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Assignment 2: Case Study: Michael Dell—The Man Behind Dell Presentation (Change Management)
Michael Dell began building and selling computers from his dorm room at age 19. He dropped out of the University of Texas when his sales hit $60 million and has never looked back. Dell is said to be the fifteenth richest man in America, and the youngest CEO to make the Fortune 500. Intensely private and notoriously shy, Dell is hailed as a corporate wonder-kid. He climbed to the top by exploiting tax loopholes, outsourcing the competition, and inventing a term called “leveraged recapitalization.”
First, review the following case study:
- Michael Dell—The man behind Dell: Leading Dell into the future
Leading Dell into the Future
| Though Michael had a huge fan following amongst business entrepreneurs and industry observers, he had a fair amount of critics as well. Many interviewers found Michael to be an extremely private person who, unlike many famous business leaders, never spoke much about his private life nor his daily and monthly routines. Analysts commented that this prevented people from understanding and learning from his leadership skills. More importantly, Michael was criticized for being a major reason for the lack of innovation in the PC industry. This was because the R&D budgets of all major PC makers had fallen as they raced to keep up with DELL. Michael was thus criticized for making the whole business of PC manufacturing a ‘cost game,’ and killing innovation. In the early 1990s, Michael launched a price war in the PC industry, forcing rival companies such as Compaq and IBM to develop strategies for lowering costs. In 2000, he launched another round of price wars. As a result, DELL’s market share went up by four points and Compaq lost its position as the world’s largest provider of PCs. |
Michael’s ‘direct model’ had been criticized from the very beginning. When Michael entered foreign markets with the same model, critics said that it would not work in those markets because of certain cultural differences. Though Michael was warned that he would fail badly, he believed that customers would set their own rules and that the direct model would work cross-culturally. Michael’s assessment of the situation was correct. By the end of 2001, DELL earned most of its revenues from global markets (Refer Table IV for DELL’s region-wise revenues for 2001-02).
Table IV
Quarterly Revenues – Region-Wise
| Quarterly revenue by region as percentages of consolidated net revenue | |||
| Q4 FY02 | Q3 FY02 | Q4 FY01 | |
| Americas | 70 | 70 | 70 |
| Europe/Middle East/Africa | 21 | 20 | 21 |
| Asia-Pacific/Japan | 9 | 10 | 9 |
Source: www.dell.com
Michael’s supporters claimed his visionary leadership had not only maintained but also accelerated DELL’s growth in spite of the global IT industry slowdown in the early 2000s. When PC shipments were coming down all over the world, DELL and IBM were the only vendors to record positive growth. DELL’s growth rate even exceeded that of IBM (Refer Table V to compare market shares and growth shares). According to a study conducted by Gartner, leading IT research concern DELL was the market leader worldwide with a market share of 13.3% in 2001. Worldwide, Compaq’s market share was only 11.1%. In the US, DELL had a 24.5% market share of the PC market, much more than Compaq’s 12.5%.
Table V
Worldwide Server Unit Shipment Estimates for 2001
| Company | 2001 | 2000 | Growth (%) |
||
| Shipments | Market Share (%) | Shipments | Market Share (%) | ||
| Compaq | 1,026,025 | 23.3 | 1,068,436 | 24.7 | -4 |
| Dell | 711,614 | 16.1 | 568,410 | 13.1 | 25.2 |
| IBM | 661,547 | 15 | 657,979 | 15.2 | 0.5 |
| HP | 428,104 | 9.7 | 440,512 | 10.2 | -2.8 |
| Sun | 254,053 | 5.8 | 289,231 | 6.7 | -12.2 |
| Others | 1,326,072 | 30.1 | 1,302,943 | 30.1 | 1.8 |
| Total Market | 4,407,416 | 100 | 4,327,511 | 100 | 1.8 |
Source: Gartner Dataquest (January 2002).
Michael said that he would stick to his three golden rules for business, regardless of the downturn in the PC industry, namely, ‘disdain inventory,’ ‘always listen to the customer’ and ‘never sell indirect.’ Will these principles continue to provide DELL with a competitive edge in the PC industry? Only time will tell.
- Analyze Dell’s philosophy as it relates to the role of change in organizational success.
- Determine how Dell’s philosophy would be perceived in a low performing culture.
- Identify which performing culture best suits your philosophy regarding change management and provide your rationale.
- Consider the way Dell started his company; determine what market conditions made the business possible.
- Discuss Dell’s approach to building his brand.
Make sure you write in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrate ethical scholarship through accurate representation and attribution of sources; and display accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
