CHAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION

Dell, Incorporated is a computer hardware manufacturer and distributor. The

company is one of the world's largest computer distributors in terms of both

quantity of units’ sold and gross income, and one of the United States' largest

corporations. From 1999 until 2006 Dell delivered more complete computer

systems worldwide per quarter than any other PC manufacturer. However, a bad

reputation stemming from poor customer support had seen Dell's market shrink,

with rival Hewlett-Packard outselling Dell for the first time in Q4 2006. Dell is

now attempting to improve its image with Linux-based desktop and

laptop models, a community-driven idea generation website, and a move to less

expensive AMD processors.

Most of Dell's products are IBM PC-compatible desktop, laptop, and server

computers using Intel or AMD processors. The company also markets a line of

HTC-produced handheld computers hand, rebranded computer peripherals such

as keyboards and mice, and Sony-developed monitors and televisions. Other Dell-

branded peripherals such as scanners and printers are often designed in-house

with production outsourced. Dell also distributes third-party hardware such as

gaming consoles from Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft. Often Dell will market via

the company website third-party devices that compete with its own products, such

as the Palm Tungsten handheld that competes with Dell's own Axim line.

Dell Computer was founded as PC's Limited in 1984 by university student

Michael Dell. Selling assembled computers from his dormitory room, Michael

abandoned the university during the planning stage of his first in-house computer

design in 1985. The company was so successful that within two years PC's

Limited had distribution offices in Europe, and changed its grammatically-

incorrect name to Dell Computer Corporation. By 1991, seven years after selling

its first computer, Dell Computer Corporation was listed in the Fortune 500. With

much experience in mail order telephone sales, Dell was one of the first

companies to offer computers for mail order via the internet. The Dell Coupon

program made many Internet models cheaper than other brands, and continues to

be popular to this day.

Dell Inc. is an American privately owned multinational computer technology

company based in Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells, repairs

and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its

founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest technological

corporations in the world, employing more than 103,300 people worldwide.

Dell sells personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches,

software, computer peripherals, HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players and also

electronics built by other manufacturers. The company is well known for its

innovations in supply chain management and electronic commerce, particularly its

direct-sales model and its "build-to-order" or "configure to order" approach to

manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications.

Dell was a pure hardware vendor for much of its existence, but a few years ago

with the acquisition of Perot Systems, Dell entered the market for IT services. The

company has since made additional acquisitions in storage and networking

systems, with the aim of expanding their portfolio from offering computers only

to delivering complete solutions for enterprise customers.

Dell is listed at number 51 in the Fortune 500 list. In 2012 it was the third largest

PC vendor in the world after HP and Lenovo. Dell is currently the #1 shipper of

PC monitors in the world. Dell is the sixth largest company in Texas by total

revenue, according to Fortune magazine. It is the second largest non-oil company

in Texas – behind AT&T – and the largest company in the Greater Austin area. It

was a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: DELL), as well as a component of the

NASDAQ-100 and S&P 500, until it was taken private in a leveraged buyout

which closed on October 30, 2013.

Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PC's Limited while a

student of the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered

company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Dell

dropped out of school to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting

about $300,000 in expansion-capital from his family. In 1985, the company

produced the first computer of its own design, the Turbo PC, which sold for

$795.PC's Limited advertised its systems in national computer magazines for sale

directly to consumers and custom assembled each ordered unit according to a

selection of options. The company grossed more than $73 million in its first year

of operation.

In 1986, Michael Dell brought in Lee Walker, a 51-year-old venture capitalist, as

president and chief operating officer, to serve as Michael's mentor and implement

Michael's ideas for growing the company. Walker was also instrumental in

recruiting members to the board of directors when the company went public in

1988. Walker retired in 1990 due to health, and Michael Dell hired Morton

Meyerson, former CEO and president of Electronic Data Systems to transform the

company from a fast-growing medium-sized firm into a billion-dollar enterprise.

The company changed its name to Dell Computer Corporation in 1988 and began

expanding globally. In June 1988, Dell's market capitalization grew by $30

million to $80 million from its June 22 initial public offering of 3.5 million shares

at $8.50 a share .In 1992, Fortune magazine included Dell Computer Corporation

in its list of the world's 500 largest companies, making Michael Dell the youngest

CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever.

In 1993, to complement its own direct sales channel, Dell planned to sell PCs at

big-box retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, which would have brought in an

additional $125 million in annual revenue. However, Bain consultant Kevin

Rollins persuaded Michael Dell to pull out of these deals, believing they would be

money losers in the long run. Indeed, margins at retail were thin at best and Dell

left the reseller channel in 1994. Rollins would soon join Dell full-time and

eventually become the company President and CEO.

Growth in 1990s and early 2000

Originally, Dell did not emphasize the consumer market, due to the higher costs

and unacceptably low profit margins in selling to individuals and households,

however this changed when the company’s Internet site took off in 1996 and

1997. While the industry’s average selling price to individuals was going down,

Dell’s was going up, as second- and third-time computer buyers who wanted

powerful computers with multiple features and did not need much technical

support were choosing Dell. Dell found an opportunity among PC-savvy

individuals who liked the convenience of buying direct, customizing their PC to

their means, and having it delivered in days. In early 1997, Dell created an

internal sales and marketing group dedicated to serving the home market and

introduced a product line designed especially for individual users.

From 1997 to 2004,

Dell enjoyed steady growth and it gained market share from competitors even

during industry slumps. During the same period, rival PC vendors such as

Compaq, Gateway, Inc., IBM, Packard Bell, and AST Research would struggle

and eventually leave the market or get bought out. Dell surpassed Compaq to

become the largest PC manufacturer in 1999. Operating costs made up only 10

percent of Dell's $35 billion in revenue in 2002, compared with 21 percent of

revenue at Hewlett-Packard, 25 percent at Gateway, and 46 percent at Cisco. In

2002, when Compaq merged with Hewlett Packard (the 4th place PC maker), the

newly combined Hewlett Packard took the top spot but struggled and Dell soon

regained its lead. Dell grew the fastest in the early 2000s.

Dell attained and maintained the #1 rating in PC reliability and customer

service/technical support, according to Consumer Reports, year after year, during

the mid-to-late 90s through 2001 right before Windows XP was released.

In 1996, Dell began selling computers through its website. In the mid-1990s, Dell

expanded beyond desktop computers and laptops by selling servers, starting with

low-end servers. The major three providers of servers at the time were IBM,

Hewlett Packard, and Compaq; many of which were based on proprietary

technology, such as IBM's Power4 microprocessors or various proprietary

versions of the UNIX operating system. Dell's new Power Edge servers did not

require a major investment in proprietary technologies, as they ran Microsoft

Windows NT on Intel chips, and could be build cheaper than its competitors.

Consequently, Dell's enterprise revenues, almost nonexistent in 1994, accounted

for 13 percent of the company's total intake by 1998. Three years later Dell passed

Compaq as the top provider of Intel-based servers, with 31 percent of the market.

Dell's first acquisition occurred in 1999 with the purchase of Converge Net

Technologies for $332 million, after Dell had failed to develop an enterprise

storage system in-house, however Converge Net's elegant but complex technology

did not fit in with Dell's commodity-producer business model, forcing Dell to

write down the entire value of the acquisition.

In 2002, Dell expanded its product line to include televisions, handhelds, digital

audio players, and printers. Chairman and CEO Michael Dell, however, had

repeatedly blocked President and COO Kevin Rollin's attempt to lessen the

company's heavy dependency on PCs, which Rollins wanted to fix by acquiring

EMC Corporation.

In 2003, the company was rebranded as simply "Dell Inc." to recognize the

company's expansion beyond computers.

In 2004, Michael Dell resigned as CEO while retaining the position of Chairman,

handing the CEO title to Kevin Rollins who had been President and COO since

2001. Despite no longer holding the CEO title, Dell essentially acted as a de facto

co-CEO with Rollins.

Under Rollins, Dell began to loosen its ties to Microsoft and Intel, the two

companies responsible for Dell's dominance in the PC business. During that time,

Dell acquired Alien ware, which introduced several new items to Dell products,

including AMD microprocessors. To prevent cross-market products, Dell

continues to run Alien ware as a separate entity, but still a wholly owned

subsidiary.

Rollins as CEO and disappointments

However in 2005, while earnings and sales continued to raise, sales growth

slowed considerably, and the company stock lost 25% of its value that year. By

June 2006, the stock traded around $25 USD which was 40% down from July

2005—the high-water mark of the company in the post-dotcom era.

