Vocabulary

• personal service

• one-to-one marketing

• direct sales

• sales force

• high-value customer

• Individually tailored products

• tailor-made (products, programmes)

• mass customisation

• business-to-business (B2B)

• outsource v; syn to contract out, to offshore

• outsourcing n; syn contracting out; offshoring

• insourcing n

• founder n (of a company)

• to be in the pipeline

• to elicit information

• tie up v & n

• to tie up one’s money in smth

• a tie-up between the two companies

• to carve a niche

UNIT 4. CASE STUDY – DELL

Competencies ability to conduct research into business and management issues enhancing translation skills developing commercial awareness
		READING AND SPEAKING (1)

“Our business is about technology, yes. But it’s also about operations and customer relationship”, — Michael Dell

“Twenty years and $40 billion. They seem like good round numbers,” — Michael Dell

Background

Biography

Michael Dellis the founder of the computer company Dell, Inc. He created one of the most profitable computer companies in the world with annual sales of up to $50 billion American dollars. Dell has also become one of the wealthiest people in the world according to the Forbes rich Americans list.

The son of an orthodontist, Michael S. Dell was born in1965 to a high-class family and attended the University of Texas at Austinintending to become aphysician but abandoned that idea when he experienced early success in the area of computers and technology.

While at the university, he started a computer company called PC's Limited with $1,000. The company became so successful that Dell dropped out of college at the age of 19 to run PC's Limited, which later became Dell Computer Corporation, then ultimately Dell, Inc.

In 1992, Mr. Dell became the youngest CEO ever to earn a ranking on the Fortune 500.

Dell’s business

Over time, and despite a number of setbacks (including laptops that caught on fire in 1993, temporarily losing the consumer market to his rivals in the mid 1990s), Dell survived the race to become the most profitable PC manufacturer in the world, with sales of $49 billion and profits of $3 billion in 2004. As Dell expanded its product line to more than computers, shareholders voted to rename the corporation Dell, Inc. in 2003.

Dell decided the company could undercut rivals by selling essentially the same device for less. Those kinds of cutthroat tactics are why some competitors call Dell ‘a parasite” that piggybacks off the inventions of others, slashes prices and destroys the profit potential of the markets. IDC analyst Roger Kay uses the more neutral phrase “fast follower.” He says, “They wait for someone to establish a category, move in with mass production and deflate the margins.” Michael Dell prefers to view his company as a high-tech Robin Hood, delivering cheap prices to "parts of the market where customers are not getting a fair deal."

Michael Dell” mixture of price sensitivity and tech savvy has worked well. Its now famous business formula, called the Dell model, includes setting up super efficient factories, keeping parts on hand for only a few days before they’re used and selling computers based on common industry standards like Intel chips and Microsoft operating systems. Most notably, Dell cuts out the retail middlemen and sells directly to customers over the Internet.

By its nature, the Dell model requires aggressive expansion. Back in the mid-‘90s, Michael Dell would often say he didn’t need to enter new markets because the PC business was growing so quickly. Then the Dell model helped uncork the PC’s downward price spiral, and suddenly computers were a commodity that everyone owned. “Dell’s problem is that it picked a business that you now need to be great in just to break even,” says Wharton professor David Croson.

With all this product-line growth, competitors predict hopefully that Dell has finally bitten of more than it can chew”. “I liken it to Napoleon invasion of Russia,” says a rival exec, who points out that Dell’s entrance into PDAs signifies that it’s losing its focus (like IBM in the ‘80s and Intel in the late ‘90s). Michael Dell vows that won’t happen to his company. The rest of the industry can only hope that he’s wrong.

Wikipedia

www.woopidoo.com/biography/michael-dell/index.

Newsweek, November 18, 2002

Note

PDA — personal digital assistant, a handheld computer device

1. Read the first part of the text and explain the following, using the information of the text and your background knowledge.

1. to piggyback off the inventions of others

2. a high-tech Robin Hood

3. a mixture of price sensitivity and tech savvy

4. to uncork a downward price spiral

5. suddenly computers were a commodity

6. to break even

7. to establish a category

2. Using the information of the above texts answer the questions and fill in the table.

1. What model of production does Dell use — push or pull?

2. Why is he often called “a parasite” or “fast follower” by his competitors?

3. In what way could the company destroy the profit potential of the markets?

4. What does his model based on? What is the secret of Dell’s success?

5. What does the company have to do to stay in the first league?

6. Why do some analysts believe that the company is losing its focus?

7. Where do you think Dell’s model might be vulnerable?

Dell’s formula of success

procurement	product development & manufacturing	relationship with customers	relationship with rivals	sources of growth

READING AND SPEAKING (2)

“Changebefore your have to”, — Jack Welch

3. Read the following article and pick out and arrange all the background information related to the company. Compare it with that in Reading and Speaking (1).

