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Recommended: MARKETING STRATEGIES
Case Study: Dell
Dell can be one of the most successful companies mostly due to its direct marketing strategy. Unlike other computer companies which sell their product through retailers, Dell provides their computer and service directly to customers. The direct-selling model makes the company understand their customers better and eliminates the retailer cost. What is more, each PC is customized to the customers who can specify what components they want. Dell also holds little or no inventory and assembles products as soon as an order placed. The company can save inventory cost and apply new technology on their product quickly by using the just-in-time approach. In 1996, Dell became the e-commerce leader, for its website is not only some pages describing the details of products but also an online shop specializing computers for consumers. People can buy computer on the website which covering 80 countries, 27 languages/dialects, and 40 currencies without leaving home.
Therefore, direct marketing strategy with low cost (low price), customization and e-commerce is the key factor for Dell’s success.
Blois et al (2000.p.20) argued that marketers have been making increasing efforts to integrate direct-marketing activities within their overall communications mix. For instance, when a new computer comes into the market, the company should integrate every aspect of its campaign like TV Ads, online promotions, sending emails and brochures to the potential customers and so forth. Such Integrated marketing communications which can generate the awareness of the new product are likely to become popular in the future. Furthermore, in order to remain its top position, Dell has to develop new market such as camera and printer.
1. How and why did the personal computer industry come to have such low average profitability?
Dell’s main strength lies in their perfection of the Direct Model, which boasts a production process that lasts only a day and a half so the company is able to serve customers quickly and has the capacity to withstand very large orders. Dell built held no finished goods inventory on hand, which helps to reduce idle assets and risk. The company maintained excellent relations and communication with suppliers who were able to adhere to Dell’s just-in-time inventory management and allowed suppliers to send shipments direct to customers, reducing inefficiency. Dell encouraged suppliers to locate their facilities in close proximity to assembly operations. Additionally, Dell had very high customer service and support satisfaction and maintained some of the best performance metrics in the industry. Finally, their main source of revenue came from businesses and large government institutions and no single customer represented more than 2% of their sales, which lowers their risk of buyer power.
There are several current legal and regulatory aspects that face the company. The company has to meet the entire legal requirement and frame work of operating in computer technological industry as far as quality and price regulations are concerned. Dell has been able to meet the legal and standard requirements in the manufacture, distribution and promotion of its products. For instance it offers its products at reasonable prices that reflect the industry pricing regulations. The...
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Dell is the number 1 PC Company in the world in terms of total sales. In addition to offering a full line of desktops and notebooks designed for consumers, Dell offers network servers, workstations and storage systems. The company also sells handheld computers and it markets third-party software and peripherals. Dell’s growing services unit provides systems integration, support and training.
Dell, from its efficient supply chain, is already able to offer products at a low cost. However, its products (e.g. Dell Inspiron 8600) were not able to compete well with the differentiated products of competitors (e.g. Apple’s Macbook). Dell’s cheap and unreliable products therefore failed to compete well in the market and they saw their PC sales being overtaken by
Dell researched the cost of using this type of circulation methods as a fragment of its ABC system and determined direct sales is much more profitable. Today, Dell only uses direct sales. Launched in 1990s, Dell 's e-commerce business became the advertisement of how a company can reap the benefits from online sales. The original business to make a million dollars in online sales in 1997. Having direct contact with their customers is Dell’s competitive advantage. Dell.com gives potential buyers choices and control by allowing to customers to choose computer speed and the size of their hard drives based on how much they are willing to pay. Dell knows exactly what their customers are ordering and are able to get immediate feedback on how they are doing. As I mentioned earlier, Dell’s strategy was to eliminate the middleman by selling PC’s over the Internet, called the Direct Model. Dell became very efficient in build-to-order manufacturing and continued to target specific demographics. Dell enjoyed success until 1992, their troubles, Dell promptly uncovered, came in part from its efforts to sell its products through Staples, Sam 's Clubs and kiosks. While some pundits were questioning Dell 's future, the company acted authoritatively, exiting the retail channel and resolving to re-enter the laptop market only when that product 's quality matched or exceeded the quality of the Dell desktop. By 1997, the Latitude, Dell 's laptop, had won PC Computing Magazine’s Torture Test twice in three years in addition to winning Business Week 's Industrial Design Excellence Award (Rengan &
SWOT analysis of Dell Computers History: The company was founded in 1984 by Michael Dell, now the computer industry's longest-tenured chief executive officer, on a simple concept: that by selling personal computer systems directly to customers, Dell could best understand their needs, and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs. Today, Dell is enhancing and broadening the fundamental competitive advantages of the direct model by increasingly applying the efficiencies of the Internet to its entire business. Company revenue for the last four quarters totaled $19.9 billion. Through the direct business model, Dell offers in-person relationships with corporate and institutional customers; telephone and Internet purchasing (the latter now exceeding $18 million per day); customized computer systems; phone and online technical support; and next-day, on-site product service. Dell arranges for system installation and management, guides customers through technology transitions, and provides an extensive range of other services. The company designs and customizes products and services to the requirements of the organizations and individuals purchasing them, and sells an extensive selection of peripheral hardware and computing software. Nearly two-thirds of Dell's sales are to large corporations, government agencies and educational institutions. Dell also serves medium and small businesses and home-PC users. Dell's Unique Direct Model: Dell's award-winning customer service, industry-leading growth and consistently strong financial performance differentiate the company from competitors for the following reasons: Price for Performance -- With the industry's most efficient procurement, manufacturing and distribution process, Dell offers its customers powerful, richly configured systems at competitive prices.
