Iscom Week 4 Company Research Outline

Company Research outline

Dell Inc. is an American multinational information technology company. The company provides the technology solutions, services and support for their customers (Dell, 2011). In today’s economic business environment, several methods and techniques of the forecasting are used by Dell Company. For instance, mainly Dell uses the Delphi technique to do forecasting. As per this technique, the company selects and appoints a panel of experts from both the technology and marketing fields. In addition, this panel of experts goes through different series of rounds to forecast the demand of company. Along with this, for the purpose of demand forecasting of the product/service of the company, the appointed panel of experts produce and create important and significant information from the two resources effectively. One is the purchasing activities or behavior by the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and another is past data. It means, in order to forecast, Dell uses past data of the customers and buying behavior of the consumers (Fields, 2004).
In addition, Dell also uses customized websites in order to generate demand. Along with this, to generate important information of the demand, a corporate website is also created by Dell. With the help of this method of forecasting, Dell manages the demand of large volume of buyers (Schroeder, 2009). Apart from this, the company also collects the information from the sales people of the company, who are in different sales areas. Additionally, it should also be noted down that the company also distributes or shares its demand forecast information with different suppliers through the internet portal on the monthly, quarterly and annual basis. Dell also uses direct sale approach of forecasting. With the help of this, Dell focuses on speeding components through its supply chain to fulfill the customer demand, as it arises (Fields, 2004).

For Dell, a budget is the most important tool, because it provides a game plan for not only long-term business operations, but day to day operations as well. Dell uses various steps in the budgeting. For instance, in planning the process stage, the executive director of Dell meets with financial staff and finance committee to plan budgeting process and set timelines. Additionally, in this, Dell updates budget worksheet and template formats. The second step used by the company is communicating about the process (Rasmussen, 2003). In this, Dell organizes staff meeting to communicate process, responsibilities and deadlines to all participants.
In the programmatic goal setting step, Dell identifies & review strategic goals and priorities for the members. After this, Dell gathers important information for the budgeting. To gather the information, the manager of the company draft the program and department budgets based on plans and assumptions (Haerifar, 2012). In the compilation and revision steps, Dell prepares an initial organizational budget draft. After this, reviews the committee in which the finance committee of Dell meets to review budget draft and assumptions and make recommendations. In the next stage of implementation and management, the staff meeting discusses about the budget, program goals and timelines for New Year (Rasmussen, 2003).

For the purpose of production planning and inventory control, Dell uses MRP (Material requirements planning). Basically, MRP is used by Dell in order to manage entire manufacturing processes effectively. In addition, for the effective planning, Dell uses software-based MRP systems to achieve the organizational objectives (Hill, 2011). With the help of MRP system, Dell maintains the lowest possible material and product levels in the company. In addition, through the MRP, Dell ensures that materials are available for production and products & for delivery to customers (Dell, 2011).

References
Fields, G (2004) Territories of Profit: Communications, Capitalist Development, and the Innovative Enterprises of G.F. Swift and Dell Computer. Stanford University Press.
Haerifar, P. (2012). Budgeting Process, is it Really Necessary? Germany: GRIN Verlag.
Hill, A.V. (2011). Encyclopedia of Operations Management, The ; A Field Manual and Glossary: Operations Management Terms and Concepts. USA: FT Press.
Rasmussen, N. (2003). Process Improvement for Effective Budgeting and Financial Reporting. USA: John Wiley & Sons.
Schroeder, R.G. (2009). Operations Management (W/Cd) 3E. McGraw-Hill.

References: Fields, G (2004) Territories of Profit: Communications, Capitalist Development, and the Innovative Enterprises of G.F. Swift and Dell Computer. Stanford University Press. Haerifar, P. (2012). Budgeting Process, is it Really Necessary? Germany: GRIN Verlag. Hill, A.V. (2011). Encyclopedia of Operations Management, The ; A Field Manual and Glossary: Operations Management Terms and Concepts. USA: FT Press. Rasmussen, N. (2003). Process Improvement for Effective Budgeting and Financial Reporting. USA: John Wiley & Sons. Schroeder, R.G. (2009). Operations Management (W/Cd) 3E. McGraw-Hill.