The slowing sales growth has been attributed to the maturing PC market, which

constituted 66% of Dell's sales, and analysts suggested that Dell needed to make

inroads into non-PC businesses segments such as storage, services and servers.

Dell's price advantage was tied to its ultra-lean manufacturing for desktop PCs,

however this became less important as savings became harder to find inside the

company's supply chain, and as competitors such as Hewlett-Packard and Acer

made their PC manufacturing operations more efficient to match Dell, weakening

Dell's traditional price differentiation. Throughout the entire PC industry, declines

in prices along with commensurate increases in performance meant that Dell had

fewer opportunities to up sell to their customers (a lucrative strategy of

encouraging buyers to upgrade the processor or memory). As a result the

company was selling a greater proportion of inexpensive PCs than before, which

eroded profit margins. The laptop segment had become the fastest growing of the

PC market, but Dell produced low-cost notebooks in China like other PC

manufacturers which eliminated Dell's manufacturing cost advantages, plus Dell's

reliance on Internet sales meant that it missed out on growing notebook sales in

big box stores. CNET has suggested that Dell was getting trapped in the

increasing commoditization of high volume low margin computers, which

prevented it from offering more exciting devices that consumers demanded.

Despite plans of expanding into other global regions and product segments, Dell

was heavily dependent on U.S. corporate PC market, as desktop PCs sold to both

commercial and corporate customers accounted for 32 percent of its revenue, 85

percent of its revenue comes from businesses, and Sixty-four percent of its

revenue comes from North and South America, according to its 2006 third-quarter

results. However, U.S. shipments of desktop PCs were shrinking. Furthermore,

the corporate PC market which purchases PCs in upgrade cycles had largely

decided to take a break from buying new systems. The last cycle started around

2002, three or so years after companies started buying PCs ahead of the perceived

Y2K problems, and corporate clients were not expected to upgrade again until

extensive testing of Microsoft's Windows Vista (expected in early 2007), putting

the next upgrade cycle around 2008.Heavily depending on PCs, Dell had to slash

prices to boost sales volumes, while demanding deep cuts from suppliers.

Dell had long stuck by its direct sales model. However consumers had become the

main drivers of PC sales in recent years, yet there had a decline in consumers

purchasing PCs through the Web or on the phone, as increasing numbers were

visiting consumer electronics retail stores to try out the devices first. Dell's rivals

in the PC industry, HP, Gateway and Acer, had a long retail presence and so were

well poised to take advantage of the consumer shift. The lack of a retail presence

stymied Dell's attempts to offer consumer electronics such as flat-panel TVs and

MP3 players. Dell responded by experimenting with mall kiosks, plus quasi-retail

stores in Texas and New York.

Dell had a reputation as a company that relied upon supply chain efficiencies to

sell established technologies at low prices, instead of being an innovator. By the

mid-2000s many analysts were looking to innovating companies as the next

source of growth in the technology sector. Dell's low spending on R&D relative to

its revenue (compared to IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Apple Inc.)—which worked

well in the commoditized PC market—prevented it from making inroads into

more lucrative segments, such as MP3 players and later mobile devices.

Increasing spending on R&D would have cut into the operating margins that the

company emphasized. Dell had done well with a horizontal organization that

focused on PCs when the computing industry moved to horizontal mix-and-match

layers in the 1980s, however by the mid-2000 the industry shifted to vertically

integrated stacks to deliver complete IT solutions and Dell lagged far behind

competitors like Hewlett Packard and Oracle.

Dell's reputation for poor customer service, since 2002, which was exacerbated as

it moved call centres offshore and as its growth outstripped its technical support

infrastructure, came under increasing scrutiny on the Web. The original Dell

model was known for high customer satisfaction when PCs sold for thousands but

by the 2000s, the company could not justify that level of service when computers

in the same line-up sold for hundreds. Rollins responded by shifting Dick Hunter

from head of manufacturing to head of customer service. Hunter, who noted that

Dell's DNA of cost-cutting "got in the way," aimed to reduce call transfer times

and have call centre representatives resolve inquiries in one call. By 2006, Dell

had spent $100 million in just a few months to improve on this, and rolled out

Dell Connect to answer customer inquiries more quickly. In July 2006, the

company started its Direct2Dell blog, and then in February 2007, Michael Dell

launched IdeaStorm.com, asking customers for advice including selling Linux

computers and reducing the promotional "bloat ware" on PCs. These initiatives

did manage to cut the negative blog posts from 49% to 22%, as well as reduce the

"Dell Hell" prominent on Internet search engines.

There was also criticism that Dell used faulty components for its PCs, particularly

the 11.8 million OptiPlex desktop computers sold to businesses and governments

from May 2003 to July 2005 that suffered from bad capacitors made by a

company called Nichicon. A battery recall in August 2006, as a result of a Dell

laptop catching fire caused much negative attention for the company though later,

Sony was found responsible for the faulty batteries.

2006 marked the first year that Dell's growth was slower than the PC industry as a

whole. By the fourth quarter of 2006, Dell lost its title of the largest PC

manufacturer to rival Hewlett Packard whose Personal Systems Group was

invigorated thanks to a restructuring initiated by their CEO Mark Hurd.

After four out of five quarterly earnings reports were below expectations, Rollins

resigned as President and CEO on January 31, 2007 and founder Michael Dell

assumed the role of CEO again.

Dell 2.0 and downsizing

Dell announced a change campaign called "Dell 2.0," reducing the number of

employees and diversifying the company's products. While chairman of the board

after relinquishing his CEO position, Michael Dell still had significant input in the

company during Rollins' years as CEO. However with the return of Michael Dell

as CEO, the company saw immediate changes in operations, the exodus of many

senior vice-presidents and new personnel brought in from outside the company.

Michael Dell announced a number of initiatives and plans (part of the "Dell 2.0"

initiative) to improve the company's financial performance. These include

elimination of 2006 bonuses for employees with some discretionary awards,

reduction in the number of managers reporting directly to Michael Dell from 20 to

12, and reduction of "bureaucracy." Jim Schneider retired as CFO and was

replaced by Donald Carty, as the company came under an SEC probe for its

accounting practices.

On April 23, 2008, Dell announced the closure of one of its biggest Canadian call-

centres in Kanata, Ontario, terminating approximately 1100 employees, with 500

of those redundancies effective on the spot, and with the official closure of the

centre scheduled for the summer. The call-centre had opened in 2006 after the city

of Ottawa won a bid to host it. Less than a year later, Dell planned to double its

workforce to nearly 3,000 workers add a new building. However these plans were

reversed, due to a high Canadian dollar that made the Ottawa staff relatively

expensive, and also as part of Dell's turnaround, which involved moving these

call-centre jobs offshore to cut costs. The company had also announced the

shutdown of its Edmonton, Alberta office, losing 900 jobs. In total, Dell

announced the ending of about 8,800 jobs in 2007-2008 — 10% of its workforce.

By the late 2000s, Dell's "configure to order" approach of manufacturing—

delivering individual PCs configured to customer specifications from its US

facilities was no longer as efficient or competitive with high-volume Asian

contract manufacturers as PCs became powerful low-cost commodities. Dell

closed plants that produced desktop computers for the North American market,

including the Mort Topfer Manufacturing Centre in Austin, Texas (original

location) and Lebanon, Tennessee (opened in 1999) in 2008 and early 2009,

respectively. The desktop production plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

received $280 million USD in incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but

ceased operations in November 2010. Dell's contract with the state required them

to repay the incentives for failing to meet the conditions, and they sold the North

Carolina plant to Herb life. Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's U.S.

plants was transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or some of

Dell's own factories overseas. The Miami, Florida facility of its Alien ware

subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its servers (its

most profitable products) in Austin, Texas. On January 8, 2009 Dell announced

the closure of its manufacturing plant in Limerick, Ireland with the loss of 1,900

jobs and the transfer of production to its plant in Lodz in Poland.

