Direct From Dell - Softcover

Dell, Michael; Fredman, Catherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887309151 ISBN 13: 9780887309151

Publisher: HarperPB, 2000

Synopsis

Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computer and one of the world’s top businessmen, explains how to foster and maintain a competitive edge, drawing lessons from his own formidable success.

At the age of twelve Michael Dell earned $2000 selling stamps on consignment and by the age of eighteen he was selling customized PCs from his dorm room. Since then he has founded one of the most successful computer businesses in the world, a company that has continually improved upon its own success by learning from its own mistakes.

Direct From Dell teaches you how to get to the front of the pack and stay there, giving you the tools and encouragement to achieve your own success. Using the Dell Computer Corporation as a paradigm, Michael Dell charts the way to the top and then explains how to stay there.

Taking us step by step through his own career, Dell explains the basis of his company’s direct model process, describes mistakes they have made and the lessons they engendered, demonstrates the advantages of disciplined planning, explores the opportunities provided by the internet, provides insight into relationships with employees, customers and suppliers, and gives the low down on crushing the competition.

Direct from Dell combines the best elements of any business book – a personal account of a great success story, together with a wealth of ‘takeaway’ lessons – for anyone who wants to stay ahead of the competition, who has to keep their company, their job, their livelihood competitive.

About this title

Review:

The PC business is full of rags-to-riches stories. But perhaps none is as dramatic as the rise of Dell Computer. In Direct from Dell, founder and CEO Michael Dell tells how he started his company from a dorm room at the University of Texas with less than $1,000 and built it into an industry powerhouse with a market capitalisation of well over $100 billion. What makes Dell Computer unique is not what it sells, but rather how it sells it. Dell was first in the PC industry to pioneer the direct-selling model, a method that competitors such as Compaq and Apple Computer are only now starting to embrace. By cutting out the intermediary and creating a direct link between manufacturer and customer, Dell was able to provide customers with computers that cost less and that were more apt to meet customer needs.

Direct from Dell is organised into two parts. The first recounts the history and the enormous growth of Dell Computer. The second part focuses on Dell's management approach, from developing customer focus to creating alliances with suppliers. The book manages to avoid most of the promotional and self-congratulatory air that seem to plague so many first-person CEO tomes. Anyone who has followed the PC industry or would like insight into Dell Computer's success should enjoy reading this book. Well written and easy to read. Recommended. -- Harry C. Edwards, Amazon.com

Review:

‘The thing that sets Dell apart is its ability to do exactly what the competition tends to believe cannot be done.’
Businessweek

‘Dell’s story is the stuff high-tech legends are made of.’
Forbes

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperPB
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0887309151
• ISBN 13: 9780887309151
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 235