Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

Arlene P. Beckles

Northcentral University

Abstract

Michael Dell and Andy Grove are two of America’s leading CEOs. The nature of this paper is to compare and contrast these individuals on several elements such as their similarities, resistance and contribution to their respective organizations, and to discuss what factors impacted their success.

Contributions to the field

At a young age Michael Dell showed his entrepreneurial skills by starting a stamp catalogue business and again in college by starting a computer business from his dorm room. This led him to become the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company in the early 1990s. Michael Dell was instrumental in getting his organization to use the direct model of “mass customization” (Krames, 200, p. 59) thus giving the customer what they wanted, not what they think they wanted. Along with the revolution of the internet Michael Dell used that medium to his organization’s advantage and did so with great success to this day.

Andy Grove at a tender age turned out to be an exceptional individual, and he overcame several factors outside of his control and was still able to become one of America’s most successful immigrants. His contribution to his organization still continues to evolve and grow especially his vision of continuous change. Andy Grove’s definition of a Strategic Inflection Point (Krames, 2003, p. 140) is change so big that no one knows what the change is, but the organization had to adapt to this change.

Encountering resistance

In 1989, Michael Dell met with some consumer resistance with the introduction of a new suite of products code-named Olympic (Krames, 2003, p.67). This was Dell’s biggest flop in its history. A few years earlier Andy Grove met industry resistance when his company executed the wrong strategy for its microchip and experienced yet another setback for being late to market.

Similarities

Both Michael Dell and Andy Grove felt that the...