Case Study: Michael Dell—The Man Behind Dell Presentation (Change Management)

Dell Computers. (2002). Michael Dell—The man behind Dell: Leading Dell into the future. IBS Center for Management Research. Retrieved from: http://www.icmrindia.org/free%20resources/casestudies/Leadership%20and% 20Entrepreneurship%20freecasestudyp7.htm[icmrindia.org]

The story of the world's No 1 retailer of PCs over the Internet, Dell Computer Corporation (DELL) goes back to 1984, when Michael S. Dell (Michael) established the company with a start-up capital of $1,000, in a 1000 square foot office space, in a small business center in North Austin, Texas. Michael, then a freshman pre-medicine student at the University of Texas, began his business by selling computer chips and disk drives for IBM PCs at meetings of computer users in Austin. In its first year of operations itself, DELL achieved sales of approximately $ 6 million, which grew to $ 257 million in the next four years. By 1987, DELL opened a sales subsidiary in the United Kingdom to tap the growing European market. European countries had a lower PC saturation rate than the US and there were no large PC manufacturers in Europe. In the same year, DELL went public. During 1988-1991, DELL expanded its operations worldwide and set up wholly-owned sales subsidiaries in Canada, France, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Finland, and the Netherlands (Refer Table I).

Table I Worldwide Presence of Dell

CONTINENT HEADQUARTER MANUFACTURING FACILITIES

OPERATING SUBSIDIES

America Austin, Texas Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee, Eldora do Sul, Brazil

Canada, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina

AAsia Pacific / Japan

Singapore, Japan

Malaysia, China

Australia, China, Japan, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Thailand, South Korea

Europe, Middle East & Africa

England Ireland

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, S. Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland

Source: www.dell.com, * This list is not exhaustive.  

 

In 1990, DELL recorded sales of $ 546 million in PCs and peripherals; in the same year it entered the 

retail business. Soft Warehouse Superstores, now CompUSA agreed to sell its PCs. The company struck a 

similar deal in 1991 with Staples, an office supply chain. DELL reported a 109% growth in international 

sales but recorded a 64% dip in profits in 1990‐91. The company's costs had increased as a result of its 

attempts to design a PC using proprietary components. This approach increased inventory levels in the 

warehouses. To deal with this dip in profits, DELL implemented drastic inventory control measures and 

accelerated product development. In 1992, the company's sales grossed $2 billion (Refer Exhibit I). 

 In late 1993, DELL faced a serious cash crunch and was not able to cope with increased complexity as it 

expanded its product range and moved into various product areas. In 1993‐94, the company recorded a 

loss of $ 36 million. DELL's management realized that lack of senior managers was one of the main 

reasons for the company's poor performance. Soon, the company recruited many senior managers from 

the industry. It also abandoned its retail business in order to refocus on its mail‐order business.  

 DELL offered Servers, Storage products, Desktops, Switches, Latitude notebooks, Precision 

workstations, Notebooks and Monitors. By 2001, DELL had emerged as one of the top five computer 

firms worldwide, with revenues of $ 31 billion ($ 25 billion in 2000). Its net income increased to $ 2.3 

billion in 2001 from $ 1.8 billion in 2000 (Refer Table II for DELL's financial performance). 

Table II Dell - Financial Performance

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 Net revenue $7,759 $12,327 $18,243 $25,265 $31,888 Gross margin $1,666 $2,722 $4,106 $5,218 $6,443 Income before extraordinary loss

$531 $944 $1,460 $1,860 $2,310

Operating Income $714 $1,316 $2,046 $2,457 $2,769 Net Income $518 $944 $1,460 $1,860 $2,310

Source: www.dell.com According to most DELL observers, the entrepreneurship and leadership qualities of the company's 

founder, Michael, provided DELL with a distinct competitive edge over other players in the PC industry. 

According to an article in the Sunday Times, 1999, "Michael Dell is the only entrepreneur who was not 

eclipsed by the hardware giants. Today...his firm is bigger in personal computers than IBM." 

Michael – The Entrepreneur 

Michael's entrepreneurial skills were evident very early on. At the age of twelve, he created his own 

'auction business' for philatelists. He got a few people in his neighborhood to give their stamps to him, 

advertised 'Dell's Stamps,' in a trade journal and earned $ 2,000 from this venture. According to Michael, 

it was then that he learnt the importance of eliminating the middleman. This became a guiding principle 

for all his ventures. 