The release of Apple's iPad tablet computer had a negative impact on Dell and

other major PC vendors, as consumers switched away from desktop and laptop

PCs. Dell's own mobility division has not managed success with developing smart

phones or tablets, whether running Windows or Google Android. The Dell Streak

was a failure commercially and critically due to its outdated OS, numerous bugs,

and low resolution screen. InfoWorld suggested that Dell and other OEMs saw

tablets as a short-term, low-investment opportunity running Google Android, an

approach that neglected user interface and failed to gain long term market traction

with consumers .Dell has responded by pushing higher-end PCs, such as the XPS

line of notebooks, which do not compete with the Apple iPad and Kindle Fire

tablets. The growing popularity of smart phones and tablet computers instead of

PCs drove Dell's consumer segment to an operating loss in Q3 2012. In December

2012, Dell suffered its first decline in holiday sales in five years, despite the

introduction of Windows 8.

In the shrinking PC industry, Dell continued to lose market share, as it dropped

below Lenovo in 2011 to fall to number three in the world. Dell and fellow

American contemporary Hewlett Packard came under pressure from Asian PC

manufacturers Lenovo, Asus, and Acer, all of which had lower production costs

and willing to accept lower profit margins. In addition, while the Asian PC

vendors had been improving their quality and design, for instance Lenovo's

ThinkPad series was winning corporate customers away from Dell's laptops,

Dell's customer service and reputation had been slipping.[63][64] Dell remained

the second-most profitable PC vendor, as it took 13 percent of operating profits in

the PC industry during Q4 2012, behind Apple Inc.'s Macintosh that took 45

percent, seven percent at Hewlett Packard, six percent at Lenovo and Asus, and

one percent for Acer.[65]

Dell has been attempting to offset its declining PC business, which still accounted

for half of its revenue and generates steady cash flow, by expanding into the

enterprise market with servers, networking, software, and services. It avoided

many of the acquisition write downs and management turnover that plagued its

chief rival Hewlett Packard. Dell also managed some success in taking advantage

of its high-touch direct sales heritage to establish close relationships and design

solutions for clients. However despite spending $13 billion on acquisitions to

diversify its portfolio beyond hardware, the company was unable to convince the

market that it could thrive or made the transformation in the post-PC world, as it

suffered continued declines in revenue and share price. Dell’s market share in the

corporate segment was previously a "moat" against rivals but this has no longer

been the case as sales and profits have dropped fallen precipitously.

2013 buyout

After several weeks of rumours, which started around January 11, 2013, Dell

announced on February 5, 2013 that it had struck a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout

deal that would have delisted its shares from the NASDAQ and Hong Kong Stock

Exchange and taken it private. Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners, aided by a

$2 billion loan from Microsoft, will buy the public shares at $13.65 a piece. The

$24.4 billion buyout is the largest leveraged buyout backed by private equity since

the 2007 financial crisis. It is also the largest technology buyout ever, surpassing

the 2006 buyout of Free scale Semiconductor for $17.5 billion.

The founder of Dell, Michael Dell, said of the buyout "I believe this transaction

will open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our customers and team members".

Dell rival Lenovo reacted to the buyout, saying "the financial actions of some of

our traditional competitors will not substantially change our outlook". Meanwhile,

HP stated that Dell's traditional product innovation might suffer as a result of the

buyout.

The buyout price represents a small premium over the current stock price, and

much lower than the stock's all-time high of $65 USD per share reached during

the dotcom bubble in 2000, as well as its July 2005 price of $40 USD which was

the high-water mark of the post-dotcom era. The price of $13.65 per share

represented a 25 per cent premium to the stock price, but far below the 52-week

high of $18.36, and more than 76 per cent off its all-time high .Several major

institutional shareholders have voiced opposition, including South eastern Asset

Management and Mason Hawkins. Michael Dell owns the largest single share of

the company's stock and was part of negotiations to go private, however he is

offering only $750 million of his own money for a deal that will involve almost

$16 billion in new debt. T. Rowe Price, which has the third largest holding, also

objected to the low price of the proposal. South-eastern Asset Management, the

largest shareholder of Dell stock with about 8.5%, is opposed to the deal at the per

share price of $13.50 to $13.75 as they value the company at $23.72 a

share.Southeastern also complained that the overseas funds aren't offered to

sweeten the buyout offer.

Typical leveraged buyouts have been viewed as tools of vulture capitalists.

Ordinarily, the buyer seeks to break up the firm and lay off workers, or bring

greater efficiency and new management to a troubled firm. The Dell leveraged

buyout is unusual because the driving force behind the deal was not a vulture

capitalist, but rather, Michael Dell, who was already the Chairman and CEO,

founder, and largest shareholder of the firm. Unlike most leveraged buyouts that

aim to wrest management control away from incumbents, the Dell deal intends to

keep the same leadership team in place. The main aim of Dell's leveraged buyout

is to rejigger the company’s financial structure. By going private, Dell would be

able to radically restructure its legacy PC business and build up its enterprise

solutions and cloud computing, without worrying about the impact on its quarterly

results and its stock price. Gartner has warned that this may include Dell leaving

the PC market entirely.

In March 2013, the Blackstone Group and Carl Icahn expressed interest in

purchasing Dell .In April 2013; Blackstone withdrew their offer, citing

deteriorating business. Other private equity firms such as KKR & Co. and TPG

Capital declined to submit alternative bids for Dell, citing the uncertain market for

personal computers and competitive pressures, so the "wide-open bidding war"

never materialized. Analysts said that the biggest challenge facing Silver Lake

would be to find an “exit strategy” to profit from its investment, which would be

when the company would hold an IPO to go public again, and one warned “But

even if you can get a $25bn enterprise value for Dell, it will take years to get out.”

In May 2013, Dell joined his board in voting for his offer. The following August

he reached a deal with the special committee on the board for a raised price of

$13.75 plus a special dividend of 13 cents per share, as well as a change to the

voting rules. The offer was accepted on September 12 and closed on October 30,

2013, ending Dell's 25 year run as a publicly traded company.

After the buyout the newly private Dell offered a Voluntary Separation

Programme that they expected to reduce their workforce by up to seven percent.

The reception to the program so exceeded the expectations that Dell may be

forced to hire new staff to make up for the losses.

Acquisitions

For more details on this topic, see List of Dell ownership activities.

In 2006, Dell acquired Alien ware, a manufacturer of high-end PCs popular with

gamers. The company acquired Equal Logic on January 28, 2008, to gain a

foothold in the iSCSI storage market. Because Dell already had an efficient

manufacturing process, integrating Equal Logic's products into the company drove

manufacturing prices down.

In 2009, Dell acquired Perot Systems, a technology services and outsourcing

company, mainly active in the health-sector, founded by former presidential

hopeful H. Ross Perot

In 2009, Dell acquired Perot Systems, based in Plano, Texas, in a reported $3.9

billion deal, and amalgamated into Dell Services. The acquired business provided

Dell with applications development, systems integration, and strategic consulting

services through its operations in the U.S. and 10 other countries. In addition, the

acquisition of Perot brought a variety of business process outsourcing services,

including claims processing and call centre operations.

On February 10, 2010, the company acquired KACE Networks a leader in

Systems Management Appliances. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

On August 16, 2010, Dell announced plans to acquire the data storage company

3PAR. On September 2, Hewlett-Packard offered $33 a share for 3PAR, which

Dell declined to match.

On November 2, 2010, Dell acquired Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) integration

leader Boomi. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In February 2011 Dell completed the acquisition of Compellent extending the

storage solution portfolio.

In August 2011 Dell completed the acquisition of Force10 networks changing the

name in Dell Force10. By acquiring this company Dell now has the full

Intellectual property for their networking portfolio, which was lacking on the Dell

Power Connect range as these products are powered by Broadcom or Marcell IM.

On February 24, 2012 Dell acquired backup and disaster recovery software

solution provider App Assure Software of Reston, VA. AppAssure delivered 194

percent revenue growth in 2011 and over 3500% growth in the prior three years.

AppAssure supports physical servers and VMware, Hyper-V and XenServer. The

deal represents the first acquisition since Dell formed its software division under

former CA CEO John Swainson. Dell added that it will keep AppAssure’s 230

employees and invest in the company.

In March 2012, USA Today said that Dell agreed to buy Sonic Wall, and the

acquisition was completed 9 May 2012.A Company with 130 patents, Sonic Wall

develops security products, and is a network and data security provider.

On April 2, 2012, Dell announced that it wants to acquire Wyse, global market-

leader for thin client systems

On April 3, 2012, Dell announced that it acquired Clarity Solutions. Clarity, a

company offering services for application (re)hosting, was formed in 1994 and

has its headquarters in Chicago. At the time of the take-over approximately 70

people were working for the company.

