Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due
Kwabena Mensah
Northcentral University
The two business professionals that revolutionary contributed to the advancement in the business world for the lessons of transforming any business are Michael Dell of Dell Computers and Andy Groves of the Intel Corporation. Michael Dell mainly focused on the Customer whiles Andy Groves, on Execution and Strategy.
Michael Dell put the customer at the center of his business, which so many businesses might also have done, but what made him different was realizing the changing nature of the customer and satisfying that demand. He only was able to do this with the advent of the Internet, which connected him directly with the customer. With this he eliminated inventory and thus gained a competitive advantage over his competitors. He also realized the need to streamline the company into customer segments anytime the company grows to a point and kept subdividing it onto a kind of specialized departments separating, for example, the production and sales to large and medium size companies to that of educational and government organizations. His main business philosophy was to build a company that was oriented around listening to the customer, responding to the customer, and delivering what the customer wanted (Krames, 2003, p. 59). He also developed a system that called on every employee to contribute and work together to create value for the company centered on the customer.
Andy Groves, on the other hand, had to learn the hard way from his Company’s near death collapse, three times in his company’s history, which made him so paranoid to develop and instill fear and vigilance in all his employees. He once said, “Success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure” (Krames, 2003, p.133). They were not to be complacent even when the company kept on being successful. They rather have to focus on innovation on the existing product at hand as technology keeps changing at a very fast pace. He stressed that any big company
Northcentral University
The two business professionals that revolutionary contributed to the advancement in the business world for the lessons of transforming any business are Michael Dell of Dell Computers and Andy Groves of the Intel Corporation. Michael Dell mainly focused on the Customer whiles Andy Groves, on Execution and Strategy.
Michael Dell put the customer at the center of his business, which so many businesses might also have done, but what made him different was realizing the changing nature of the customer and satisfying that demand. He only was able to do this with the advent of the Internet, which connected him directly with the customer. With this he eliminated inventory and thus gained a competitive advantage over his competitors. He also realized the need to streamline the company into customer segments anytime the company grows to a point and kept subdividing it onto a kind of specialized departments separating, for example, the production and sales to large and medium size companies to that of educational and government organizations. His main business philosophy was to build a company that was oriented around listening to the customer, responding to the customer, and delivering what the customer wanted (Krames, 2003, p. 59). He also developed a system that called on every employee to contribute and work together to create value for the company centered on the customer.
Andy Groves, on the other hand, had to learn the hard way from his Company’s near death collapse, three times in his company’s history, which made him so paranoid to develop and instill fear and vigilance in all his employees. He once said, “Success breeds complacency and complacency breeds failure” (Krames, 2003, p.133). They were not to be complacent even when the company kept on being successful. They rather have to focus on innovation on the existing product at hand as technology keeps changing at a very fast pace. He stressed that any big company
References: Krames, J.A. (2003). What the best CEO’s know: 7 exceptional leaders and their lessons for transforming any business. Blacklick, OH: McGraw-Hill Professional Publishing. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ncent/docDetail.action?docID=10045327&p00= Fields, G. (2004). Territories of Profit: Communications, Capitalist Development, and the Innovative Enterprises of G.F. Swift and Dell Computer. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com Tidd, J., Bessant, J., & Pavitt, K. (2001). Managing Innovation: Integrating Technological, Market and Organizational Change. New York: Wiley. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com