Where Dell Went Wrong

In a too-common mistake, it clung narrowly to its founding strategy instead of developing future sources of growth

By Nanet Byrnes and Peter Burrows T

DELL, HOW IT ALL began is never forgotten. Even on Jan. 31, as founder Michael S. Dell returned to the role of CEO after 18 months of bad news and faltering financials, the press release trumpeted how, 23 years ago, Dell launched what would become a $56 billion business with just $1,000 and a simple idea. That stroke of genius — to bypass the middleman and sell custom-built computers directly to the customer — was one of the revolutionary business models of the late 20th century. Rivals from Hewlett-PackardCo. toIBM learned to fear its power. And once Dell began using the Internet to let customers configure their own PCs, no phone rep required, the company earned a place among other champions of the New Economy including Wal-Mart, Cisco, and Southwest Airlines.

Dell's storied beginnings have given way to another classic business tale, one far less happy. Like many long-forgotten former champions, Dell succumbed to complacency in the belief that its business model would always keep it far ahead of the pack. While Dell broadened its product line, it never dealt with the vast improvement in the competition or used its lead in direct sales and the cash generated to invest in new business lines, talent, or innovation that could provide another competitive edge. "Dell is a textbook example of single-formula growth: We make PCs cheap. This is what we do_'and we do it a lot,"' says Jim Mackey, managing director at the Billion Dollar Growth Network, a research consortium focused on large-company growth."You can grow very fast when you're on a single formula, but when you get to a certain point, you don't have the ability to create new growth."

Long-term success demands constant reinvention. Research done by Mackey and others shows that most fast-growing companies hit a point somewhere over $50 billion in revenue at which they falter. By then, growing apace demands billions of new sales every year. Rarely is the original, unchanged business model up to the job. The only way around the challenge: Nurture the next growth platform long before it's needed.

Most don't. Distracted by the demands of their current success, they are lulled into a false sense of security. "When it's all you can do to keep up with the growth your current business model is providing, you just don't feel that urgency," says Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. "It's hard to get worried." He visited Dell's Round Rock (Tex.) offices in 1998 and again in 2000, and warned Dell and then-CEO Kevin Rollins that they needed to focus on growth five to eight years out, on the model that would augment their built-to-order machines. A great admirer of both men's intellect, Christensen says he naively hoped they would take his advice. Instead, Dell pushed its model into new types of hardware, such as storage, printers, and TVs, in the hopes of making easy profits by selling products made by other companies. In some areas, like printers and TVs, the customization that madea Dell PC seem special isn't a factor. In others, like services, low-cost competitors had a head start.

Michael Dell maintains that his company's business model is still its key advantage. Dell, he says, has acquired too much middle-aged fat and lost the intense focus and drive that made it an icon. In his internal e-mail explaining the recent departure of CEO Rollins, Dell's founder promised that the company will fix customer support problems, 'boost its services business, and focus more on small and midsize outfits in addition to the megacorporations that bring in the bulk of sales. While he won't rule out big strategic shifts, such as a move into retail, Dell says: "I do think that Dell's core strengths historically will be its core strengths in the future."

Many critics say the problem is that the company didn't begin a more orderly evolution when times were better. For half a decade, it was the only major PC company that earned a profit. By cutting out the middleman and keeping research and development and inventory costs low, it often enjoyed profit margins 10 points higher than money-losing rivals. Rather than use that cushion to develop fresh capabilities, Dell gave its admirers on Wall Street and in the media what they want: the highest possible earnings.

Hubris crept in. In 1999, Dell bought a startup called ConvergeNet, which had a sophisticated storage product that turned out to be not ready for prime time. Dubbing rival EMC Corp. the "Excessive Margin Company," Dell seemed to expect storage to follow the same pattern PCs had, moving from pricey, feature-laden models into a standards-based commodity. Dell underestimated the competition and is an also-ran in the segment.

