Reviews: ‘If you want to capitalize on cyberspace you should read this book.’
- Bill Gates
‘The book the computer industry has been longing for’
Steve Bennet, Independent
‘A great book that will serve as a reference to all executives’
Idei Nobuyuki, CEO, Sony Corporation
‘Michael Dell is clearly a genius in the computer world, but his revolutionary insights into business processes provide invaluable lessons for many other industries as well.’
Frederick W. Smith, Chairman and CEO, FedEx Corporation
‘Dell’s story is the stuff high-tech legends are made of.’
Forbes ASAP
Description: At 13, Michael Dell was a young man with a knack for taking apart his Apple II computer and an ambition to run a business. Today, just 20 years later, after becoming the youngest CEO in history to head a fortune 500 company, he leads one of the most profitable and innovative organizations in the world.
Michael Dell relates the remarkable story of Dell Computer’s rise to success. Beginning in his college dorm with $1,000, he set out to beat IBM at their own game, created the direct-sales model (a Dell hallmark) and pioneered customer support, combining it with unrivalled speed to market and a fierce commitment to product quality and performance. But the story of Dell Computer is no fairy tale-along the way Dell made mistake and learned some hard lessons, emerging stronger as a result.
In Direct from Dell Michael Dell shares his innovative strategies and perspectives and reveals nothing less than a new model for doing business in the information age. Direct from Dell is both an extraordinary business success story and a manifesto for revolutionizing any industry.
Contents: Acknowledgments • Foreword • Timeline • Preface • Part I: The Birth of Being Direct • Growing Pains • Learning the Hard Way• Finding Our Footing • Narrowing Our Focus • Dialing Up, Deliberately • Revolutionizing an Industry • Part II: Create a Powerful Partnership • Build a Company of Owners • Learn, direct from the Source • Develop a Customer-Focused Philosophy • Forge Strong alliances • Bring your Partners Inside your Business • Differentiate for a Competitive Edge • Thrive on Change in the Connected Economy • In Conclusion • Index
About The Authors: Michael S. Dell is Chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Computer Corporation, the leading direct computer company and one of the fastest-growing computer systems companies in the world. He founded the company in 1984 with $1,000 and an unprecedented idea in the personal computer industry: bypass the middlemen and sell custom-built PCs directly to end-users. Using this innovative direct-marketing approach, Dell Computer Corporation has established itself as one of the top two vendors of the personal computers worldwide. Its corporate customers include most of the companies on the Fortune 500 list of America’s largest companies. With the addition of Dell Computer Corporation to this list several years ago, Mr. Dell became the youngest CEO of a company ever to earn a ranking on the Fortune 500. Michael Dell has been honored many times for his visionary leadership, earning the titles ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ from Inc. magazine, ‘Man of the Year’ by PC magazine, and ‘CEO of the Year’ by Financial World magazine, among many others. In 1997 and 1998, he was included in Business Week’s list of ‘The Top 25 Managers of the Year’. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the United States Chambers of Commerce and the Computerworld/Smithsonian Awards.
Catherine Fredman collaborated with Andrew Grove, chairman of Intel, on his best-selling book Only the Paranoid Survive.
Target Audience: Business professional