On July 2, 2012, Dell announced that it was buying Quest Software. The

acquisition was completed on 28 September 2012

On November 16, 2012, Dell announced it was acquiring Gale Technologies, a

provider of Infrastructure Automation Products. Gale Technologies was founded

in 2008 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California

On December 18, 2012, Dell announced it was acquiring Credant Technologies, a

provider of storage protection solutions. Credant is the 19th acquisition in four

years, as Dell had spent $13 billion on acquisitions since 2008 and $5 billion in

the past year alone.

On March 24, 2014, Dell announced it was acquiring Stat Soft, a global provider

of analytics software, in order to bolster its Big Data solutions offering.

Dell facilities

Dell's headquarters is located in Round Rock, Texas. As of 2013 the company

employs about 14,000 people in central Texas and is the region's largest private

employer, which has 2,100,000 square feet (200,000 m2) of space. As of 1999

almost half of the general fund of the City of Round Rock originates from sales

taxes generated from the Dell headquarters.

Dell previously had its headquarters in the Arboretum complex in northern

Austin, Texas. In 1989 Dell occupied 127,000 square feet (11,800 m2) in the

Arboretum complex. In 1990, Dell had 1,200 employees in its headquarters. In

1993, Dell submitted a document to Round Rock officials, titled "Dell Computer

Corporate Headquarters, Round Rock, Texas, May 1993 Schematic Design."

Despite the filing, during that year the company said that it was not going to move

its headquarters In 1994, Dell announced that it was moving most of its

employees out of the Arboretum, but that it was going to continue to occupy the

top floor of the Arboretum and that the company's official headquarters address

would continue to be the Arboretum. The top floor continued to hold Dell's board

room, demonstration centre, and visitor meeting room. Less than one month prior

to August 29, 1994, Dell moved 1,100 customer support and telephone sales

employees to Round Rock. Dell’s lease in the Arboretum had been scheduled to

expire in 1994.

The company sponsors Dell Diamond, the home stadium of the Round Rock

Express, the AAA minor league baseball affiliate of the Texas Rangers major

league baseball team

By 1996, Dell was moving its headquarters to Round Rock. As of January 1996

3,500 people still worked at the current Dell headquarters. One building of the

Round Rock headquarters, Round Rock 3, had space for 6,400 employees and was

scheduled to be completed in November 1996. In 1998 Dell announced that it was

going to add two buildings to its Round Rock complex, adding 1,600,000 square

feet (150,000 m2) of office space to the complex

In 2000, Dell announced that it would lease 80,000 square feet (7,400 m2) of

space in the Las Cimas office complex in unincorporated Travis County, Texas,

between Austin and West Lake Hills, to house the company's executive offices

and corporate headquarters. 100 senior executives were scheduled to work in the

building by the end of 2000. In January 2001, the company leased the space in

Las Cimas 2, located along Loop 360. Las Cimas 2 housed Dell's executives, the

investment operations, and some corporate functions. Dell also had an option for

138,000 square feet (12,800 m2) of space in Las Cimas 3. After a slowdown in

business required reducing employees and production capacity, Dell decided to

sublease its offices in two buildings in the Las Cimas office complex. In 2002

Dell announced that it planned to sublease its space to another tenant; the

company planned to move its headquarters back to Round Rock once a tenant was

secured. By 2003, Dell moved its headquarters back to Round Rock. It leased all

of Las Cimas I and II, with a total of 312,000 square feet (29,000 m2), for about a

seven-year period after 2003. By that year roughly 100,000 square feet (9,300 m2)

of that space was absorbed by new subtenants.

In 2008, Dell switched the power sources of the Round Rock headquarters to

more environmentally friendly ones, with 60% of the total power coming from

TXU Energy wind farms and 40% coming from the Austin Community Landfill

gas-to-energy plant operated by Waste Management, Inc.

Dell facilities in the United States are located in Austin, Texas; Plano, Texas;

Nashua, New Hampshire; Nashville, Tennessee; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma;

Peoria, Illinois; Hillsboro, Oregon (Portland area); Winston-Salem, North

Carolina; Eden Prairie, Minnesota (Dell Compellent); Bowling Green, Kentucky;

Lincoln, Nebraska; and Miami, Florida. Facilities located abroad include Penang,

Malaysia; Xiamen, China; Bracknell, UK; Manila, Philippines Chennai, India

Hyderabad, India; Hortolandia and Porto Alegre, Brazil; Bratislava, Slovakia;

Łódź, Poland, Panama City in Panama, Dublin and Limerick, Ireland and

Casablanca, Morocco.

The US and India are the only countries that have all Dell's business functions and

provide support globally: research and development, manufacturing, finance,

analysis, and customer care.

Manufacturing

From its early beginnings, Dell operated as a pioneer in the "configure to order"

approach to manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to customer

specifications. In contrast, most PC manufacturers in those times delivered large

orders to intermediaries on a quarterly basis.

To minimize the delay between purchase and delivery, Dell has a general policy

of manufacturing its products close to its customers. This also allows for

implementing a just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing approach, which minimizes

inventory costs. Low inventory is another signature of the Dell business model—a

critical consideration in an industry where components depreciate very rapidly.

Dell's manufacturing process covers assembly, software installation, functional

testing (including "burn-in"), and quality control. Throughout most of the

company's history, Dell manufactured desktop machines in-house and contracted

out manufacturing of base notebooks for configuration in-house .However, the

company's approach has changed, as cited in the 2006 Annual Report, which

states, "We are continuing to expand our use of original design manufacturing

partnerships and manufacturing outsourcing relationships." The Wall Street

Journal reported in September, 2008 that "Dell has approached contract computer

manufacturers with offers to sell" their plants. By the late 2000s, Dell's "configure

to order" approach of manufacturing—delivering individual PCs configured to

customer specifications from its US facilities was no longer as efficient or

competitive with high-volume Asian contract manufacturers as PCs became

powerful low-cost commodities.

Assembly of desktop computers for the North American market formerly took

place at Dell plants in Austin, Texas (original location) and Lebanon, Tennessee

(opened in 1999), which have been closed in 2008 and early 2009, respectively.

The plant in Winston-Salem, North Carolina received $280 million USD in

incentives from the state and opened in 2005, but ceased operations in November

2010, and Dell's contract with the state requires them to repay the incentives for

failing to meet the conditions. Most of the work that used to take place in Dell's

U.S. plants was transferred to contract manufacturers in Asia and Mexico, or

some of Dell's own factories overseas. The Miami, Florida facility of its Alien

ware subsidiary remains in operation, while Dell continues to produce its servers

(its most profitable products) in Austin, Texas.

Dell assembled computers for the EMEA market at the Limerick facility in the

Republic of Ireland, and once employed about 4,500 people in that country. Dell

began manufacturing in Limerick in 1991 and went on to become Ireland's largest

exporter of goods and its second-largest company and foreign investor. On

January 8, 2009, Dell announced that it would move all Dell manufacturing in

Limerick to Dell's new plant in the Polish city of Łódź by January 2010. European

Union officials said they would investigate a €52.7million aid package the Polish

government used to attract Dell away from Ireland. European Manufacturing

Facility 1 (EMF1, opened in 1990) and EMF3 form part of the Raheen Industrial

Estate near Limerick. EMF2 (previously a Wang facility, later occupied by

Flextronics, situated in Castletroy) closed in 2002. And Dell Inc. has consolidated

production into EMF3 (EMF1 now [when?] contains only offices).Subsidies from

the Polish government did keep Dell for a long time. After ending assembly in the

Limerick plant the Cherrywood Technology Campus in Dublin was the largest

Dell office in the republic with over 1200 people in sales (mainly UK & Ireland),

support (enterprise support for EMEA) and research and development for cloud

computing, but no more manufacturing except Dell's Alien ware subsidiary,

which manufactures PCs in an Athlone, Ireland plant. Whether this facility will

remain in Ireland is not certain. Construction of EMF4 in Łódź, Poland has

started: Dell started production there in autumn 2007.

Dell opened plants in Penang, Malaysia in 1995 and in Xiamen, China in 1999.

These facilities serve the Asian market and assemble 95% of Dell notebooks. Dell

Inc. has invested [when?] an estimated $60 million in a new manufacturing unit in

Chennai, India, to support the sales of its products in the Indian subcontinent.

Indian-made products bear the "Made in India" mark. In 2007 the Chennai facility

had the target of producing 400,000 desktop PCs, and plans envisaged it starting

to produce notebook PCs and other products in the second half of 2007.