By 2005, PC rivals, particularlyHP, which has taken the market-share lead from Dell, had closed the efficiency gap and were enjoying resurgent sales at retail stores.

People-Intensive

DELL'S LOYALTY to its business model could make it difficult to recapture growth. Dell has suggested a new offensive to enlarge its computer services business, which so far has focused largely on repair and upgrading of Dell's hardware. According to Bill Scheer, senior analyst at Kennedy Information Inc., which tracks information technology consulting, such "hardware" services are the slowest-growing segment of the $147 billion market, currently increasing an estimated 6.3% a year, vs. 7.6% for the market overall. Hardware repair profits can be good, but don't lead to the massive deals that help sell higher-end hardware and software to tie it together.

Consulting experts say Dell will have a hard time moving up the value chain. For one thing, it’s a people-intensive business that doesn't benefit from the company's expertise in efficient manufacturing. And when Dell first started making PCs, it entered an industry with lots of built-in fat, namely reseller commissions and retailer markups. Lower-end consulting has already been made far lower-cost and more efficient by companies like Wipro Ltd. and Infosys Technologies Ltd., which sell programmers' time at $50 a hour that 10 years ago would've billed at $125 an hour or more.

Dell has struggled to find other growth areas large enough to matter. After a promising start in printers, moving quickly to No. 3, the most recent quarterly data from research firm IDC shows Dell's market share at 3.6%, down from 6.2% the previous year. Its once-promising move into networking gear has fizzled, and its share in the storage systems market is flat compared with a year ago.

And Dell's management bench doesn't seem as deep as it should be. When Dell ousted its chief financial officer on Dec. 19, the company ended up filling the spot with an outsider, board member Don Carty, the former CEO ofAMR Corp., — the parent of American Airlines. Industry sources say many of the recent management departures were not terminations but rather people burned out by an increasingly dismal turnaround effort. Dell spokesman Bob Pearson says the company has good bench strength and "we feel fortunate that [Carty] could do this:"

These are the kinds of challenges Dell was protected from for years. How well its founder handles them will determine whether his legacy is building a great company that lasts — or having a great idea that ran out of steam.

With Louise Lee in San Mateo, Calif.

BusinessWeek, February 19, 2007

4. Analyse the context and comment on the following.

1. Dell's storied beginnings have given way to another classic business tale.

2. Long-term success demands constant reinvention.

3. Dell is a textbook example of single-formula growth.

4. Nurture the next growth platform long before it's needed.

5. They are lulled into a false sense of security.

6. Dell underestimated the competition and is an also-ran in the segment.

7. Consulting experts say Dell will have a hard time moving up the value chain.

8. It entered an industry with lots of built-in fat, namely reseller commissions and retailer markups.

9. Dell's management bench doesn't seem as deep as it should be.

5. Summarize the information about the weaknesses of the company and its management. Discover the reasons for the company’s setbacks and failings.

6. Discuss the personality of Michael Del and determine what he can be praised and blamed for. Make projections about possible future development of this company.

READING AND SPEAKING (3)

7. Read the following article and sum up the developments in the company. Explain Dell’s words “The direct model has been a revolution, but is not a religion”.

What's Dell Doing at Wal-Mart?

The author, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, wonders whether the computer maker's latest experiment will work

By Roger L.Kay

Last week, Dell announced that it would begin selling two Dimension desktop computers through Wal-Mart Stores. It was a watershed moment. For years, Dell embraced the tagline "Be Direct," a phrase that highlighted one the company's main differentiators: It sells directly to consumers rather than by way of retailers. The Wal-Mart deal, limited as it is, represents the most visible departure from the company's hallowed mantra.

But the change is at least as much talk as substance. For example, Dell recently came clean about its indirect commercial operations. In the course of publicizing its intentions to step up its indirect business, Dell disclosed that it already sees about $4 billion in annual revenue from indirect sales in the U.S.

A Public Shift

The company has four groups that sell indirectly: Solution Provider Direct, which sells to VARs of all stripes without going through a dealer such as Ingram; Global Alliances, which sells to large systems integrators like EDS and Accenture; Industry Solutions, which sells hardware to other vendors that jigger the technology in some way (e.g., adding a GPS system) before reselling it; and a branch that sells to VARs that service the federal government. That's a lot of indirect business for the Be Direct company.

