Dell Case Study Business Proof Reading Services

Dell Case Study Business Proof Reading Services

Task 1

What is the name and mission statement of the company? How long has it been in business? What is the line of business? Who are the competitors?

The Dell Case Study Assignment Help on the business project has considered Dell Computer Corporation as the case study organization. Dell Computer Corporation is regarded as the best producer of computer services and products and is the premier company dealing in computer systems in the world. The multinational information and technology giant is based in Texas in USA and employs more than 80000 people across the world. In the year 1984, Michael Dell in his university days found the Company as PCs Limited with a modest investment of $1000 that went on to cross the asset valuation mark of $26500 billion in 2009. The company started with a simple mission to sell computers directly to the customers so that intermediary costs could be avoided to make the price of the end product mush cheaper to the customers. The company has been successful in its operations from the effective implementation of the model of selling directly to the consumers. The company became the largest sellers of servers and computers in the initial years of its growth and currently apart from the computers the brand also sells USB Storage Devices, data storage devices, scanners, notebooks, televisions and servers (Dyer et al., 2009). The mission statement of the company right from its initial years of operation till now has been diligent in providing the best computers to the consumers at a cheaper price than its competitors. The current mission of the company following its privatization in 2014 is aimed not only form providing computing devices but also ensure the aspect of affordability by the provision of financing. The global market share 14.1% in the year 2015 had put the Company in the third spot in the PC market worldwide succeeded by Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard respectively.

In the domain of computer services and products Dell has to confront competition from Lenovo and Hewlett Packard. IBM and Apple are also its competitors in the sector of software and hardware. The competitive strength of the brand lies in the fact that computers are not only affordable for the customers but they are being customized as per the customer’s need which makes the customers comes back to the product time and again. As the competitors don’t follow direct selling model, Dell through operational excellence has gained considerable market share by providing low cost solutions within a commodity-oriented market (Helfat et al, 2009). The company is focused not only on making readymade computers available to its consumers but it has been diligently offering choices as per the needs of the customers which in turn has made the loyalists of the brand to come back time and again to the brand.

Task 2

What is the history of the company up through the present day?

Dell Computer Corporation was founded by Michael Dell in the year 1984 with an original and incredible mission of selling computers directly to the customers without the involvement of the retailers. The custom built computers were cloned on IBMs, and were being assembled with accessories and parts purchased from wholesalers from a dormitory room. The computers were sold at cheaper rates through the mode of mail order system and Dell started moving at a superlative speed grossing around $80000 on a monthly basis. As the demand for the brand products increased Dell pioneered the idea of catering to the wants, needs and unique propositions of the customers through the set up of a national customer support cell that was responsible for handling all kinds of trouble shooting requirements, maintenance and repairs of the company’s products. There were no such services at that point of time by other companies and the implementation of a responsive, customized and customer oriented service platform catapulted the brand to the front league in the market competition.

Initially the company was PCs Limited which was rechristened as Dell Computer Corporation in 1988 and it entered the stock market listing with $8.50 per share. The company found a place in the top 500 list of corporations in 1992 and Dell went on to employ about 80000 people across several countries of the globe. The current net worth of the company is $14 billion and its present line of business includes servers, printers, desktops, projectors, HD televisions, data storage systems, cameras, home theater systems and a wide array of accessories related to technology. Dell also is known for providing training, support and computer consulting services apart from marketing third party software and hardware. Through the 90s Dell has expanded in the continents of Asia, Europe, America and Africa by setting up manufacturing centers in various locations and the company was renamed Dell Inc in 2003 ( Pollard et al, 2011).

In the mid 2000s with the wake of innovation in technology for harnessing growth, Dell’s stakes in the market loosened since it was relatively less focused on spending for research and development than his competitors which created hurdles for the brand in the sectors of MP3 devices and mobile devices. The company ordered downsizing in 2008. With the onslaught of the smart phones and tablet PCs by rivals, Dell started losing its hold on the PC market and in the year 2013, it went private in a $24.4 billion deal. The company in the recent times has acquired EMC in a $60 billion deal and the new Dell Technologies has shifted its operation to Hopkinson with a global employee base of 140,000 people netting revenue worth $74 billion, being considered as the largest technology company controlled privately in the world.

Task 3

Good Ethical Decision of the Company

Dell Computers Corporation has been recognized several times by the governing councils of ethical practices in trade because of its exemplary culture of weaving the aspect of integrity in its winning culture and making compliance with the ethical standards a keynote in the areas of customer service, support and engagement with suppliers and worldwide partners.  

