Michael Dell--the CEO of Dell computer
corporation
Alice
(Sun Yingtao)
1.
Introduction
Michael
Dell is the founder and CEO of Dell computer corporation that is the world’s
largest direct computer company. He is also the youngest person ever to head a
Fortune 500 firm. And he is the longest-serving CEO in the computer industry.
Michael
Dell is clearly a genius in the computer world and business field.
At
age
13, he got a knack for taking apart the motherboard of his Apple II computer;
when he was a senior in high school, he began to show his talent in business. He
sold so many newspapers subscriptions that he was able to pay cash when he
bought a BMW; In 1983, at 18, as a freshman at the University of Texas, Austin,
Dell started selling custom_ made personal computers and components out of his
dorm room; A year later, with $ 1000 in startup capital, he set up his business
and dropped out of university. The day his former classmates were graduating,
his sales had already hit $ 70 million a year; At 33, the visionary CEO of Dell
Computer is at the pinnacle of the entire PC industry. Today, he runs the second
largest (after the HP_ Compaq merger) and still fastest growing PC maker in the
world with a market capitalization of well over $ 100 billion. What is more,
his
revolutionary insights into business processes provide invaluable lessons for
many other industries as well.
2.
What
qualifications or achievements make him as a leader.
(1)
He knew his goal clearly and unwaveringly focused on it. When he was a
freshman in college, Michael Dell declared that he wanted to beat IBM. In the
following years, he started his own business and achieved his goal unceasingly,
no matter what difficulties he faced with. Today, Dell company revenues are
about $ 7.8 billion a year. He has passed IBM in annual sales, and is closing in
on industry leader Compaq.
(2)
He
has strong sense of innovation. As
a successful entrepreneur, he is fond of doing something new and takes a risk
and works hard to make them work. He also cherishes difference and thinks
difference can breed innovation. He hired
a
diverse work force in his teams with different angles on
problems.
He
dares to change his position and do something new. When he saw opportunity ahead
that selling custom__ made PCs and components was very profitable, he made a
decision to drop out of university and started his own business. Dell’s sense of
innovation makes him hold lots of number 1 record in computer
industry.
Dell
was first in the PC industry to pioneer high-quality, low-cost, direct selling
model to end_ user. He was also a pioneer to use the World Wide Web to sell
products. His company now sells approximately $50 million worth of products on
the Net daily, making it one of the world's largest Windows-based e-commerce
sites.
(3)
He
has full responsibility either for business or for family and keeps good balance
between work and life.
He worked hard to create tremendous value for its customers, its employees and
shareholders. In the spare time, he also spent more time with his wife and kids
and wants to be a great dad and a great husband. Every day he drives his kids to
school .he always makes pancakes for his kids.
(4)
Michael Dell has a powerful vision for the future and develops unique business’s
philosophy.
He wants his company to have a unrivaled speed to market; an unwavering
dedication to customer service; a fierce commitment to producing consistently
high-quality, low-priced, custom-made machines; and a shrewd exploitation of the
Internet. The vision makes Dell computer successful and unique in the world.
What is more, he knows how to use the vision to communicate and motivate his
employees and get people excited what he is doing. Dell says “A lot of businesses get off track
because they don't communicate an excitement about being part of a winning team
that can achieve big goals”
3.
What
challenge did this person confront, and how did they overcome these
challenges?
Michael
Dell created a miracle in PC industry. With $ 1000 and new an idea, the Dell
computer has been the world's best monger of low-cost, mail-order PCs. But
Michael Dell still faced a lot of challenges.
First
of all, his company should experience a transitional process.
Just as we all know, in the 21st century, Sales of desktop PCs are going to
decline, Profits are sagging, too. This situation has a crucial effect on Dell
computer, because 80% of Dell Computer's annual revenues are due to the sales of
PCs and notebooks. Dell's sales growth averaged nearly 60% a year in the 1990s
but has slowed to about half in 2003. Dell's stock, which grew an average of
140% a year from 1995 to 1999, has gone as flat as Texas.