However, the Wal-Mart announcement represents a public shift in philosophy and has therefore set off a round of tongue-flapping and finger-wagging among the digerati. Despite the noise, there's a good explanation for what's going on. Dell is going through a transformation akin to the one the U.S. went through under Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

When FDR took over in 1932, he undertook a series of rapid-fire legislative moves. Passing one bill after another, he set out to fix what was wrong with the nation, and when something didn't work, he'd rescind it. The key to the Roosevelt administration's success was its willingness to try things.

With Both Barrels

In the same way, Michael Dell is guiding his company forward by trying different things. Distribution through Wal-Mart is one of them, but, as the company has made abundantly clear, not the only one. This small deal could get larger or go away, depending on its success. In any event, Dell is going to expand its distribution in numerous ways, and part of the formula is to shake things up through rapid decision making.

Dell has been courted by every retailer in the world. As a highly desirable supplier, it can pick and choose partners. Look for a Gatling gun approach to distribution in the future.

The deal with Wal-Mart does bring up a question, though, about what kind of image the company is trying to convey. Wal-Mart, as a general merchandiser, is pretty down-market. This type of thing doesn't square with Dell's efforts to polish its brand image.

Plenty of Company

The good news for Dell in shifting toward indirect sales is that the company finds itself at the right end of a one-way street. A vendor that moves from indirect to direct sales can irk existing distributors, angering some enough to switch to rival suppliers. This factor kept Compaq from using direct sales to compete against Dell in the late 1990s. But when going in the reverse direction, from direct to indirect, the only players who suffer are internal salespeople.

One thing is for sure: Dell won't have Wal-Mart all to itself. Hewlett-Packard, GatewayAcer, Toshiba, and Lenovo, among others, all sell through the big retailers.

In some cases, Wal-Mart bends its suppliers to provide custom packaging and is known for dictating terms, such as "Thou shalt keep inventory in warehouses near our distribution points." But Dell does the same to its suppliers. It will be interesting to see which company in this new relationship gets to hold the whip handle and which feels the business end.

BusinessWeek, Viewpoint, June 1, 2007

Note

VAR— Value-added-reseller (retailer) розничная или посред-ническая фирма, добавляющий ресурсы, функции и/или услуги; Напр., фирма-реселлер, предоставляющая дополнительные возможности и услуги к продаваемым продуктам других поставщиков, обеспечивающая инсталляцию, обучение, техническое обслуживание и сопровождение.

8. Comment on the following statements from the text “What's Dell Doing at Wal-Mart?” Clarify the meaning of the imagery used in the quotes below.

1. The Wal-Mart announcement represents a public shift in philosophy and has therefore set off a round of tongue-flapping and finger-wagging among the digerati.

2. Dell has been courted by every retailer in the world.

3. The good news for Dell in shifting toward indirect sales is that the company finds itself at the right end of a one-way street.

4. When something didn't work, he'd rescind it.

5. This type of thing doesn't square with Dell's efforts to polish its brand image.

6. Wal-Mart bends its suppliers to provide custom packaging.

7. It will be interesting to see which company in this new relationship gets to hold the whip handle and which feels the business end.

9. Explain the following.

• to embrace a tagline

• the company's hallowed mantra

• a Gatling gun approach

• the Be Direct company

• to irk distributors

• to switch to rival suppliers

READING AND SPEAKING (4)

10. Scan the text and discuss the changes Dell made in the company.

Dell's Extreme Makeover

How Michael Dell is trying to change almost everything about the computer company he founded

By Cliff Edwards

When a wave of mergers swept the tech industry in 2004, Michael S. Dell promised investors they wouldn't see his computer company anywhere near a negotiating table. "When was the last time you saw a successful acquisition or merger in the computer industry?" he asked at the time. Five years later, it's a different story. Round Rock (Tex.)-based Dell is weeks away from closing its largest acquisition ever, a $3.9 billion deal for tech-services provider Perot Systems. The chief executive says more deals are likely, and this won't be the end of his changes in strategy. "Everything's on the table," he says.

And with good reason. The company Michael Dell started in his college dorm and built into the preeminent personal computer maker has fallen on hard times. As the center of the tech industry has shifted from the PC to the Internet, Dell has struggled mightily to find its place. While Hewlett-Packard IBM, and other rivals transformed themselves in recent years by acquiring new companies and capabilities, Dell long stuck with its old playbook of cranking out PCs as efficiently as possible. It's hard to remember that in 2005 Dell was valued at $100 billion, or more than HP and Apple combined. Today, it's worth $30 billion, less than a third of its rivals' market values.