Michael got a chance to seize greater opportunities and learn important business lessons when he was 

sixteen. He got a summer job selling newspaper subscriptions to The Houston Post. The newspaper gave 

its salespeople a list of new phone numbers to be called. Dell thought that this was a random method 

for acquiring new business. On the basis of feedback from potential customers, he soon noticed a 

pattern. He found that there were two kinds of people who usually bought subscriptions to the Houston 

Post: people who had just moved into new houses or apartments and people who were newly married. 

Michael discovered that couples who planned to get married had to register their names and addresses 

in the country courthouse for getting a marriage license. 

Soon, Michael, along with some of his high school friends collected the names and addresses of such 

couples and started targeting them through personalized letters offering them a subscription to the 

newspaper. Even after he went back to school, Michael continued with this work. Soon thousands of 

subscriptions poured in and he earned $18,000, more than what his teacher earned in a year. 

Michael's fascination for machines that could compute things started when he was in junior high school, 

when his mathematics teacher installed the first Teletype terminal in their school. By the time he was in 

high school, computers had become a hobby. On his fifteenth birthday he got an Apple computer ‐ he 

promptly tore it apart to understand it's functioning. In 1981, Michael replaced his Apple computer with 

the newly introduced IBM PC. He was enamored by the software and programs available for business 

purposes. It did not take Michael long to realize that the PC would become an integral part of businesses 

in the future.  

Michael spent a lot of his time learning about computers and he was soon able to 'enhance' PCs by 

adding more memory, disk drives and bigger monitors. Instead of buying components from retail stores, 

he bought them in bulk from distributors, thus reducing his costs significantly. In 1982, Michael went to 

the National Computer Conference at Houston and spent his time in computer stores learning about the 

latest prototypes and previewing technology that would soon be introduced in the market. Michael saw 

a big business opportunity in computers. He discovered that while an IBM PC was sold for about $ 3,000, 

its components were available for around $ 600 or $ 700 only. Michael also realized that the people who 

ran the computer stores were not familiar with PCs. He saw hundreds of computer stores in Houston 

selling PCs for a profit of $ 1000. These stores were very successful even though they did not offer any 

customer support. 

As Michael was already buying components, upgrading computers and selling them to people he knew, 

he realized that if he could sell a higher number, he could compete with these computer stores ‐ not 

only on price but also on quality, and earn good profit. At this stage, he joined the University of Texas. 

His obsession for the PC business continued and he started upgrading and selling computers there as 

well. The state of Texas had an open bidding process for which any vendor could bid. Michael applied for 

a vendor's license and started selling high‐performance computers much below the market prices. He 

soon won a lot of bids for selling computers. 

By December 1983, he realized that his fascination with computers was not just a hobby or passing 

phase. In January 1984, he registered a company 'PC's Limited' with the State of Texas. And through 

previous contacts with customers and small advertisements in the local newspaper, he began generating 

business. He sold between $50,000 to $80,000 worth of upgraded PCs, upgrade kits, and add‐on 

components in a month to people in the Austin area. In May 1984, he incorporated DELL and hired a few 

people to take orders over the telephone and to fill those orders. Though he began by buying computers 

from the 'IBM gray market,' Michael realized that it would be more profitable to make his own 

computers. He hired a few engineers and soon DELL's first 286‐based PC was built. As his business grew 

rapidly, he had to shift his office 4 times in the period of 3 years.  

Michael realized that his 'direct model' could easily become a strong differentiator for the company as it 

reduced unnecessary distribution overheads that logged other PC majors. Traditionally a long chain of 

partners was involved in delivering the product to the customer. 

  

Companies with long distribution systems had to fill their distribution channels with inventories in order 

to meet their financial targets. Such companies were also not aware of customer needs. According to 

Michael, because DELL was talking to both customers who bought their products and also prospective 

customers, it had clear idea about what customers wanted. This direct relationship with customers was 

built initially through telephone calls, then face to face interactions, and then through the Internet. 

The direct model was based on direct selling ‐ with no retail channel or reseller. The telephone operator 

used to take the order from the customer and his requirements for the system; sometimes he even 

helped the customer select a system that would meet his requirements. Then the order was passed on 

to the manufacturing people. When the system was assembled, the PC was delivered to the customer. 

This enabled the people at DELL to benefit from real‐time input from customers regarding products and 

services.  

In the early 1990s, business on the Internet was restricted to small tasks such as ordering T‐shirts. 