Dell moved desktop and Power Edge server manufacturing for the South

American market from the Eldorado do Sul plant opened in 1999, to a new plant

in Hortolandia, Brazil in 2007.

Products

Scope and brand

Dell's tagline 'Yours is here', as seen at their Mall of Asia branch in Pasay City,

Philippines

The corporation markets specific brand names to different market segments.

Its Business/Corporate class represent brands where the company advertising

emphasizes long life-cycles, reliability, and serviceability. Such brands include:

OptiPlex (office desktop computer systems)

Dimension (home desktop computer systems)

Vostro (office/small business desktop and notebook systems)

N Series (desktop and notebook computers shipped with Linux or FreeDOS

installed)

Latitude (business-focused notebooks)

Precision (workstation systems and high-performance notebooks),

Power Edge (business servers)

Power Vault (direct-attach and network-attached storage)

Force10 (network switches)

Power Connect (network switches)

Dell Compellent (storage area networks)

Equal Logic (enterprise class iSCSI SANs)

Dell EMR (electronic medical records)

Dell's Home Office/Consumer class emphasizes value, performance, and

expandability. These brands include:

Inspiron (budget desktop and notebook computers)

XPS (high-end desktop and notebook computers)

Alien ware (high-performance gaming systems)

Venue (Tablets Android / Windows)

Dell's Peripherals class includes USB key drives, LCD televisions, and printers;

Dell monitors includes LCD TVs, plasma TVs and projectors for HDTV and

monitors. Dell Ultra Sharp is further a high-end brand of monitors.

Dell service and support brands include the Dell Solution Station (extended

domestic support services, previously "Dell on Call"), Dell Support Centre

(extended support services abroad), Dell Business Support (a commercial service-

contract that provides an industry-certified technician with a lower call-volume

than in normal queues), Dell Ever dream Desktop Management ("Software as a

Service" remote-desktop management), and Your Tech Team (a support-queue

available to home users who purchased their systems either through Dell's website

or through Dell phone-centres).

Discontinued products and brands include Axiom (PDA; discontinued April 9,

2007), [163] Dimension (home and small office desktop computers; discontinued

July 2007), Dell Digital Jukebox (MP3 player; discontinued August 2006), Dell

PowerApp (application-based servers), and Dell Optiplex (desktop and tower

computers previously supported to run server and desktop operating systems).

Technical support

Dell routes technical support queries on products for the professional market

according to component-type and to the level of support purchased.

Basic support provides business-hours telephone support and next business-day

on-site support/ Return-to-Base, or Collect and Return Services (based on

contracts purchased at point of sale)

Dell Pro Support provides 24x7x365 telephone and online support, a selection of

4 or 6-hour onsite support after telephone-based troubleshooting, and a Mission

Critical option with two-hour onsite support, for customers who choose the

highest level of support for their most critical hardware assets.

In addition, the company provides protection services, advisory services,

multivendor hardware support, "how-to" support for software applications,

collaborative support with many third-party vendors, and online parts and labor

dispatching for customers who diagnose and troubleshoot their hardware. Dell

also provides Dell ProSupport customers access to a crisis-centre to handle major

outages, or problems caused by natural disasters. Dell also provide on-line support

by using the computer's service-tag that provides full list of the hardware elements

installed originally, purchase date and provides the latest upgrades for the original

hardware drivers.

Dell's Consumer division has 24x7 phone based and online troubleshooting in the

United States and Canada. In 2008, Dell redesigned services-and-support for

businesses with "Dell Pro Support", offering customers more options to adapt

services to fit their needs.

Commercial aspects

Organization

The board consists of nine directors. Michael Dell, the founder of the company,

serves as chairman of the board and chief executive officer. Other board members

include Don Carty, William Gray, Judy Lewent, Klaus Luft, Alex Mandl, Michael

A. Miles, and Sam Nunn. Shareholders elect the nine board members at meetings,

and those board members who do not get a majority of votes must submit a

resignation to the board, which will subsequently choose whether or not to accept

the resignation. The board of directors usually sets up five committees having

oversight over specific matters. These committees include the Audit Committee,

which handles accounting issues, including auditing and reporting; the

Compensation Committee, which approves compensation for the CEO and other

employees of the company; the Finance Committee, which handles financial

matters such as proposed mergers and acquisitions; the Governance and

Nominating Committee, which handles various corporate matters (including

nomination of the board); and the Antitrust Compliance Committee, which

attempts to prevent company practices from violating antitrust laws.

Day-to-day operations of the company are run by the Global Executive

Management Committee, which sets strategic direction. Dell has regional senior

vice-presidents for countries other than the United States, including David

Marmonti for EMEA and Stephen J. Felice for Asia/Japan. As of 2007, other

officers included Martin Garvin (senior vice president for worldwide

procurement) and Susan Sheskey (vice president and Chief Information Officer).

Marketing

Dell advertisements have appeared in several types of media including television,

the Internet, magazines, catalogs and newspapers. Some of Dell Inc's marketing

strategies include lowering prices at all times of the year, free bonus products

(such as Dell printers), and free shipping to encourage more sales and stave off

competitors. In 2006, Dell cut its prices in an effort to maintain its 19.2% market

share. However, this also cut profit-margins by more than half, from 8.7 to 4.3

percent. To maintain its low prices, Dell continues to accept most purchases of its

products via the Internet and through the telephone network, and to move its

customer-care division to India and El Salvador.

A popular United States television and print ad campaign in the early 2000s

featured the actor Ben Curtis playing the part of "Steven", a lightly mischievous

blond-haired youth who came to the assistance of bereft computer purchasers.

Each television advertisement usually ended with Steven's catch-phrase: "Dude,

you're gettin' a Dell!"

A subsequent advertising campaign featured interns at Dell headquarters (with

Curtis' character appearing in a small cameo at the end of one of the first

commercials in this particular campaign).

A Dell advertising campaign for the XPS line of gaming computers featured in

print in the September 2006 issue of Wired. It used as a tagline the common term

in Internet and gamer slang: "FTW", meaning "For The Win". However, Dell Inc.

soon dropped the campaign.

In 2007, Dell switched advertising agencies in the US from BBDO to Working

Mother Media. In July 2007, Dell released new advertising created by Working

Mother to support the Inspiron and XPS lines. The ads featured music from the

Flaming Lips and Devo who re-formed especially to record the song in the ad

"Work it out". Also in 2007, Dell began using the slogan "Yours is here" to say

that it customizes computers to fit customers' requirements.

Beginning in the year 2011, Dell began hosting a Conference in Austin, TX at the

Austin Convention Centre titled "Dell World". The event featured new technology

and services provided by Dell and Dell's partners. In 2011, the event was held

October 12–14. In 2012, the event was held December 11–13. In 2013, the event

was held December 11–13.

Dell partner program

In late 2007, Dell Inc. announced that it planned to expand its program to value-

added resellers (VARs), giving it the official name of "Dell Partner Direct" and a

new Website.

Dell India has started Online Ecommerce website with its Dell Partner

www.compuindia.com GNG Electronics Pvt Ltd termed as Dell Express Ship

Affiliate (DESA). The main objective was to reduce the delivery time. Customers

who visit Dell India official site are given option to buy online which then will be

redirected to Dell affiliate website compuindia.com.

Criticisms of marketing of laptop security

In 2008, Dell received press coverage over its claim of having the world's most

secure laptops, specifically, its Latitude D630 and Latitude D830. At Lenovo's

request, the (U.S.) National Advertising Division (NAD) evaluated the claim, and

reported that Dell did not have enough evidence to support it.

Retail

Dell first opened their retail stores in India.

United States

In the early 1990s, Dell sold its products through Best Buy, Costco and Sam's

Club stores in the United States. Dell stopped this practice in 1994, citing low

profit-margins on the business, exclusively distributing through a direct-sales

model for the next decade. In 2003, Dell briefly sold products in Sears’s stores in

the U.S. In 2007, Dell started shipping its products to major retailers in the U.S.

once again, starting with Sam's Club and Wal-Mart. Staples, the largest office-

supply retailer in the U.S., and Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the

U.S., became Dell retail partners later that same year.

Kiosks

Starting in 2002, Dell opened kiosk locations in shopping malls across the United

States to provide personal service to customers who preferred this method of

shopping to Internet or telephone orders. Despite the added expense, prices at the

kiosks match or beat prices available through other retail channels. Starting in

2005, Dell expanded kiosk locations to include shopping malls across Australia,

Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong.