Task 4

Poor Ethical decision of the company

Dell Computers had been reticent in diverging from the model of direct selling to consumers and that was a poor ethical decision making since the retail model would help the consumers reach the physical shop at times of need as well as it would help in creating a network an relationship between the retailer and manufacturer to sustain the needs of the competition.

Task 5

Write about their marketing and distribution strategies?

The marketing strategies of Dell centers on the platform of a steadfast commitment towards its customer base as a part of its strategy of growth in the long run competition. Dell is perhaps the pioneering PC making enterprise to provide offers of customization in laptops. The offerings of the brand are segmented on the factors of demography and psychography. The brand caters to the segment of technologically savvy clientele, executives and the professionals by creating a strong line of engagement through the aspect of serviceability in both the software and the hardware segment. The marketing strategy followed by the enterprise is global in nature which highlights the significance of geographical proximity with the customers which can prove essential in the effective execution of the strategies of building a loyal base of customers. Dell uses strategies of positioning on the basis of the user and the benefits and that has helped the brand in being different from its market rivals. The marketing mix employed by the brand for target segments can be discussed under the following heads:

Product – The brand has always believed that marketing strategies should not be only directed towards the provision of services and products rather towards the provision of evolving benefits to the needs and expectations of the customers that are exposed to all kinds of changes.  It makes provision for a wide array of services and products both for the personal and professional class of consumers. The brand makes it a point to manufacture, develop, sell, market and support a huge range of products that are in most cases made as per the declared specifications of the consumers. For instance, the latitude and Inspiron notebooks, dimension desktops, and Dell Precision workstations etc.

Price – Dell has been concentrating on the objective of providing profitable and cheaply priced computers to its customers and hence the company has followed the direct to consumer model by cutting down intermittent costs. The options of customization have made the pricing of the product largely dependent on the chosen variables by the customers that would find place in the final product. The process of price undercutting in competition has helped the brand in gaining of the market share at a fast pace.

Place – This element of marketing mix involves the presence of intermediaries in the form of distribution mechanism that ensures smooth movement of goods and services from the producer’s end to the consumers. Dell in its marketing strategy has explored the advantages of the location in ensuring the availability of its products with the closest dealers so that the clients gain trust in the services and products of the brand and the company realizes the objectives of having a diverse and wide range of customers (Hemmatfar et al, 2010).

Promotion – Although the brand had never been inclined much towards on marketing campaigns until 1999 when it got engaged in it quite extensively through the medium of advertising in print, television, internet, catalogues and newsletters. In the recent times Dell has extensively started to explore the possibilities of celebrity endorsements and promotions through retailers such as Carrefour, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Staples.

The analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats has helped the company in forming its marketing strategy. The exemplary customer service phenomenon of the company has been its biggest strength and so are its direct marketing strategies that helped in creating bonds with the customer base. The brand is in control of the supply chain since it generally assembles the parts by utilizing cheap labor and dispatching it to the customers. The efficient procurement, production and distribution process delivers powerful technologically upgrade systems at affordable rates. However the brand has negligible customer base of students which could augment its revenue. The customers are unable to retailers in the absence of the channels of distribution and as the sets come customized the waiting time for the customers to have a specific PC could be long.

The brand has tremendous scope of diversification into newer product range and the presence of the platform of internet has opened up a plethora of choices for the customers to gain knowledge about the brand from the website of the enterprise (Jones and Hill, 2010.). As more and more people getting inclined towards online purchases, Dell needs to exploit the platform of online sales to its benefits. The computer models are short lived nowadays and hence the brand must focus on upgrading its product features continuously to enjoy the market share. The direct to customer model could prove less effective since offerings of low cost is trending internationally and most importantly the price being not much of an issue for a certain section of the customers they tend to switch over easily to other brands rather than wait for getting their product customized.

Dell has been utilizing the model of just-in-time so that the operation can be run with the lowest level of inventory. The initial advantage in competition was the result of the approach of build-to-order and direct marketing strategy. Dell has been utilizing the sales promotion technique in the recent times following its privatization and the official webpage titled Coupons, offers and discounts by Dell declares special promotional offers for accessories, PCs and tablets (Di Gangi and Wasko, 2009). Additionally the Dell advantage reward program has offering of free second day shipments, access to monthly and pre-sales offers and certain offers of high discounted products. Location and season based promotion of sales are also undertaken by the company.

Distribution strategies

Dell in its initial years of operation has depended largely on the model of direct sale to customers in its supply chain management which made the name of the brand synonymous to that of a pioneering technology giant in the domain of computer systems. With the change and the evolution taking over the computers industry the customers have also evolved and so are the priorities of the companies. Dell has thus in the recent times started offering PCs through Wal-Mart stores as well as the other retailers in different countries across the world. However the company has not given up on the direct model and has seen this inclusion of the retail model as a source of sustaining the level of profits in the present day competitive scenario of the global computer market.