Faced
with crucible of leadership, Michael Dell showed us his outstanding ability and
courage to deal with challenge again. Firstly, they changed its name from Dell
computer to Dell. Inc, meaning their products are more than computers; secondly,
he is pulling his company in different directions. He will move upstream, with a
new line of servers and storage systems that will compete with Sun
Microsystems'; He'll also move downstream, selling low-cost PCs and reselling
handheld devices that other companies make. And he will move sideways into
services--Web hosting and storage to drive new revenue streams. Through the
transitional changes, his company Is now competing not just in the PC market but
in the entire $ 800 billion a year information technology market.
Secondly,
his leadership structure has experienced a fundamental change.
In the furious market competition,
Dell realized that he didn't have all the right skills to build his
company into a multi-product, multi-geography powerhouse. And he couldn't manage
alone, he should bring in the talent he needed. So, Dell made a decision that he
will share his power with his long time partner__ Kevin Rollins. He developed a
new leadership model_ one company, two CEO's. Without doubt, co_ CEO model may
bring about a lot of risks. One risk of shared leadership is that conflicting
signals are transmitted down through the ranks.
If it wasnot handled well, it would bring about negative effects to the
company. Fortunately, they have done well. Although they have lots of
differences, such as they have 12_ year_age difference, Dell dropped out of
college to pursue his business, Rollins earned an MBA from Brigham Young; Dell
is optimistic, Rollins is a lit bit pessimistic, and so on, they see the future
the same way,they have a very healthy Yin and Yang. They set a model for other
leaders how to share leadership. CEO of EMC has said that the connection between
Dell and Rollins is so seamless, he needs to communicate with only one of them
to get information to both.
4.
what was this person’s leadership style? Did it
work?
From a analysis of Dell’s leadership above, I think his leadership style
blongs to transformational leadership. Because he has a strong desire to break
up laws and to change situation completely, and he also has ability to create
something new and benefit others.
Leadership
is about coping with changes. More change always demonds more leadership.the
computer industry field is a world with more and more competitive and volatile.
If the leaders couldn’t cope with complexity and change very well, they would go
bankcrupcy inevitably.
Fortunately,
through his transformational leadership, the company can keep up with the
changes of the market, and make more and more
progress.
He started with nothing ,
but built a empire and created a fantastic wealth for millions of people; he
took hold of any commerciel opportunities ahead, and led his team to creat a lot
of pioneering activities in the computer industry field; he created a low
cost,mail order model to sell computers, and helped more and more people realize
the power of computing and the internet; he has a good self conscious of his
disadvantages, and he knows what he doesn’t know, so he can break his role of
leadership and create “one company, two CEO” leadership; he has a strong moral
responsibity for business and family, and keeps a good balance between life and
work. He created a new image of young entrepreneur.
5.
what lessons can we learn from this person’s
success?
(1)As a successful leader, he must have clear goal and powerful vision
for the future. He must use his entreprenure personality to motivate,
communicate,exicite and influence his followers and transform his personal goal
and vision into all follower’s practice.
(2) As a successful leader, he must have strong sense of
innovation.
He should do his best to develop a environment of innovation. He should
respect difference and encourage his followers to have different idea and
different solution; he should have ablity to cope with change, and find out
opportunity from it; he should have courage to take risk of doing something new
and strong desire to change the current situation and to be pioneer in their own
field.
(3) As a successful leader, he must have strong self consicious. He must
know what he doesn’t know and face up his disadvantages. He should learn from
mistakes and borrow others talent he needed.
(4) As a successful leader, he must have high moral resposibility either
for business or for private life. He should distribute his energy and time
wisely into three interdependent and interconnected spheres: work sphere, family sphere and
self sphere. He should keep good balance among them and gain strength from three
spheres.
