Book Description
In 1983, Michael S. Dell, then an incoming freshman at
the University of Texas at Austin, drove away from his
parents Houston home in a white BMW he'd bought selling
subscriptions to his hometown newspaper. In the backseat were
three personal computers.
Today, he is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of
Dell Computer Corporation, an $18 billion company, the
second-largest manufacturer and marketer of computers in the
world. Founded on a deceptively simple premise--to deliver
high-performance computer systems directly to the end
user--Dell Computer is the envy of its competition,
constantly growing at five times the industry rate, and a
perennial darling of Wall Street: its stock is up more than
36,000 percent this decade, and more than 200 percent in the
last year.
In Direct From Dell, Michael Dell himself tells the
incredible story of Dell Computer's successful rise,
beginning in his college dorm room with $1,000 in capital.
In these pages, you'll see the formation of a great
visionary--and a great company. You'll meet the young Dell
who, at the tender age of eight, had already begun looking
"to eliminate unnecessary steps" and who, as a
numbers-loving adolescent, was inspired by a newfound
fascination with computers to save his money to buy a coveted
Apple II--only to promptly take it apart. You'll encounter a
young visionary who, upon witnessing the inefficiencies of an
exploding industry, challenged conventional wisdom and set
out to do nothing less than beat IBM at its own game. In so
doing, Dell forever changed the way things "had always
been done" in the computer industry.
You'll also see the birth of a Dell hallmark--the direct
model--which, in its ability to reach the customer directly,
eliminated not only a substantial middleman markup but also
the possibility of costly excess inventory, setting the stage
for other extraordinary achievements. In an industry
notorious for its unreliable service, Dell utilized its
direct customer relationships to pioneer the concept of
customer "support"--and didn't rest until the
caliber of its service was rivaled only by the quality of its
products and its speed of delivery.
But the story of Dell Computer is no fairy tale. Marked by
uncharacteristically rapid growth, the company was faced with
challenges that could have threatened its very existence.
From forays into retail to under- (and over-) developed
product lines, Dell learned some hard lessons along the
way--and emerged stronger as a result.
The strategies born of those times--unrivaled speed to
market; superior customer service; a fierce commitment to
producing constantly high-quality custom-made
systems--heralded what has perhaps been the company's
crowning achievement: an early exploitation of the Internet.
One of the first companies to actually make money online,
Dell is now selling more than $12 million worth of systems
per day over www.dell.com.
Not just for CEOs or those in high tech, the strategies
revealed in Direct From Dell are invaluable to
managers in a broad cross section of industries. From
starting a successful business to pioneering computer sales
and service over the Internet, Dell shares his perspectives
on:
Why it's infinitely better for any business starting out
to have too little capital, rather than too much
How studying your customers--not your competition--will
give you a greater competitive edge
Why it can be life-threatening to your company to pursue
too many good ideas--or to grow too fast
Why it's essential to run a P&L on every area of your
business
Why your people prose a greater threat to the health of
your business than your competition does
How you can exploit your competition's weakness by
exposing its greatest strength
How integrating your business virtually can make the
difference between being quick--and being dead
Revealing nothing less than a new model for doing business
in the information age, Direct From Dell is both an
extraordinary business success story and a manifesto for
revolutionizing any industry.
