The Introduction of the Dell Computer Corporation

Dell Computer Corporation (DCC), formerly known as PCs limited, was given its name by its founder, Michael Dell. He started off by trading computers directly to customers to create more value and to be there for direct assistance; and later dropped out of school to devote his life in doing the same. DCC designed its own system for the first time in 1985 and had a profit of more than seventy four million dollars in its first year (Koehn, Nancy Fowler, 2001). It was a family business, spoke and understood the same language, was very cooperative and thus flourished with regards to others. DCC started trade through its website for the first time in 1996, and a year later this corporation became the first ever e-commerce business to achieve million dollars in online sales; and later increased the number of products it sold. Other than doing business of computers, DCC also started the trade of TV's, printers, digital audio players and handheld devices; therefore, rebranded itself to 'Dell Inc' in the twenty first century (Lee, Louise 2006). The whole of the computer industry changed as Dell introduced itself in the market in the mid eighties. The business considers it a big achievement that it has provided custom-made answers to the customers through progressive modifications and tactical alliances. Currently they brag about how they deliver around a hundred thousand PC's per day to clients in 180 different countries (Rakesh Dogra, 2010), to other businesses and to personal buyers. Since the rebranding, many up's and down's have occurred in the corporation. The various numbers of accomplishments that Dell has achieved all have a single beginning in the late nineties. Dell took a step forward and dedicated itself in obtaining a greater data centre and greater technology services businesses. Dell took over for the first time in 1999 (Lee, Louise 2006) by purchasing ConvergeNet Technologies. 2008 was the year when they successfully got hold of EqualLogic for around one and a half billion dollars. In addition to that, a year later the company signed a contract with Perot systems and took it over for 3.9 billion dollars (Rakesh Dogra, 2010). The company wants to attain a more diverse approach in delivering its product and therefore, 2010 may be another year where Dell looks to carry out further takeovers. Starting the business online was very advantageous in a number of ways. The most important one was that it was very economical and totally technologically up-to-date. Any one across the whole globe with access to internet can get hold of the company's website. There was just one this Dell had to keep in mind, and it still does at it expands, the political and social factors according to the countries and place it provides its service. Some nations may not be easily persuaded unless a whole manual is read to them and they are made aware of how they can choose and design their own systems. Others may want to pay after the product has physically reached the location of use. In the era of abrupt changes in the global technology use, it was very important for the company to launch a website and beat, or stay in sink, with its rival companies.

Significance of the subject

There is a lot of importance of this topic as we can see how a normal business expanded and enjoyed its success by over taking its competitors, Compaq, and earned the most finance in one year, which was a big step for any company after entering e-commerce. In this abruptly changing environment with regards to information technology and the internet, it is very important to stay focused on the changes. Dell also faced many challenges in this field like all other companies do, but analysing the significance and importance of adopting to the change is what gave the company a new life. The most durable topic in this respect is maintaining the comparative advantage one has. The sudden changes that have occurred in the corporate world in the recent times indicate that the businesses should re-evaluate themselves internally and externally. It is very normal now to converse about new phenomena called the 'new economy', ever since the nineties, a topic which is fundamentally inclined to and discusses about the occurrence of information and knowledge-hub markets that have boosted up. This has hugely been helped by the growth and progress of the internet technology. The term 'new economy' is mainly concerned with the quick alterations in technology. It talks about the collaboration, not really of the rivalries, complications and ambiguities in technological advances; because its different from the traditional economy, it has to be defined in new terms when it comes to business representation. The companies before were not tactically oriented and therefore every competitor who adopted the information technology and the internet, developed themselves uniquely and very quickly and left others behind in terms of success and progress. Every one knew this new era of the twenty first centuray would see us through more abrupt advances in internet technology, which meant stepping the accelerator on information exchange, knowledge and awareness along with further rapid globalization. This rapid change required companies to re-evaluate there basic doctrines in order to properly achieve, or even understand, competitive advantage. For this, companies needed to take another look externally at how the competitors went about carrying out their activities in order to achieve success, and also needed to see the internal situation inorder to implement the 'in' and up-to-date system. It would then be appropriate for the businesses to conlude whether or not they even have the potential to compete. Dell computers were amongst the first movers in the PC selling industry and were therefore supple and always willing to devote themselves a little extra to bring about innovation. Dell knew that once the internet was put to use, they could post up large amounts of information and it would spread across various locations quickly and economically as there are no geographical boundaries in the internet world. Though the same technology was available to all the players in the market but a few, like Dell, who had first movers advantage and could exploit the resources effectively and efficiently, earned the most success and consequently profit. Dell earned the most by any company through e-commerce in there first year.

Impact of this and comparative advantages

After adapting to online competitive preferences, not only did Dell become a big player in this era of global digital expanding world but it also effectively and efficiently maintained its position by keeping up-to-date. By doing business online Dell can spread information and awareness about itself to the customers all around the world quickly and authentically, thereby, expanding the corporation and building a special position of the company in the minds of the clients or potential customers and hence, obtaining some sort of edge over other international and national companies. Furthermore, Dell also had the first mover's advantage. After Dell started to compete in the field of e-commerce, it was able to effectively use the net and lower its costs and increase the sales, which was hugely problematic in the largely overloaded PC (personal computer) industry. In a desire to attain competitive advantage, in the mid nineties, Dell started to do business of computers on the internet. The clients or the customers could now place there customized orders online on the site, which they formerly did over the phone. Customers can choose from alternative specifications for there systems, which could be single or multiple, and get approximations of costs. After the customer gives in the order and the preferences, the complete status can then be checked. The most interesting aspect of the whole matter was that around eighty percent of the viewers and buyers were new to Dell services and systems. Another financially important point for Dell was that, with the ever so increasing sales of the company, it did not need to employ more members to work for them, because it was all too easy over the internet to take control of the situation. Dell's phone charges also started to decrease and the firm incorporated the Just-In-Time (JIN) technique as well, where they would not need to store any inventories and financially burden themselves; so it began to become very economical for the company. In the early twenty first century the Dell inc. seized, held and overcame its huge competitors, Compaq Computers Corporation and became the globes biggest computer manufacturer. E-commerce now really allows the the customers and the employess of Dell Inc. to communicate with one another anywhere in the world at extreme ease, sitting realxed at there homes, and enables the customers or the clients to understand and choose specifications at will with ample amount of time.

