DELL Company Anlaysis

Dell Computers have been the leaders in computer world for more than two decades. Dell has been empowering countries, communities, customers and people everywhere to use technology to realize their dreams and possiblities. Since the first Dell PC was introduced in 1986, Dell has continued to shape the industry by breaking new ground and pioneering critical developments in home, small business and enterprise computing. The Dell business connects with more than 5.4 billion customers every day with earnings of $14.9 billion comprising a net profit of $584 million. Dell’s continuous research and development (R&D) have proven efforts to reach the globe, which is driven by some of the industry’s foremost product designers and engineers. The core of Dell computers is always been in innovation approach with a commitment to deliver new and better solutions and technologies that fulfils and meets demands and customer needs.

They accept Partnerships with varied industry such as software, hardware and component suppliers and by generating a uniquely broad perspective on the computing world and the accessories. Dell believes in innovations which begin in-house supported by global team of top engineers, product designers and technical experts. Along with a team effort with Dell’s strategic partners to formulate and implement the different strategies. Their mission is to deliver innovative and cost-effective solutions that meet today’s customer requirements and innovative work seamlessly is carried out in existing environments and their products.

Dell is uniquely positioned into the market which has a strong impact of and on the industry trends. They maintain strong internal and in-house development capabilities. They have a strategy to be partners, rather than to compete, with top technology suppliers and manufacturers. They enable industry standards and technologies through industry groups and strategic partners. In such a way Dell innovates and delivers value and needs of customers.

Customer needs analysis for Intercontinental Hotel Group

The IHG brand itself owns or services more than 4,000 hotels and also has approximate of $1bn fund to support owners who purchase a franchise from IHG. IHG doesn’t own many hotels outright as it had and has a wide focus on franchising. IHG provides the back-up for others as they have an amazing network to bind up with global brands. The IHG Company specialises in mid-scale hotels, along with the Park Lane InterContinental which is a high class with a suite complete with cinema available for £4,000-a-night. Both business and leisure customers are vital to the success of the group and the former is starting to pick up. The IHG brand has a varied brands of hotels from INTERCONTINENTAL as business class, HOLIDAY INN as resort and inn’s, STAYBRIDGE suites as leisure hotels which fulfils the needs of having a varied variety of customers for the business varying from leisure travellers to business class personnel.

So does the IHG offer a varied variety of brands to the customer ranging from 7 brands offering varied class of service to meet the needs of customers having a pioneering strategy to achieve pioneering position in the competitive market the basic design of IHG by franchising the brands in different sectors provides a variety for different customers and fulfil their needs

Corporate Strategy for INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL GROUP

Being a service oriented and pioneering company the major corporate strategies can be listesd as follows:

• an continuous audit of the client’s culture, image and communications strategy
• an analysis of the existing use of resources, and research into further opportunities’;
• the development of an awareness with the client of the potential higher value through promotional strategies
• the provision of a brief overview for positioning, developed in the same way as a logo and design system for a same value as of a corporate identity

To create a collaborative decision-making process to agree on effectiveness of channels and methods for reaching target audiences through the creation of new identity within a consistent customer satisfaction

• Competitive priorities of IHG
• Managing complexity and speeding development
• Delivering quality and at fast pace
• Managing technological changes in Hospitality sector
• Right tools and right people to be targeted
• Transformation of operating processes
• Building up a customer centric position

With the above competitive priorities IHG should focus on being customer centric as to cope up with the increasing competition in the current hospitality industry which is a beginning step towards the quality management

Customer needs analysis for DELL Computers

The Dell computers have a focus on customer centric market. The Dell computers have very strong market varying of customers from home users to the official market to the corporate clientele. The each and every sector has a varied demand and need for their requirements. Dell is the first major computer manufacturer to ban the export of nonworking electronics to developing countries as part of our global electronics disposal policy building up a good brand image within the market. They offer the customers to choose to do business with more than 60,000 partners registered with Dell and certified to operate as our agents. Thus having a customer centric market focuses on the consumer needs. Dell computers believe in continuous innovation which is one of more key factors as their being constant changes in the technology and advancements in day to day life there is increase in needs of different customers which is satisfied the current operating procedures of the company

Corporate strategies of Dell Computers Following up with Corporate Responsibility

Considering the competition in the market along with the others computer companies the few corporate strategies of Dell

Inspire innovation and innovate our team members to live company purposes :

• As usual dell computers have been promoting innovation since long time so as to promote the technical as well as support team and cope up with increasing needs of customers with advancements in technology

Continue building up trust through the positive and meaningful differences the company is making on the communities and the planet :

• The commitment of Dell computers have been constantly creating a difference in technology and innovating the technology

Recognize where they can make the most measurable impact and align the commitments :

• To recognize by the sensitive evaluation of the customers as being a customer centric strategic organization and measure the impacts would be occurring on the commitments to the specific market segment.

