Dell Case Study

1. Introduction:

Spanning over 20 years, the company has always been associated with designing, manufacturing and customizing products and services to satisfy a diversified range of customers including individual customers to corporate and retailing businesses. The company's philosophy to deal with customers one-on-one has become a management model for other companies. Having gained the market leadership position in computer products and services, Dell's team have always been careful in sustaining its marketing strategy of providing standard-based computing solutions (Official Website 2004). Today Dell is the third largest computer manufacturer in the world. On January 2004 Dell reports net revenue approximately $41,444 millions and 46000 employees (Annual report 2004).

2. Key Success Factors:

 Dell believes that the most efficient path to the customer is through a direct to consumer relationship, with no intermediaries to add confusion and cost. They are organized around groups of customers with similar needs. This allows our teams to understand the specific needs of specific customers - without customer needs being "translated" by inefficient resellers and middlemen.

 Build-to-Order: Dell provides customers exactly what they want in their computer systems through easy custom configuration and ordering. As a result, they typically provide customers with the best pricing and latest technology for features they really want. During its rise to the top of the PC market, Dell boasted of its manufacturing and supply-chain efficiency. It still builds just about all of its PCs internally in manufacturing plants around the world, when most other PC companies pay companies in Taiwan or China to build their boxes. This allowed Dell to enjoy some of the best margins in the PC industry for several years.

 Build-to-order means that Dell don't maintain months of aging and expensive inventory. Instead they order parts only when customers place orders eliminating the...