On January 30, 2008, Dell shut down all 140 kiosks in the U.S. due to expansion

into retail stores.

By June 3, 2010, Dell had also shut down all of its mall kiosks in Australia.

North Park Service Centre

In 2006, Dell Inc. opened one full store, 3,000-square-foot (280 m2) in area, at

North Park Centre in Dallas, Texas. It operates the retail outlet seven days a week

to display about 36 models, including PCs and televisions. As at the kiosks,

customers can only see demonstration-computers and place orders through agents.

Dell then delivers purchased items just as if the customer had placed the order by

phone or over the Internet.

In addition to showcasing products, the stores also support on-site warranties and

non-warranty service ("Dell Solution Station"). Services offered include repairing

computer video-cards and removing spyware from hard drives.

On February 14, 2008, Dell closed the Service Centre in its Dallas North Park

store and laid off all the technical staff there.

Retail Stores

As of the end of February 2008, Dell products shipped to one of the largest office-

supply retailers in Canada, Staples Business Depot. In April 2008, Future Shop

and Best Buy began carrying a subset of Dell products, such as certain desktops,

laptops, printers, and monitors.

Since some shoppers in certain markets show reluctance to purchase technological

products through the phone or the Internet, Dell has looked into opening retail

operations in some countries in Central Europe and Russia. In April 2007, Dell

opened a retail store in Budapest. In October of the same year, Dell opened a retail

store in Moscow.

In the UK, HMV's flagship Trocadero store has sold Dell XPS PCs since

December 2007. From January 2008 the UK stores of DSGi have sold Dell

products (in particular, through Currys and PC World stores). As of 2008, the

large supermarket-chain Tesco has sold Dell laptops and desktops in outlets

throughout the UK.

In May 2008, Dell reached an agreement with office supply chain, Office works

(part of Coles Group), to stock a few modified models in the Inspiron desktop and

notebook range. These models have slightly different model numbers, but almost

replicate the ones available from the Dell Store. Dell continued its retail push in

the Australian market with its partnership with Harris Technology (another part of

Coles Group) in November of the same year. In addition, Dell expanded its retail

distributions in Australia through an agreement with discount electrical retailer,

The Good Guys, known for "Slashing Prices". Dell agreed to distribute a variety

of makes of both desktops and notebooks, including Studio and XPS systems in

late 2008. Dell and Dick Smith Electronics (owned by Woolworths Limited)

reached an agreement to expand within Dick Smith's 400 stores throughout

Australia and New Zealand in May 2009 (1 year since Office works — owned by

Coles Group — reached a deal). The retailer has agreed to distribute a variety of

Inspiron and Studio notebooks, with minimal Studio desktops from the Dell

range. As of 2009, Dell continues to run and operate its various kiosks in 18

shopping centres throughout Australia. On March 31, 2010 Dell announced to

Australian Kiosk employees that they were shutting down the Australian/New

Zealand Dell kiosk program.

In Germany, Dell is selling selected smart phones and notebooks via Media Markt

and Saturn, as well as some shopping websites.

Competition

Dell's major competitors include Hewlett-Packard (HP), Acer, Fujitsu, Toshiba,

Gateway, Sony, Asus, Lenovo, IBM, MSI, Samsung and Apple. Dell and its

subsidiary, Alien ware, compete in the enthusiast market against AVA Direct,

Falcon Northwest, Voodoo PC (a subsidiary of HP), and other manufacturers. In

the second quarter of 2006, Dell had between 18% and 19% share of the

worldwide personal computer market, compared to HP with roughly 15%.

In late 2006, Dell lost its lead in the PC-business to Hewlett-Packard. Both

Gartner and IDC estimated that in the third quarter of 2006, HP shipped more

units [dead link] worldwide than Dell did. Dell's 3.6% growth paled in

comparison to HP's 15% growth during the same period. The problem got worse

in the fourth quarter, when Gartner estimated that Dell PC shipments declined

8.9% (versus HP's 23.9% growth). As a result, at the end of 2006 Dell's overall

PC market-share stood at 13.9% (versus HP's 17.4%).

IDC reported that Dell lost more server market share than any of the top four

competitors in that arena. IDC's Q4 2006 estimates show Dell's share of the server

market at 8.1%, down from 9.5% in the previous year. This represents an 8.8%

loss year-over-year, primarily to competitors EMC and IBM.

Partnership with EMC

The Dell/EMC brand applies solely to products that result from Dell's partnership

with EMC Corporation. In some cases, Dell and EMC jointly design such

products. Other cases involve EMC products that Dell supports—generally

midrange storage systems, such as fibre channel and iSCSI storage area networks.

The relationship also promotes and sells OEM versions of backup, recovery,

replication and archiving software.

On December 9, 2008, Dell and EMC announced the multi-year extension,

through 2013, of their strategic partnership that began in 2001. In addition, Dell

plans to expand its product line-up by adding the EMC Celerra NX4 storage

system to the portfolio of Dell/EMC family of networked storage systems, as well

as partnering on a new line of de-duplication products as part of its Tier Disk

family of data-storage devices.

On October 17, 2011, Dell announced officially discontinued reselling all EMC

storage products, this put end to 10 years of partnership.

Environmental record

Dell committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its global activities by

40% by 2015, with 2008 fiscal year as the baseline year. It is listed in Green

peace’s Guide to Greener Electronics that scores leading electronics

manufacturers according to their policies on sustainability, climate and energy and

how green their products are. In November 2011, Dell ranked 2nd out of 15 listed

electronics makers (increasing its score to 5.1 from 4.9, which it gained in the

previous ranking from October 2010).

Dell was the first company to publicly state a timeline for the elimination of toxic

polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which it

planned to phase out by the end of 2009. It revised this commitment and now aims

to remove these toxics by the end of 2011 but only in its computing products. In

March 2010, Greenpeace activists protested at Dell offices in Bangalore,

Amsterdam and Copenhagen calling for Dell’s founder and CEO Michael Dell to

‘drop the toxics’ and claiming that Dell’s aspiration to be ‘the greenest technology

company on the planet’ was ‘hypocritical’ Dell has launched its first products

completely free of PVC and BFRs with the G-Series monitors (G2210 and

G2410) in 2009.

In its 2012 report on progress relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project

rated Dell the eighth highest of 24 consumer electronics companies.

Green initiatives

Dell became the first company in the information technology industry to establish

a product-recycling goal (in 2004) and completed the implementation of its global

consumer recycling-program in 2006. On February 6, 2007, the National

Recycling Coalition awarded Dell its "Recycling Works" award for efforts to

promote producer responsibility. On July 19, 2007, Dell announced that it had

exceeded targets in working to achieve a multi-year goal of recovering 275

million pounds of computer equipment by 2009. The company reported the

recovery of 78 million pounds (nearly 40,000 tons) of IT equipment from

customers in 2006, a 93-percent increase over 2005 and 12.4% of the equipment

Dell sold seven years earlier.

On June 5, 2007, Dell set a goal of becoming the greenest technology company on

Earth for the long term. The company launched a zero-carbon initiative that

includes: reducing Dell's carbon intensity by 15 percent by 2012 requiring

primary suppliers to report carbon emissions data during quarterly business

reviews partnering with customers to build the "greenest PC on the planet"

expanding the company's carbon-offsetting program, "Plant a Tree for Me"

The company introduced the term "The Re-Generation" during a round table in

London commemorating 2007 World Environment Day. "The Re-Generation"

refers to people of all ages throughout the world who want to "make a difference"

in improving the world's environment. Dell also talked about plans to take the lead

in setting an environmental standard for the "technology industry" and

maintaining that leadership in the future.

Dell reports its environmental performance in an annual Corporate Social

Responsibility (CSR) Report that follows the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

protocol. Dell's 2008 CSR report ranked as "Application Level B" as "checked by

GRI".

The company aims to reduce its external environmental impact through energy-

efficient evolution of products, and also reduce its direct operational impact

through energy-efficiency programmes. Internal energy-efficiency programmes

reportedly save the company more than $3 million annually in energy-cost

savings. The largest component of the company's internal energy-efficiency

savings comes through PC power management: the company expects to save $1.8

million in energy costs through using specialised energy-management software on

a network of 50,000 PCs.

Criticism

See also: Lawsuits involving Dell Inc.

