our partners and customers set up their team members’ home offices more securely. Our partners can also access our HP Sure Click Pro cybersecurity support for free until September 30, 2020.

Polish your sales skills

Lockdown situations can mean we end up with spare time on our hands at home, so why not take the opportunity to arm ourselves with extra skills that can help us to future-proof our business?

 Our new HP University is an online learning platform designed to give sales teams the knowledge and insight they’ll need to optimize revenue and accelerate growth when the market recovers.

 You can choose from options including sales skills education, product training and industry-leading certification, and mix and match courses to meet your teams’ priorities. Most importantly, all our courses are free and can be accessed on demand, so you can study whenever and wherever you want.

 At HP, we remain grateful for the commitment, resilience, empathy, and compassion shown by our customers, partners, and communities through this difficult time. If COVID-19 has taught us one thing, it is that we’re all in this together. We want to ensure we come out of it together too.

 Stay home, stay safe