Supply Chain Management: DELL - Term Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages In 2005, Dell became world’s third most favorite company in an industry where IBM and HP are regarded as its biggest competitors (Manataki, 2007). Over the years Dell has slowly enhanced its portfolio and included products with the likes of servers, workstations, printers, and PDAs, as well as flat-screen TVs and digital cameras as products and product lines respectively. In 2003, the company changed its name to Dell Inc. from the name of Dell Computer Corporation to support the statement of evolution from a mere computer manufacturing firm to the one that provides many technology-related services (Manataki, 2007). In Dell’s success, its strategic choices have been one of the major factors that highlight its supply chain as the basic reason to shine. Over the years, its supply chain has been examined and many have tried to incorporate the same model but of no avail. This means, that Dell holds a unique tool that has its own way of operating that cannot be copied easily. The basic elements of the model are the direct sales model called the direct model, and the build-to-order strategy (Manataki, 2007). B. An overview of the organization’s supply chain management efforts, including the organizational issues involved with the supply chain such as the organizational structure, the placement of supply chain management within that structure, and supply management’s relationship with other departments in the organization. As far as the organization’s supply chain management efforts and its issues are concerned, Dell experienced three basic variables to solve. Where at one end, Dell has continuously refined its portfolio with the direct model, providing two billion online customer visits, the supply chain design for the ever changing global environment handed the worry of multiple global customer groups, the global supply networks, multichannel sale, the product commoditization, and the changing markets on the other end (Davis, 2010). High cost of the supply chain was one of the biggest worries that were reduced to a low cost one. The focus has always been primarily on the efficiency with a CTO capability. This effort meant an overall toning down of the product design and the planning process along with the configuration management as well (Davis, 2010). Over the years, these efforts have sort of evolved through a slow process that can be highlighted through the organizational issues and the relationships it holds in the following lines. The entire supply chain adopted a customer-centric view of value, and has invested in several resources to obtain an analysis of its profitability, the insight in the market and business intelligence, summed up as identifying customer values. Dell then charted out its strengths and understood the external environment by analyzing its competitors, new entrants, and emerging requirements of the market to eventually designing the supply chain portfolio (Davis, 2010). [See Appendix figure 1] Of course the organizational structure and the relation of the supply chain with the rest of the department were always considered by Dell. This requires extensive cross functional collaborations by the company. With the transforming supply chain IT had to change, the finance department had to work on a CTS methodology where a full integration of product design with supply chain and go-to-market plans with sales and marketing were set according to the changing patterns in demand. [See Appendix for a detailed engagement] (Davis, ...Download file to see next pagesRead More