In the 1990s, Dell switched from using primarily ATX motherboards and PSU to

using boards and power supplies with mechanically identical but differently wired

connectors. These meant customers wishing to upgrade their hardware would

have to replace parts with scarce Dell-compatible parts instead of commonly

available parts. While motherboard power connections reverted to the industry

standard in 2003, Dell continues to remain secretive about their motherboard pin-

outs for peripherals (such as MMC readers and power on/off switches and LED's)

In 2005, complaints about Dell more than doubled to 1,533, after earnings grew

52% that year.

In 2006, Dell acknowledged that it had problems with customer service. Issues

included call transfers [203] of more than 45% of calls and long wait times. Dell's

blog detailed the response: "We're spending more than a $100 million — and a lot

of blood sweat and tears of talented people — to fix this." Later in the year, the

company increased its spending on customer service to $150 million. Despite

significant investment in this space, Dell continues to face public scrutiny with

even the company's own website littered with complaints regarding the issue

escalation process.

On August 17, 2007, Dell Inc. announced that after an internal investigation into

its accounting practices it would restate and reduce earnings from 2003 through to

the first quarter of 2007 by a total amount of between $50 million and $150

million, or 2 cents to 7 cents per share. The investigation, begun in November

2006, resulted from concerns raised by the U.S. Securities and Exchange

Commission over some documents and information that Dell Inc. had submitted.

It was alleged that Dell had not disclosed large exclusivity payments received

from Intel for agreeing not to buy processors from rival manufacturer AMD. In

2010 Dell finally paid $100 million to settle the SEC's charges of fraud. Michael

Dell and other executives also paid penalties and suffered other sanctions, without

admitting or denying the charges.

In July 2009, Dell apologized after drawing the ire of the Taiwanese Consumer

Protection Commission for twice refusing to honour a flood of orders against

unusually low prices offered on its Taiwanese website. In the first instance, Dell

offered a 19" LCD panel for $15. In the second instance, Dell offered its Latitude

E4300 notebook at NT$18,558 (US$580), 70% lower than usual price of

NT$60,900 (US$1900). Concerning the E4300, rather than honour the discount

taking a significant loss, the firm withdrew orders and offered a voucher of up to

NT$20,000 (US$625) a customer in compensation. The consumer rights

authorities in Taiwan fined Dell NT$1 million (US$31250) for customer rights

infringements. Many consumers sued the firm for the unfair compensation. A

court in southern Taiwan ordered the firm to deliver 18 laptops and 76 flat-panel

monitors to 31 consumers for NT$490,000 (US$15,120), less than a third of the

normal price. The court said the event could hardly be regarded as mistakes, as the

prestigious firm said the company mispriced its products twice in Taiwanese

website within 3 weeks.1

1 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell

PESTLE ANALYSIS

Political Factors:

The laptop and PC industry is expected to grow at a faster rate in developing

countries compared to the developed countries. Therefore, changes in government

policies in developing countries like India and China can affect the potential

growth rates in their markets. For instance, the removal of import duties on

laptops in India in 2005 was one of the factors that resulted in a growth of 94% in

laptop sales in 2005. Increasing focus on the environmental impact of high-tech

trash has lead to more stringent environmental regulations on the electronics

industry such as the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE

(Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directive. The additional testing and

certification involved directly affect the supply chains for laptop and PC

manufacturers, resulting in increased costs. For instance, in Canada, then

forcement of the WEEE Directive will increase the cost of computers by $15.The

increase either affects the consumer or reduces profitability for manufacturers.

Economic Factors:

The global economy influences various different factors that affect the growth of

the PC industry. Business capital spending for small and large corporations,

resulting in reduced demand for PCs. Gartner, Inc. forecasts a decline of 3.8% in

global IT spending, of which computing hardware spending is expected to

decrease by 14.9% in 2009. Though this decline in IT spending is likely to recover

slowly during 2010, the global PC market is expected to face declining growth

rates in terms of market value, from an expected 5.4% growth in 2009 to 4.1% in

2012 Most laptop (and PC) manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and

Apple generate sales throughout the world and therefore currency exchange rates

are an important factor as well. The strength (or weakness) of the US dollar versus

other currencies can directly affect a company’s bottom line *9+,*10+. The

economies in developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, and Latin

America are growing at a much faster rate than developed countries and therefore

provide better growth opportunities for computer manufacturers, since developed

countries like the US and Japan have become saturated .This trend is reflected in

the slower single digit growth in the last few years as opposed to the consistent

double digit growth in the developing markets

Social

Social factors such as education, preferences, income levels, and other cultural

factors influence demand patterns in the different regions and therefore affect how

a company operates in each region. The education and income level of users

affects the brand perception of the computer remanufacturers. As shown in Figure

5, households with higher income have higher percentages of Apple computers.

Such households are also more likely able to afford (and want) Apple computers.

This has allowed Apple to continue its strategy of premium pricing and

performance compared to Windows PCs, while at the same time increasing its

market share of the total laptop and PC market. At the other end of the education

spectrum, new devices such as the rugged and ultraportable OLPC (One Laptop

per Child) have been developed for under privileged users in developing countries

like Africa. Thus, education levels affect both product demand as well as

preference. Cultural aspects of different regions affect the occurrence of seasonal

sales, which significantly affect the performance of the computer industry as a

whole. For instance, in the U.S., the periods from November-December

(Thanksgiving / Christmas) and August (back-to-school) are significant earnings

period.

Technological:

Technological advances over the past decade, such as increased processing power

with reduced power consumption and reduced cost, or the standardization of

Windows and Intel in laptops, are one of the main reasons for the increase in

market share of the laptop segment compared to the overall PC industry. For

instance, the net book category’s average selling price (ASP) of$300 was made

possible by the low cost Intel Atom microprocessor, released in 2008. New

technologies, such as hosted virtual desktops (HVD), threaten to completely

change the industry dynamic, due to the possibility of cheaper computers along

with lower software costs .HVDs involve centralized computing.

FIVE FORCES

ANALYSIS

Bargaining Power of Buyers

The personal computer industry is somewhat vulnerable against the bargaining

power of buyers.  In recent years customers have more and more alternative

options to the personal computer.  Smart phones, tablet computers, and other

handheld devices like IPods have most of the same capabilities as a personal

computer.  And because of the availability, sleekness, and trendiness of these

alternatives, they have become increasingly popular making personal computers

more and more obsolete.  In order for the personal computer to compete with

these newer alternative options, it must differentiate itself in order to regain

market share.

The bargaining power of suppliers

According to common assumption, power is high where the brand is powerful.

Therefore, Dell is assumed to have far higher bargaining power than the

suppliers. Dell has been successfully managing its competitors in terms of getting

the needed supply of inventories and get them produce the inventories according

to the specifications of the company.

And the CEO of the company, Michael Dell also mentioned that Dell Company

never sticks to one supplier forever, as they always change the suppliers if the

suppliers are not meeting the demands of Dell. And the company always goes to

the supplier which is innovative and cost competitive among other rival suppliers. 

Therefore, it again indicates that Dell has higher bargaining power than its

suppliers.

Another indication of Dell to be in better position than its suppliers is that Dell got

most of its suppliers locate their businesses and manufacturing units close to

Dell’s manufacturing and assembly units.  By getting the suppliers near its

manufacturing units, inventory is down to an incredible four days and efficiency

is the key ingredient.

Moreover, suppliers can regularly supply their inventories to Dell within hours of

assembling the computers which indicates a strong corporate understanding of

both Dell and its suppliers.

 

 Threat of new Entrants

As it has been stated by Michael Dell, his only fear about his business empire is

the possibility of new entrants to the market who could adversely affect his

business. And moreover, Dell’s new strategy is the product diversification;

therefore, almost all electronic companies are potential entrants to this new

market.

Bargaining power of Customers

One of the competitive advantages Dell has gained has been through offering in-

person relationships with corporate and institutional customers. This is done by

telephone; internet purchasing, customized computer systems where corporate

clients can go to Dell’s special website called Premier Dell.com and configure

computer systems in regard to the price and specifications.

Moreover, they have post sales online supports which are online and in some

cases the company engineers can even visit the customer sites.

As long as the company has been serving giant companies such as governments,

and huge companies such as Cox communications, EDS and etc, they tend to be

permanent customers as it costs massive money for the customers to switch from

Dell to another company.