While such signs of struggle are clear to the public, what isn't apparent is the steady overhaul Michael Dell has been working on since he returned to the chief executive role in 2007. The 44-year-old has been making sweeping changes in everything from personnel and partnerships to acquisitions and distribution. "There's been a pretty ginormous shift in our business over the last several years," says Dell, dressed in a black suit and tieless white shirt in the sprawling conference room next to his office. "We can do, and must do, more."

He has installed an almost completely new management team to help with the turnaround. Seven of his ten direct reports are new to their posts, including veterans from General Electric, IBM, and Motorola. The company has been restructured to sharpen the focus on customers. And it is branching out into services, software, and new hardware categories, including smartphones and tablet-like devices. Sources say Dell is even preparing to add social networking features and music and video services to Dell.com. The old Dell is history, the CEO vows, and a new one is just beginning. "We're not trying to become like our competitors," he says. "We're digging our own path."

It's not at all clear Dell can pull this off. The old Dell succeeded because of its mastery of logistics and the supply chain, allowing it to sell computers directly to customers at prices no rival could match. The new Dell requires completely different skills — flexibility, customer focus, and innovation. Leadership experts say changing a management approach is one of the toughest undertakings in business, particularly for a founder who has had early success. "He's got tremendous challenges ahead of him, because he's in an industry that itself is undergoing rapid, sweeping change," says Warren Bennis, chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.

Investors have given Dell virtually no credit for his work so far. The company's stock is off about 40% since the start of 2007, while Apple shares have more than doubled and HP's have risen about 10%.

Dell is convinced he can prove the skeptics wrong. He has already pulled off a more extensive overhaul than most outsiders realize. The business Dell took over in 2007 was floundering. Corporate PC sales were slowing, while HP under the direction of CEO Mark V. Hurd was pulling consumers into stores — and away from Dell — with its stylish notebook PC designs. Dell suffered the consequences. It lost its position as the largest PC maker in the world to HP, and profits tumbled. Dell's net income dropped 28%, to $2.6 billion, for the fiscal year ending Feb. 2, 2007, while revenue inched up 3%, to $57.4 billion.

Dell's first move was to try to stop the bleeding in the consumer business. The head of the division left in February, and Dell started looking for a replacement by working his jam-packed Rolodex. He wanted someone who could cut costs and also guide the company's foray into retail chains around the world.

One name stood out: Garriques, head of Motorola's mobile devices business. Garriques took a step back before moving forward. He killed a line of less-than-flashy consumer PCs Dell planned to introduce, called Mantra, and halted plans to copy Apple by opening more than a dozen Dell-owned stores. "The first order of business was to slow Dell's go, go, go mindset and stop to think about what we were trying to do," he says.

In March 2007, he approached Ed Boyd, a 42-year-old designer at Nike. Boyd had worked on sunglasses and running shoes but didn't have experience in computers. Garriques told Boyd he would have the opportunity to make design matter at Dell; Boyd jumped at the chance.

The changes sent a clear signal to Dell employees. The consumer business, long considered a professional dead end, was going to be a priority.

What's more, Boyd launched experiments that showed it could be an exciting place to work. At one point, Boyd hatched a plan for customers to pay an extra $75 to get certain designs on laptops, which so unsettled Dell's manufacturing team that they balked. Boyd appealed directly to Dell, who green-lighted the move.

Even more far-reaching changes were in store for 2008. Dell knew he wanted to change the company's management culture, to get executives to jump on new business opportunities and take more risks, but he wasn't sure how to go about it. He turned to Brian Gladden, a 20-year veteran of GE, the bastion of modern management.

Gladden quickly slipped into an easy rapport with Dell. But the lack of structure at the massive company surprised him. "The processes, the tools, the culture here didn't support a $60 billion business," Gladden says.

He dove into figuring out how to change that, in consultation with Dell. After months of study, they became convinced the company had to be restructured around customers. It was a radical move: Most tech companies organize around the products they sell, such as computers or software. But Gladden and Dell thought that by focusing outward they could give top managers more responsibility and more flexibility to respond to clients. On Dec. 31, Dell said it would restructure into four customer groupings: consumers, corporations, small and midsize businesses, and governments and educational buyers.