Develop measures for reporting the progress and media to communicate that progress:

• The motive would be to evaluate the performance and make evaluations at timely basis and to communicate the results to compare with the expected goals to be achieved

Competitive Priorities of Dell Computers:

• Focusing on best available solution instead of just focusing on technology
• Having a alternative focus the available solutions to the improvement of technology instead of also just having a focus on innovation
• Teaching and promoting innovative thinking
• Promoting in-house innovations instead of hiring and having a partnering with the technical consultants
• Getting feedback from customers and suppliers
• Getting feedbacks from the customers should be of mere importance as being a customer centric focus it will help in making continuous improvements and meeting the requirements

Supply Chain management of IHG

The InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) outsources its management of supply chain and has signed a new five year contract with Supply Chain Management, (SCM, LLC) to manage the supply chain function at and of IHG. SCM, LLC’s responsibilities will include North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. With supplying and looking over the work process of the inter brands as well as on supply chain of specific brand

SCM.LLC manages the supply chain function for both IHG’s corporate and owned/managed / franchised by hotel group, including the major process of sourcing, negotiating, contracting and interfacing with suppliers to maintain cost and quality control. In addition, SCM will manage the relationship with IHG’s procurement service company. SCM also helps IHG with staff serving the account will be housed on-site at IHG offices in the major locations of the brand. Enhancing relations with the suppliers and standardizing products and services by following an efficient supply chain. SCM provides strategic solutions for expense management that enable clients to achieve maximum and sustainable savings through a variety of customized services. These services include cost management, spend analysis, process re-engineering, demand management, sourcing of products and services, negotiation, contract development and administration, and staff training. This outsourcing helps IHG to look onto the performance and evaluate it and thus follow up with the changes to be made.

Constraint Management of INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL GROUP

Following with the few constraints from the SCM (Supply Chain Management) review. IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) has launched a new Price Optimization module globally that integrates local market demand forecasting, publicly available competitive data analysis and price and revenue management system and helps IHG’s hotels determine the best daily price. While traditional revenue management systems select rates based on demand predictions,

IHG’s Price Optimization module has a price sensitive modeling process that allows the system to continuously balance rates, occupancy and guest pricing preferences in a way that increases revenue opportunities regardless of demand. It makes easier for the large group of hotels to make competitive pricing decisions IHG hotels with brands that include Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express which ranges from low budget hotels to hi class leisure and luxury brands which makes it important to be concerned with financing of the brands. Thus seeing positive results following the system generated price and balancing the revenues.

The Price Optimization module is a proprietary system that was developed as there had been lot of leverage costs wasted up with the brands.

Lean Systems followed by INTERCOTINENTAL HOTEL GROUP

After the 9/11 attack there has been a considerable and resulting downturn in the hotel and hospitality business, IHG needed to cut costs significantly to stay competitive. There had been a cut down of around $100M from the Americas Region operating budget. Then IHG turned managed services consultants, to help reduce their spend on Helpdesk, Deskside and Server Support services by 33% (or $1.2M) and understand why end-user satisfaction was low and make improvements in the service with budget planning.

The systems were transformed and a formulation of IT servers was lead on to cut down the costs looked at the IT challenges being faced by IHG, it seemed to migrate as many of the Desk side service calls as possible to the Helpdesk. It was to make process improvements without disrupting a live IT service and further degrading already low levels of services.

Lean and Six Sigma were applied to the present procedures which allowed quantifying obvious areas for improvement and also uncovering substantial opportunities to make changes with. For example, discovering the cost savings that eliminate redundancy between service providers would bring a change in overall change in system thus saving costs and to achieve the $1.2M in savings. The following lean procedures were allowed:

• To reduce the average problem fixing times and to improve customer satisfaction
• Solve more problems at the Helpdesk instead of on-site Deskside
• Updated and standardized operating systems to reduce complications with the data availablity
• Moving of account administration off-site so it will be easy for managing and storing information
• Eliminate the vendor duplication for an effort to further reduce costs

Supply Chain for DELL Computers

The Dell Computer Corporation a leading direct computer systems company. Dell sells its computer systems directly to end customers, bypassing distributors and retailers (resellers). Dell’s supply chain consists of only three stages. The suppliers from whom they gain basic resources, the manufacturer (Dell) at which innovation is converted to technology, and end users.

Dell has developed direct contact with customers which allows it to:

• Properly identify market segments,
• Analyze the requirements and profitability of each segment, and
• Develop more accurate demand forecasts.

Dell matches supply and demand because its customers order computer configurations over the phone or online (Internet) where sometimes it makes use of JIT (Just In Time) process as each computer has to be configured according to needs. These computer configurations are built up from components that are available. Dell’s strategy is to provide customised, low cost, and quality computers that are delivered on time to make the customer feel cared for and valued for time and money. Dell successfully implemented this strategy through its efficient manufacturing operations, better supply chain management and direct sales model. Dell takes orders directly from its customers; either on phone or online. Thus, Dell reduces the cost of intermediaries and agents that would otherwise add up to the total cost of PC for the customer as well be problematic at times with misunderstanding and breaking down image of DELL. Dell also saves time on processing orders that other companies normally incur in their sales and distribution system. Moreover, by directly dealing with the customer Dell gets a clearer indication of market trends. This helps Dell to plan for future besides better managing its supply chain and also keeps a track with trends and surveys the customer needs in specific market. This also helps dell to get a targeted sector for the next innovative product.