Michael thought that if one could order T‐shirts online, then anything could be ordered online ‐ 

including computers. Michael saw a huge untapped potential in the Internet and launched 

www.dell.com in June 1994. The website, containing technical support information and an e‐mail link for 

support, was aimed primarily at customers who were already familiar with computer systems. In 1995, 

an online configuration facility was introduced to calculate the cost of different PC configurations. 

Michael commented on his vision behind this initiative, "The Internet will fundamentally change the way 

that companies do business through its ability to enable people to conduct low‐cost, one‐to‐one 

customer interactions with rich content."  

Michael felt that direct marketing over the Internet would create strong relationships with customers. 

According to Michael, the direct model gave DELL a fundamental advantage, which was strengthened by 

the Internet. DELL's website not only enabled customers to research, configure, price and order 

products online, it also allowed them to check the status of their order online. If they had any questions 

about the way it worked, they could post their doubts on the technical support page, where they had 

access to all information which DELL's technical support teams had. Thus, the Internet made the direct 

model even more direct. 

DELL's business grew, Michael's transformation from an entrepreneur into a leader who guided, 

motivated and implemented innovative methods for surviving in the business was but natural. His vision 

for the company soon made DELL big enough to challenge industry giants. The Sunday Times said, 

"Michael Dell is the only entrepreneur who was not eclipsed by the hardware giants. Today his firm is 

bigger in personal computers than IBM." 

Michael – The Leader 

In 1993, DELL faced a cash crunch, because of which it had to cancel its plans to make an initial public 

offering. It also posted its first (and only) quarterly loss in its history. Michael realized that the company 

had been growing 'too quickly,' at a pace much faster than the market According to company sources, 

'The new order of the business was liquidity, profitability and growth ‐ in that order.' 

Instead of wasting time in denying that company had a problem or trying to explain it away, Michael 

decided to get outside help and appointed consultants Bain & Company. Soon, a set of metrics was 

developed to determine which business units were succeeding and which weren't. Groups identified as 

'not performing well' were examined closely. If they could be improved, they were informed how they 

could do so; and if they could not be improved, they were closed down to cut losses. A new framework, 

which was all about assigning responsibility and accountability to managers, was set in the company. 

Subsequently, DELL's business, and financial performance improved significantly.  

By the end of 1993, Michael was even awarded the 'Turnaround CEO of the year' by Upside Magazine 

(Refer Table III for various awards won by Michael). 

Table III Achievements of Michael Dell

YEAR AWARD 1993 Turnaround CEO of the Year by Upside Magazine. 1996 High Impact CEO - Heidrick & Struggles executive search firm

1997 High Impact CEO, 'The Top 25 managers of the Year' list of Business Week

1998 'The Top 25 managers of the Year' list of Business Week 1999 'The Top 25 managers of the Year' list of Business Week

2001

CEO of the Year, Chief Executive Magazine; Entrepreneur of the Year, Inc Magazine; High Impact CEO, Heidrick & Struggles; Top US CEO, Worth Magazine; 'CEO of the Year', Financial World & Industry Week Magazines; ' Man of the Year,' PC Magazine.

Source: ICMR  

Michael always believed that business was all about building teams and building talent in the 

organization. According to him, it was the most essential component of success as diversity of ideas and 

input helped a lot in making better decisions. Michael always encouraged his teams, even if some of 

their products failed or had to be scrapped. He tried to motivate them to work better on their next 

product. 

In April 1993, John Medica, who had led the development of Apple's PowerBook, put in charge of the 

Notebook division at DELL. By the time he took over, one product had already been canceled and the 

development of other products was taking longer than expected. After a realistic assessment of the 

situation, it was decided that only one of the products under development ‐ the Latitude XP ‐ would be 

competitive in the market. They had to cancel several products that were in the development stage and 

focus on the Latitude XP. This de‐motivated the engineers who had spent a lot of time and energy 

developing the products that had been canceled. To motivate them, Michael reinforced DELL's strategy 

to the notebook group and encouraged them to pull together to make the Latitude XP a success.  

Michael laid emphasis on implementation instead of mere planning. According to Michael, "Planning is 

nothing without execution." He informed his clients that strategy was all about what is being done and 

not about what is being said. He reflected the integration of doing with saying and believed that it was 

critical to know and understand customers and respond to their needs and wants. This belief formed the 

foundation of the direct model, which permitted customers to specify and design their own systems to 

meet their needs. 

