dell

Dell Computer Corporation

The Basic Dell Computer Story

This is a great American success story. In 1997 Dell was the No. 2 PC manufacturer in the U.S. as a leading supplier of PCs to corporate customers, government agencies and educational institutions. This all happened because Michael Dell started selling computers from his dormintory room while he was a studeant at the University of Texas. When he started grossing $30,000 a month he concluded that he was onto a business opportunity that was too good to pass up. He quit school and founded Dell Computer in 1984. In the following thirteen years the company grew to $12 billion in annual revenue.

Dell was a pioneer and has become the leader of the customer-direct, build-to-order computer systems business. Its financial success stems from developing and implementing strategies designed to maximize the strengths of the direct business model. This business model provides the following competitive advantages.

  1. It bypasses computer dealers and avoids related price markups.
  2. It enables Dell to build each system to a specific customer order, which eliminates inventories of finished goods to resellers and enables it to move faster to new technologies and lower-cost components.
  3. It provides direct contact with thousands of customers every day to tailor support offerings to fit customer target markets and to control the consistency of customer service around the world.
  4. Leveraging its relationships with key technology partners enables Dell to rapidly incorporate the most relevant new technologies into its products.
  5. The low inventory and low fixed-asset model results in one of the highest returns on invested capital in the computer industry.

Dell is No. 3 in the PC industry segment and the fastest growing among all major computer-systems companies worldwide. For the revenue that it is producing, it is surprising that it has only 16,000 worldwide employees. Because it is so highly integrated, information systems play a critical role in the operation and management of the company.

Dell Computer and the PC Segment of the Computer Industry

Dell and Information Systems Use

Key People at Dell Computer

Tips on Doing a Paper on Dell Computer

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