One more advantage for Dell is it gets by directy dealing with the customer is that it is able to get the customers requirements regarding software to be loaded. Dell loads the ordered software in its plant itself before dispatching it. By eliminating the need of a PC support engineer to load software, the customers gain both in time and cost. They can use the PC’s the moment they arrive. Just by a click and no need of any separate installations are to be made with the same thus cutting down the costs of engineers for installation.

Constraint Management of DELL Computers

The Dell computers being innovative and efficient with the systems have to some internal constraints which can be managed while applying New single-system backup solution which combines world-class hardware and software to help customers store, protect and archive data and also Dell and Symantec collaborate to make reduplication technology accessible so customers can improve efficiency and optimize storage investments and dell could provw with the best.

In accordance with innovating on working on customer needs there has to been management on constraints.To help small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) more effectively respond to the challenge of efficiently storing, managing and protecting increasing amounts of business-critical data, Dell is introducing the PowerVault DL2100 Powered by Symantec Backup Exec 2010, a disk-based backup and recovery solution with available reduplication technology in a single server. With this integrated end-to-end solution, customers can easily deploy and manage backup and recovery tasks, and reduce backup costs compared to tape-based solutions. Which will be a innovative solution for managing the data efficiently and in organised way rather then having large servers being operated continuously incurring costs and adding up to the maintenance costs

Lean systems for Dell Computers

Dell follows to run a lean operation. Dell factory we won’t get to see raw materials, except those on the production line so as we use Just In Time procedure follow-ups. There are no products, as we build to order. So it is a pull system, rather than a push system where you build to forecasts and it so often goes wrong. Often there is no much push strategy used in dell computers manufacturing systems avoiding wastes and layoffs.

The other characteristic of the Dell business model is the attention to detail, and the belief in continuous improvement and continuous innovation. Dell’s manufacturing techniques are a margin ahead of its competitors. To keep pressing ahead to keep Dell Computer at the forefront of production methods would be the strategy to be the pioneers of the computer world

There have been number of touches and a computer needs you can cut the number of people you need to build it. But the number of touches also directly relates to the number of failures in the field as it generally possesses a risk of changes in technology and the current production lying back. There is a huge cost to DELL for operating technical support and dispatching a replacement part. If on a computer system they have to do a part replacement, they have to lose the profit on that PC if we have to do a dispatch. So getting it right on quality is fundamental to prove the customers being the best in the computer world.

Dell has been pulling business model from such that there were the efficiencies of Dell. Now a day’s Dell has been likely having the idea of outsourcing manufacturing to that of installing an ERP system. Which can cut down the manufacturing costs as the faults on hardware to be replaced back with the manufacturer just instead of producing and facing losses on the failure or breakdown of any hardware

Comparative variations in Operating systems of IHG and DELL Computers

Comparing a Brand from a hospitality sector such as Intercontinental Hotel Group holding 7 major brands in hospitality and service sector having a pioneering strategy achieving varied variety for the customers with choices from business class to leisure and resorts to a customer concentric computer company of DELL Computers which being customer oriented IT sector

INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL GROUP (IHG Plc)

IHG group has been the pioneers in the hospitality industry with more then 4400 hotels owned and franchised with 7 major brands providing a variation in meeting the requirements of the customers with varied profile and targeting different sectors. They have a plan of expanding to more of 35 properties in the coming three years. The operations being very franchised and linked up together. The supply chain management of in between the interbrands has been contracted with supply chain management SCM consultants to keep it organised as the franchising has to look over the all brand management state. To get summary of the supply chain and to know the defects and implement changes to the operations. The IHG group now is been targeting customers of varied sectors based on the different profiles offered by the properties to suit the customer profile. The pioneering strategy of the IHG is to continue with getting in customer oriented sector while making a change with the services offered. It also offers a loyalty points for the frequent customers and the loyalty card members which would create an assured clientele for the IHG group.

DELL

Dell has been consumer concentric and also keeping its inventory at a bare minimum. DELL recognises that the it cannot concentrate on just cost alone as it has been following a strategies to directly being in contact with the consumers. It has to differentiate and it has taken the steps to do just that. As the software services it is set to take off in the coming future along with Symantec to develop backup software’s. DELL has laid the foundation to offer the Software’s it has to build on multiple platforms. DELL intends to make available on both DELL and non-DELL systems offering customers the kind of customised support as it has done with its computer systems of hardware’s and being with the support from the Microsoft system software’s. The reason being that there are too many complexities involved in the synchronizing the softwares with the various sectors in the market and would be innovating to be as google as it initially came only with search engine now linked up with varied applications. But Dell seems determined and has invested a lot in this new service. This could achieve a market share that was lost to HP. Dell will also have to branch out on the various channels it can operate from. The direct consumer interaction has been working well but may not be enough to sustain a more globalized presence in the developing countries. So it needs to expand the channels globally and also has plans to open more manufacturing factors in India, Brazil, and BRIC countries. To enable better delivery of customer service, Dell will have to coordinate with the channels for continuous and considerate supply.