Michael felt that good strategy and planning was based on viability and implementability. In other words, a strategy must be backed by the right people, organization and motivational system to make it a success. He hired talented people to take his company to multi billion dollar revenue levels. Michael made it point to make sure that everyone at DELL felt that they were part of something great - something special - perhaps something even greater than themselves. He strongly believed that the ability to find and hire the right people. He always wanted to know if potential candidates were able to understand DELL's strategy and if they could help develop that strategy further. According to his recruitment principles, 'If you hire people with the potential to grow far beyond their current position, you build depth and additional capacity into your organization.' Recruitment in DELL was for succession and, in fact, everyone's job at DELL included finding and developing their successor as an ongoing performance plan.

Michael took part in the recruitment process of not only managers but also summer interns. He asked interns about their experiences at DELL and paid careful attention to their observations to see if they had any new perspectives on the company. If they had enjoyed their work at DELL and their strengths matched DELL's objectives, they were invited to join the company. Michael realized that with the growth of the company, people in many positions had to take on additional responsibility. To expect people to grow at the same rate as the company was, he knew, unrealistic. Michael believed that DELL's organizational structure should be flexible enough to evolve along with people. As a result, jobs were segmented and additional talent was brought in to fill new positions. In some cases, business units, product organizations or functional units were segmented to make them more manageable and sharply focused on opportunities. However, this job segmentation confused employees. To overcome employee concerns, Michael decided to inform them why these changes were being made. This greatly facilitated

incremental organizational adjustment. Michael believed that early communication about change would enable employees to see in advance the tangible impact of that change on their job opportunities and careers. Knowledge of their growth potential, he felt, would motivate them to work harder. Job segmentation was not restricted to the lower cadres alone. Even the CEO's job was segmented twice. In 1993-94, Michael realized that there were more opportunities than he could pursue himself, so he asked Mort Topfer to join the company as the Vice-Chairman. In 1997, the job was segmented again. Kevin Rollins, a key member of executive team, was promoted as Vice-Chairman, and in March 2001, he was promoted as President and Chief Operating Officer. Michael realized that aligning teams toward a common objective and creating same incentive system across the entire company would help direct everyone's talent toward creating value for customers and shareholders. At DELL, people worked in teams of two to receive, manufacture, and pack an order for delivery to a customer. The profit sharing incentive encouraged them to be productive as a team. Hourly metrics were posted on monitors on the factory floor so that each team could see if its performance met the company's goals. Michael also believed that 360° performance appraisals helped identify areas that might require further development or improvement and would also keep people focused on achieving their goals as a team. He believed that teamwork was all about people who were interested in each other's growth. According to Michael, information was the key to competitive advantage. He gathered information about the company by 'roaming around' in company premises. Michael also continually brought information into DELL. Michael also believed in creating a company of owners. He believed that a company with an individual owner would be less focused - so he created a culture that made every employee in the organization, at every level, think and act like an owner in order to connect individual performance with company's important objectives (Refer Exhibit II for DELL's cultural objectives). At DELL thinking like an owner meant creating the best customer experience and enhancing shareholder value. DELL's leader also believed in the philosophy of 'under promise and over deliver.' Generally most companies did the opposite - they made big promises to customers, but failed to deliver on those promises. This led to dissatisfied customers and the absence of repeat purchases. Michael firmly believed that the customer comes first. He believed that DELL's toughest customer was its best customer, as the toughest customer teaches the most. At DELL, employees not only respond to customer's problems but they are also willing to invest in coming up with a solution to the immediate problem. DELL built strong relationships with not only customers but also suppliers. Michael argued that 'No one company can succeed by itself. We need help from our partners." He therefore developed strong alliances with vendors and was willing to share his

knowledge with them. Suppliers were evaluated on cost, delivery, and availability of technology, inventory velocity, support to global business, and the ways business being done on the Internet, which emerged as terrific tool to elevate alliances to the greater efficiency levels. According to Michael these relationships were instrumental in the success of DELL; he even leveraged vendor relationships to achieve competitive advantage.  

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.  

 Some analysts went to the extent of claiming that Michael was never an innovator, but was only a 

businessman who was good at identifying innovative business models and executing them to perfection. 

Michael naturally looked at the situation from another point of view. He argued that his company had 

succeeded in producing cheap computers for buyers and earning huge returns for shareholders. 

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.