Task 6

Write about the company’s operations

The operational strategy of Dell has been built on the platform that comprises of the aspects of just-in-time manufacturing, direct selling to customers and making provision for best quality customer service, customization of products and sharing of extensive data and information along with partnership with the suppliers. The corporation in a bid to achieve vertical integration virtually with customers and suppliers applies this kind of strategy to reflect as if they belong to the enterprise (Kotler, 2012). The high degree of coherence within the elements has resulted in Dell’s success over the years. The company had always kept its focus on the aspects of providing solutions and services to the customers. Dell targets the large businesses and hence its customer segment is the corporate sector. This kind of customer segmentation by the enterprise can be attributed to its strategy of operation. The other segment that the company caters to is the segment looking for customized products and the ones that are driven by latest technology. The advertising communication of the enterprise has shifted to empowerment of the customers from the aspect of customization, so that the factors of support and service with regard to the needs of customers can be addressed in the best manner.

The brand follows the practices of lean manufacturing and its USP is the adoption of the component of just-in-time model. Teams of cross company design have been formed so that the delivered products are always of the best quality and this has been possible due to the formation of partnerships with Suppliers (Pollard et al., 2011). The proximity of the assembly plants and the suppliers has helped in bringing down associated costs and the lead time. As the company is not present in the market of manufacturing and designing of components hence it can choose the supplier who would suit the operations of the company. A considerable amount of cost is saved by the implementation of just-in-time model of manufacturing that helps in roping the price sensitive consumers thus helping the brand gain substantial market share. The company also has provisions for adopting mass customization through build-to-order manufacturing process which minimizes the risk of carrying inventory and helps in the enhancement of the value for customers.

Through the distribution process of direct sales the company gets to understand the requirements of the customers in a better manner and feedbacks can be acted upon in the least possible time. The trend of sale can be easily detected and efficient operations can be planned through sharing of the information with the suppliers. The factor of demand has been integrated and Dell is now trying to combine logistic network, plants and suppliers in its supply chain. The distribution on the basis of direct sales has enabled the brand in understanding the business needs of the customers and hence demand forecast about the PCs can be done effectively (Doyle, 2009). The sales account managers are trained so that they can make accurate estimations of the needs of the big customers in the corporate sector. The R&D of the enterprise focuses on the improvements of the process of a\assembly quality control. The development in the components segment has been allowed to be tracked by the vendors so that the models that would be delivered would get developed accordingly. The higher life batteries in the Dell computers are the example which has resulted from the participation of the suppliers in the development stages.

Task 7

Write about the good and/or bad effects that the current recession has had on the company. Provide examples

During the period of recession Dell had recorded a 23% revenue drop and a profit decline to the extent of 63% which were $12.3 billion and $290 million respectively. The four business units had posted loss and the sale in the desktops fell 34%,.the operating expenses of the company plunged to 5% (Teece, 2010). The recession brought into light the risk factor of a portfolio that is essentially hardware centric and Dell had plans to explore the zone of services to stay away from the issue. The company had launched a cloud based managed service in US so that the information technology network of the customers in the corporate sector can be monitored and maintained.

The beneficial effect of the economic recession was felt by the company as less money in the hands of the customers forced them to purchase the cheaper IBM clones although technologically innovated PCs build by Dell in large numbers that helped in the escalation of the company sales to $ 1 billion mark.

Task 8

 Inclusion of a Financial Statement of the Company

Cash Flow Statement of Dell Computer Corporation

Task 9

Summary

The above Dell Case Study Assignment Help has discussed the key points of Dell Computer Corporation and has involved the analysis of the marketing, distribution, operational strategies along with the significance of ethical practices within the organization. 

Bibliography

Doyle, P., 2009. Value-based marketing: marketing strategies for corporate growth and shareholder value. John Wiley & Sons.
Pollard, D., Chuo, S. and Lee, B., 2011. Strategies for mass customization. Journal of Business Economics Research (JBER), 6(7).
Kotler, P., 2012. Kotler on marketing. Simon and Schuster.
Helfat, C.E., Finkelstein, S., Mitchell, W., Peteraf, M., Singh, H., Teece, D. and Winter, S.G., 2009. Dynamic capabilities: Understanding strategic change in organizations. John Wiley & Sons.
Rosenbloom, B., 2012. Marketing channels. Cengage Learning.
Di Gangi,P.M.and Wasko, M., 2009. Steal my idea! Organizational adoption of user innovations from a user innovation community: A case study of Dell IdeaStorm. Decision Support Systems, 48(1), pp.303-312.

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