1. Overview of DELL
Founded in the year 1984 by Michael Dell
Its vision and business concepts –personal computers could be built to order
and sold directly to customers.
Michael Dell believed his approach to PC manufacturing had two advantages:
(1) bypassing distributors and retail dealers eliminated the mark-ups of resellers
(2) building to order greatly reduced the costs and risks associated with carrying
large stocks of parts, components, and finished goods.
Dell's principal products included desktop PCs, notebook computers,
workstations, and servers.
The company's products and services were sold in more than 140 countries.
Sales of desktop PCs accounted for about 65 percent of Dell's total revenues;
sales of notebook computers, servers, and workstations accounted for about 33
percent of revenue. In early 1998, the company had 16,000 employees.

2. DELL COMPUTER’S STRATEGY
build-to-order manufacturing
mass customization
partnerships with suppliers
 just-in-time components inventories
 direct sales
market segmentation
customer service
 extensive data and information sharing with both supply partners
and customers.

3. ROLE OF ‘IT’ IN STRATEGY
FORMULATION
Customer Service: Dell provided customers with technical support via a toll-free
number, fax, and e-mail. Dell received close to 40,000 e-mail messages monthly
requesting service and support and had 25 technicians to process the requests.
high-speed server network to load that customer's software onto the PC's hard disk
in a few seconds.
Partnership: Dell was partnering with Intel, Microsoft, Computer Associates, and
other prominent PC technology providers to help customers make more effective use
of the Internet and the latest computing technologies.
Entry into Servers: Dell, which used Intel microprocessors exclusively in its
computers, had been a consistent proponent of standardized Intel-based platforms
because the company believed those platforms provided customers with the best total
value and performance.
Contract with Electronic Data System:
to help provide service to large customers with extensive server networks.

4. CONTD….
Virtual Integration and Information Sharing
Dell had developed customized intranet sites (called Premier Pages) for its
3,000 largest global customers; these sites gave customer personnel immediate on-
line access to purchasing and technical information about the specific
configurations of products that their company had purchased from Dell or that were
currently authorized for purchase
Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing
To stay competitive, you need to make decisions fast — and base them on the right
information. Organizations worldwide are turning to business intelligence (BI) with
data warehouse (DW) infrastructures to meet this challenge.
The increasing importance of internet led Dell to split the market divisions into
35 smaller subunits that focus on more specialized groups of customer and they all
conduct the majority of their business over internet.