Dell is one of the renowned companies in the world. If someone is asked to name the companies, which sell computers, he/she will definitely include the name of Dell (Martin 2002). In fact, it is widely accepted brand in the world. However, with the arrival of rival companies, post 2007, for Dell, it was testing to stay alive in the race in the computer industry. Dell in effect is acknowledged by some experts as one of the vulnerable brands. Hence, it would be preemptive for the corporation to continue to exist in the contest, where big companies, such as Apple and Acer have dominated the market by this
Dell Inc. has realized that the most efficient path to the customer is through a direct relationship, with no intermediaries to add confusion and cost. With the power of their direct model and their team of talented people, they are able to provide to their customers high-quality, relevant technology, customized systems, superior service and support and products and services that are easy to buy and use.
ASUS is one of the famous laptop brands among the world but the company still face the marketing issues which need to solve it immediately. In the tablet market, ASUS would have to compete with other tablet manufacturers on both features and price. There are several competitors such as Toshiba, Dell, Jacket, MacBook and other. People will decide buy the products by comparing the prices between ASUS and other laptop brands. Based on the research done by Smith (2011)., a positioning map had been came up and it can refer to the Figure 1. From this map, it can be seen that ASUS is in a very advantageous situation as its products are cheap and good quality compared too many
Historically, personal computer companies produced most of the components for a computer which they assembled into their final products and distributed to resellers. The manufacturing of these components was vertically integrated into the organisation. Dell, as a small start-up, could not build this infrastructure. Instead, they developed a model where they developed relationships with organisations that could provide these components, allowing Dell to focus on selling and delivering computers. By selling directly to customers, initially through mail orders and later by using the internet, Dell avoided reseller mark-up. Dell also enabled customers to order customised computers, which Dell then assembled after receiving the order (Magretta, 1998, p.73-74). “Customers got exactly the computer they wanted and Dell saved money making the computers only when they were ordered” (Hill & Seggewiss, 2008)....
Dell's strengths were oriented around listening to the customers, responding to the customers, and delivering what the customer wanted. The direct relationship was first through telephone calls, then through face-to-face interactions, and now through the internet. It has enabled them to benefit from real-time input from real customers regarding products and future products they would like to see developed. The company also doesn't use reseller or retail channels because every computer is built-to-order, which allows less inventory. The direct model allows them to take the pulse of whatever market and provide the right technology for the right customers.
Dell Computer’s business model, when viewed with that of a traditional manufacturer was set aside as unbelievable. When Michael Dell thought of making a business like Dell Computer, he focused on making personal computer systems and selling directly to customers. Personal Computer 's Limited could better understand customers ' needs and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs. Notably quoted as saying that “technology is about enabling human potential,” Mr. Dell’s vision of how technology should be designed, manufactured, and sold forever changed the IT industry.
In today’s modern marketing organizations marketers endeavor to present a compact message crosswise over distinctive mediums and stages. Integration was the way to achievement, continuity and uniformity, straightforward methodologies that changed the marketing art until the end of time. Samsung will focus on a wide range of sort integrated marketing communication mix for their marketing message. Their over all communication mix will be predictable through the diverse outlets of media. By exploiting dissimilar types of media, they will have the capacity to build the scope basis of how many people see their advertisement and regularity how frequently people see their advertisements.
Competitive strategy is the approach that an organisation takes in order to gain advantage over its competitors. According to Porter, there are two major sources of competitive advantages: costs and differentiation. Cost-based competitive advantage involves reducing production costs so that an organisation can earn higher profit margin or offer products at lower price compared to competitors. Differentiation-based competitive advantage involves offering unique properties that are not offered by competitors’ products. Differentiation allows an organisation to charge a premium for their products because they offer additional benefits to buyers.