As I was doing the preparation for class 6 : operations, the interview with the founder of Dell — Michael Dell in 1998 grabbed my attention. Dell was known as a successful example of outsourcing. The company tried to apply a special business model which is a combination of “verticle” and “virtual” integration. By doing this, Dell does not have to produce every single component of the computer, instead of which, can put more focus on catering for customers’ needs. The difference between pure outsourcing and Dell’s business model is that Dell is not just seeking for facturies to do the manufacturing work, but also work with them as partners by, for example, let engineers from partner companies work with engineers from Dell’s team when lauching a new product. The key point is, we have to make sure what the company’s value is if we want it to stand out among competitors.
However, why Dell has no longer been one of the strongest companies in the industry? Why Dell fails competing with Apple?
Innovation. No matter the innovation of technology or of customer-friendliness, Dell was not marching as fast as Apple. Apple developed a brand new system IOS by itself while Dell still chose to work with Microsoft without awareness of investing on this development.
I assume there are many other reasons explaing Dell failing Apple. Welcome to leave comments!