Dell began to gain confidence his company finally had a solid foundation for the future. He saw his executive team quickly take to the new management approach, which was modeled after GE's. Leaders of each division are responsible for meeting financial targets and have broad authority to figure out how to reach them. The main beneficiaries have been the consumer, government, and small and medium-size business units, which in the past often received less attention as Dell focused on large corporations. "[It's] a different dynamic than [Dell] is used to," says Gladden.

Dell is beginning to show improvement in its financial results. In its most recent earnings report, the company handily beat Wall Street's expectations. Dell shares have doubled since their low in February, to $16, as hopes mount that the company will benefit from a surge in PC purchases.

Rivals contend that Dell has waited too long to take the initiative. In an industry undergoing rapid consolidation, companies that haven't already positioned themselves to withstand the cyclical nature of technology will have a hard time thriving over the long term. That means Dell itself may be forced to merge with another company or become takeover bait. "Being a fast follower doesn't work in an industry that is moving faster every day," says Shane Robison, chief technology officer at HP.

Businessweek, In Depth,October 15, 2009

11. Read the text and classify the shifts in Dell’s strategy along the following lines. Do you think Dell has waited too long to take those initiatives?

Distribution
Innovation
Acquisitions
Management

12. Explain the following.

1. to be stuck with one’s old playbook

2. the steady overhaul he has been working on

3. ginormous shift

4. direct reports

5. to pull something off

6. the business was floundering.

7. profits tumbled

8. to try to stop the bleeding in the consumer business

9. go, go, go mindset

10. guide the company's foray into retail chains around the world.

11. to green-light the move

12. to slip into an easy rapport with someone

13. to gain confidence

14. beneficiaries

15. become takeover bait

16. being a fast follower

13. Comment on the following statements.

1. The consumer business, long considered a professional dead end, was going to be a priority.

2. Investors have given him virtually no credit for his work so far

3. At one point, Boyd hatched a plan for customers to pay an extra $75 to get certain designs on laptops, which so unsettled Dell's manufacturing team that they balked.

4. But Gladden and Dell thought that by focusing outward they could give top managers more responsibility and more flexibility to respond to clients.

TRANSLATION

14. Translate the text “Where Dell Went Wrong” in writing.

15.Translate the text “What's Dell Doing at Wal-Mart?” orally.

16. Translate the text “Dell's Extreme Makeover” orally.

LANGUAGE FOCUS

17. Study collocations with the words “sensitive” and “sensitivity”, write down the combinations and their definitions.

18. Suggest the Russian for the following.

to undercut rivals; cutthroat tactics; to slash prices; to deflate margins; to cut out the middleman; to break even; a break-even point; to bite off more than one can chew; to lose one’s focus; a downward price spiral; increased price sensitivity among consumers; savvy shoppers; to piggyback on smth; the low-end segment of the market; to abandon the direct-sell model; to put the company back on track; perceptions of poor customer service; sluggish sales growth; missed forecasts; core direct selling business; to have unclear return on investment; to embark on a bold long-term initiative; to become an also-ran in the segment; to succumb to complacency; faltering financials; a stroke of genius; single-formula growth; hubris; people-intensive business; once-promising move; to take over the market-share lead

19. Suggest the English for the following.

приступить к внедрению новой долгосрочной инициативы; новая компания; убыточный; основные сильные стороны компании; возобновить рост; самоуспокоенность; обеспечивать конкурентное преимущество; лидеры «новой экономики»; недооценивать конкурентов; перехватить лидерство в доле на рынке; издержки, связанные с товарно-материальными запасами; переориентировать компанию; отказаться от модели прямых продаж; приверженность своей стратегии в бизнесе; обходиться без посредников

20. Complete the word combination and translate them into Russian.

to [______] the middleman; to [______] to complacency; a [______] edge; to broaden one’s product [______]; to have a [______] start; an [______]ran; [______] strengths; to sell higher-[______] hardware; to move up the [______] chain; [_______] bench

BUSINESS SKILLS

21. Write a SWOT analysis of Dell Inc.

22. You own a large high-tech distributor in Russia. Can you think of any form of co-operation with Dell Inc.? Make out your plan and discuss it with your management team.

REFLECTION SPOT

Say if the Unit helped you to have better understanding of the management strategies? Did you have an opportunity to develop competencies you might need in your future work?