Critical topics

The most critical issue that is faced by all company's carrying out e-commerce, including Dell, is the ethical issue, which was briefly touched on before. This issue includes staying socially responsible and in accordance with the laws of the country the business is being conducted in. Furthermore, other major laws such as the 'consumer privacy law' should also be given a lot of importance. Where there are special rights of the customers or the clients and even the advertisers. A person anywhere in the world hesitates to give in personal information on the internet, such as the home address and account number. Therefore, a sense of special trust must be given to the people and the information provided by them should be kept confidential. They should be granted self-reliance and secrecy. It has been a major problem for company's even before e-commerce was introduced in the scene. Information that was stored on databases of clients was in the risk of being leaked to other parties. Now it has still remained an issue for the customers that while transactions are carried out online, personal information may be illegally gathered and spread for purposes other than the ones intended by the client or customer. Furthermore, Dell had a major issue at the initial stages, that the systems they gave away would either not reach there respective destinations on time or they would have defaults in them. This irritated the customers a whole lot. After analysing Dell over the years, it can be concluded that they surpassed these issues and productively moved on, with effecientcy and effectiveness. Dell has successfully gained the trust of the people by the performance they have maintained.

Conclusion

All companies do not react to and adopt the internet technology change, because it may not be there desire or they don't see there future survival. However, without a question all the companies that are run by the traditional system, in one way or another, want to fill the gap and somehow explore and exploit the new and advance internet based sytem; carry out e-commerce. Incorporating information technology in the company and running the business through it is very advantageous because a while back it was pradicted that by the beginnig of the twenty first century, approximately five and a half million people of the world will have access to the internet (Anderson, 1997) and catching the customer attention online would be the major success. E-commerce and all the abrupt advances in technology that are facilitating it are changing the whole industry environment and therefore, continous changes in the status quo are required and employees need to trained regularly. It should be embedded in the principals and doctrine of such organizations, as Dell, to make such changes, that occur because of innovative technological developments, a continous practice. Now large and pioneer companies like Dell and Cisco systems are regularly transferring large amounts of finance, like hundreds and million of dollars, over there internet based businesses and as a result have also reduced there expenditure by the same amounts per anum. Dell is one of the leaders all around the world thanks to the internet technology, which opened up a whole new gate in the world of businesses, and has led the way with passion and determination.

Recommendation

After analysing companies who have adopted to the change like Dell has, it would be good news if other such companies also took in internet based prefrences for there businesses. Furthermore, thanks to this productive change from the traditional 'older economy' system, customers are not the only one at ease, so are the employees who are less irritated than before, when they would stand at retail outlets and serve cutomers for hours telling them each and every specification and changing system accessories every time cutomers changed there mind.

Refrencing

Koehn, Fowler, N. (2001), Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell, Harvard Business Press, p.A 287, https://books.google.com/?id=7j8VefeqUk4CHYPERLINK "https://books.google.com/?id=7j8VefeqUk4C&printsec=frontcover"&HYPERLINK "https://books.google.com/?id=7j8VefeqUk4C&printsec=frontcover"printsec=frontcover, retrieved on 22nd November 2010 at 21:08. Lee, Louise (2006-03-23), "HYPERLINK "https://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060323_034268.htm"Dell Goes High-end and HipHYPERLINK "https://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060323_034268.htm"", BusinessWeek, McGraw-Hill. https://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060323_034268.htm, Retrieved on 22nd November 2010 at 21:30. Hoffman, J. Hoelscher, M. Sorenson, R. (2006), Achieving Sustained Competitive Advantage: A Family Capital Theory, Family Business Review, Pages 135-145, 19. Dogra, R. (Ricky), (2010), Dell Seeks to Expand Its Data Center Business, The Data Center journal, taken from https://datacenterjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3685:delta-force&catid =24&Itemid=100127. Oswal A. J. Mascarenhas, Kesavan, R. Bernacchi, M.D, (2003), Co-managing on-line privacy: A call for joint ownership, Journal of consumer marketing, Pages 686-702, VOL. 20 NO. 7. 1st December 2010 at 19:50, https://ecommerce.hostip.info/pages/236/Competitive-Advantage.html, Website on WWW. Fahy, J. Hooley, G. (2002), Sustainable competitive advantage in electronic business: towards a contingency perspective on the resource-based view, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Pages 241-253, 10. Freeman, O. (2001), The E-world, information and competitive advantage: what works?, Business Information Review, Pages 43-51, 18. Pavic, S. Koh, S.C.L. Simpson, M. Padmore, J. (2007), Could e-business create a competitive advantage in UK SMEs?, Benchmarking: An International Journal, Pages 320-351, Vol. 14 No. 3. March L. To and Ngai, E.W.T. (2006), Predicting the organisational adoption of B2C e-commerce: an empirical study, Industrial Management & Data Systems, Pages 1133-1147, Vol. 106 No. 8. Anderson, C. (1997), ``Electronic commerce: a survey'', The Economist, 10 May. Sweet, P. ( accepted 2001), Strategic value configuration logics and the ``new'' economy: a service economy revolution?, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Pages 70-83, Vol. 12 No. 1.

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