Dell vs. Apple
Michael Dell founded Dell in 1984 at the age of 19. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak designed Apple Computer on April 1, 1976. As both companies continue to grow they have contributed to a wide impact on competiveness and efficiency towards strategic goals. Dell Computer Corporation is one of the most visible success stories in the computer market. By selling personal computers directly to customers over the Internet, offering a build-to-order sales system, and then linking suppliers, workers, managers, customers, and service personnel together on the Internet, Dell has built a series of rapid-response systems that have revolutionized organizational communication. Dell’s rapid-response systems have led to fear, admiration, and attempts at imitation among its competitors and other e-businesses alike (McWilliams 1997, 132-136, 91-92;McWilliams and White 1999, 84). Apple however from the beginning was about the hub-and-wheel model. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he made returning to the hub-and-wheel model an immediate priority of the ensuing corporate shakeup. He met with hundreds of people in every facet of the company, regardless of rank, asking them a series of questions that put them on the defensive about their jobs, and retained only the ones he liked: “He had total disregard for the hierarchical chain of command. He would remember what several hundred people did and call on whomever he needed, always bypassing their managers”, says Jim Oliver. Dell is a model cycle reduction time firm. Dell applies cycle reduction logic to every aspect of its operations with dramatic results. Dell employs four rapid-response systems. Each system uses the Internet to provide a real-time communication system for linking key organizational stakeholders together into a functional community. Each rapid-response system employs a backbone profiling system for precisely adapting the content of communication to each of an organization’s stockholders. These profiles are then
References: Margretta, R. (1998). The power of virtual integration: An interview with Dell Computer’s Michael Dell Ramstad, K. E. (1999). Dell builds an electronic super store on the Web. Wall Street Journal, March 3, B1. Stepanek, M. (1998). What does Number One do for an encore? Business Week, November 2, 51–52.