Dell Computers

Introduction:

In 1984 Michael Dell was a college student pursuing a degree in medicine. He also happened to have a hobby of building computers. He decided to sell the product of his hobby, and began the business in his dorm room. Business quickly took off, and he soon abandoned his dreams of practicing medicine to develop Dell Computers. From these humble beginnings the company rapidly grew to be a major competitor in the personal computer market. Dell's focus on efficiency of manufacturing, and a direct marketing approach, allowed him to continue gaining ground on the competition. In 1992, his company joined the Fortune 500 list as one of the largest companies in the world. In 1993 their growth placed them in the top five computer system manufacturers. Through this paper I can suggests that with a focus on maintaining a strong position in the core market and strategic involvement in related sectors, Dell can not only maintain its dominant position, but can extend it.

Findings: Many companies start out as very aggressive but get crashed either by its competitor or by poor strategic management. Dell Computer's entered the market with strong strategic vision and stronger strategic management. One of the biggest strengths that Dell has is its simple business concept which is building personal computers built to order and selling it directly to its customers. This simple notion gives Dell several competitive advantages over its competitor. One it is bypassing distributors and retail dealers which eliminated the markups of resellers, and two building or order greatly reduced the costs and risks associated with carry large stocks of unneeded inventory. For management to have a vision and enforcing it through the business plays a key factor in the company's success. One of the many attributes of Michael Dell to his company was noticing what customers want and broadening his product diversity. Since Dell's operating costs ran only about ten percent of revenues, compared to twenty one percent for HP, Dell was able to use his low-cost provider status to generate more profit for the company in other areas. Dell was very conglomerate in its industry, being the number one domestic seller of servers and workstations in 2002 Dell also created products that could potentially bring him more loyal customers. Such as, low-cost routing switches, handheld PCs, retail-store systems, electronic cash registers, specialized software, laptops, printers, scanners, monitors, digital cameras, modems, memory cards, zip drivers and speakers.