Moreover, as the company has been diversifying its product ranges from simply

computers to other products such printers, storage services; this indicates that the

company will be serving all type of customers, not only corporate

clients. Therefore, Dell has to focus on improving its customer service to small

business and individual customers as well to gain their lifetime loyalty.2

2 H T T P : / / R E S E A R C H - M E T H O D O L O G Y . N E T / D E L L - P O R T E R S - F I V E - F O R C E S -

A N A L Y S I S /

KEY SUCCESS

FACTORS

1. Culture

Dell's winning ways begin and end with its culture. Dell has created a disciplined

culture that relentlessly focuses on optimizing its operational model, responding

to its customers' needs and sustaining a self-motivated workforce.

2. Information is a powerful strategic weapon

Information is king at Dell - it is widely distributed, analyzed and acted upon.

People know where they and their business units stand at any time.

According to Dell: "If the folks in our consumer business notice it's 10am and

they're not getting enough phone calls, they know they have to do something: run

a promotion on the web starting at 10:15, or change their pricing or run more ads.

They can't wait 30 days after the end of the quarter to figure it out." Rollins adds:

"Everybody sees everybody else's numbers and gets to help with suggestions

about their businesses. Openness and sharing are part of success at Dell."

Dell has made a serious investment in understanding its customers' activity in real

time and then uses this information to constructively build its business and its

winning culture. Companies that rely on distributor for information about how end

customers use their products but dell have an advantage as they are the focal point

for customers. They can obtain info through their websites.

3. Being a low cost provider creates flexibility and market

advantage

Being a low cost provider unlocks market opportunities

4. Product development is customer and shareholder focused

Because they have taken the time to identify and measure the kinds of R&D that

help them differentiate their products, they are able to allocate capital offensively,

not defensively. This is a crucial distinction; particularly in fast-moving,

ambiguous markets where getting even a quarter's jump on competitors can have

huge upside. This approach rewards both customers and shareholders. 3

3 : http://www.studymode.com/essays/Dell-Key-Success-Factors-150188.html

Dominant brand name:

Many companies in the industry have strong brand name. Their dominant

presence in the market is because of the image they created for their products

through their strategic moves. This enabled them to earn more market share in the

industry. E.G. Apple, Dell, Sony.

Organizational Policy and Strategy

Keeping up with the demand: The industry is up-to-date with the technological

innovations taking place around the market. Also, it sells products that are

preferred by the consumers. Constant replacement of products is taking place in

the industry. New versions of laptops, PC etc have increased the compatibility,

storage, look and usage of the product

Economies of scale

Even though the industry experience high learning curve effects, once the learning

is achieved, the companies are benefited from economies of scale. Although this

is a disadvantage to the new entrants, in the long run this makes justification to

their investment.

Pricing policy

The pricing policy in the industry is very clear and appropriate. The pricing in the

industry is related to the economies of scale. As the production cost has come

down because of the economies of scale, the industry is capable to maintain their

current pricing levels. The pricing is also acceptable by the consumers.

• The supplier relations, distribution systems and strategic approaches like

backward or forward integration have also acted as success factors in the industry.

In particular, Dell had its own in house manufacturing of its components which

helped them to build expertise in their technology they use.

The R&D capabilities in the industry improved and enabled them to keep their

products on the cutting edge because of the efficiency achieved in vertical

integration. 6 Dell Inc - Case

Organizational Policy and Strategy

Outsourcing the manufacturing of certain components and having a concentrated

assembly line also proved to be effective in the industry.

The reduction in the supply chain by integrating and collaborating with outside

vendors and suppliers have acted as a success factor in reducing product and

production cost. 4

4 h ttp://www.slideshare.net/balabsw/dell-12318141

KEY DRIVING

FORCES

• Explosion of digital and information content is a key driver as it improved data

availability. The overall rate of global spending increased and the data availability

also doubled.

• The advent of search engine activity, social networking sites, e-mail, mobile

phones, android applications etc. also acted as a key driver. This digital expansion

improved the industry’s economic presence and overall demand in the industry. 3

Dell Inc - Case

Organizational Policy and Strategy

• The demand for information technology in emerging markets like India, Brazil,

Russia, China and India increased. The population is high in these areas and thus

the demand for IT products and services also increased. This was a key driver in

the industry

. • Certain drivers had negative implications on the industry. The digital volume

content lacked authentication and there are many security issues in the industry.

Also the consumers’ expectations are not stable. These keep changing. The overall

ability of the consumers to deal with complexity and sophistication is low. The

consumers want quick access to their demands. All these factors are the downside

driving factors of the industry

. • Replacement factor is a key driver in the industry. The existing PC’s are getting

replaced with the advancement in features, design and compatibility of the PC

. • The entry of smart phones into the industry is a key driver. The cross category

competition became more intense with the developments in the smart phone

industry. These devices also gave access to the internet. The smart phones are

sleek and they offer compatible usage. The costs of these smart phones are also

low compared to the PC and laptops. Thus consumers may switch to smart phones

from PC.

• The mobile phones are offering the features of the internet at a subsidized rate.

These driving forces have negative implications on the industry.

• Processor speed and RAM were the driving forces in the industry that generated

profit. They are no longer the driving force as cloud computing is introduced.

They are slowly replacing processors and RAM.

CHAPTER-2

LITRATURE

REVIEW

Laptop & PC Industry is expected to grow fast in developing countries like India

& china because of changes in government policies. In 2005, Indian government

removed the import duties on Laptops, which resulted in growth of 94% in 2005.

(Physorg.com, 2006)Cyber Media Research (2011) study states that nearly 10

million desktop & notebook personal computers have been installed in 2010 and

thus India has estimated to cross 52million till Dec 2010 for total installation of

both.IDC is India’s quarterly PC sales marker, for the quarter ending in Oct-Dec

2010, it suggested that Indian PC market had found recovery from the effect of

global recession. Compared to last quarter of 2009, Laptop market has seen the

growth of 49%, while with compare to 3rdquarter it has decreased by 7% because

of High inflation & low industrial growth.

According to Pinki Sharma, The entire study shows that Laptop usage is very

much popular in between the students whether their residential status is urban and

rural. It’s the present day demand to run hand with the latest technology. This

technology not only simplify students task but it also seem to morale boost up of

the students. Students found themselves connected with the entire world with the

help of Laptops.

According to Dr. Nilesh B. Gajjar, The study of student behaviour is quite

complex, because of many variables involved and their tendency to interact with

& influence each other. These are the factors controlled by external environments

like the following form the basis of external influences over the mind of a

customer Social Class, and Social Group,Culture, and Sub-culture,(outer

circle). Family, and Inter-Personal Influences,

According to Rinal B.Shah, The research was aimed to examine the applicability

of Aaker’s conceptual framework of student -based brand equity for laptop brands

in Indian market .Here the findings don’t support completely to the entire brand

equity dimensions of Aaker’s model, it was found that perceived quality and

brand loyalty had a significant positive direct effect on brand equity. It had the

strongest impact which indicated the essential role of development of perceived

quality and brand loyalty in minds of customers to build brand equity for laptop

brands.

Annamalai Solayappan, Jothi Jayakrishnan (2010) their research showed that

branded computers play a prestigious role in the students segment. Due to the

computer world everything is in the hands of the students. Everything in the world

seems to be digital. Everyone needs a computer to drive a smooth and fast race.

Especially, branded computers will try to safeguard the competitive race. So, the

various factors discussed may determine the student to purchase branded

computers.

According to Vadlamani S.(2011), Desktop & laptop market has achieved the

growth of 6% (2.6 million units) in India in first quarter of 2011. the growth was

driven by laptop vendor by 23%. Top five brands are Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo and

HCL with combined market share of 57.5%.IDC (2011) wrote that, in the second

quarter of 2011, the sales of laptop & desktops has decreased by 4.2% at 2.44

million units, compared to Q1 2011; Dell has again leaded the market share by

17.4%, while top 5 companies cumulating 60% market share; companies are

targeting tier-3 & tier-4 cities now through large-format retails.

Wahida Farzana (2012) this study is to explore how consumers’ psychological

factors (Motivation, perception, and attitude) are associated with brand equity

(brand loyalty, brand association, perceived quality, and brand awareness) of

laptop. The result revealed that, consumers’ motivation to use laptop and brand

association criteria work separately. They consider battery lifetime (brand

association) as important feature while satisfying those purposes. Consumers’

attitudes are shaped up by others, especially by family members while buying

high-involvement products. Respondents show a positive association between

their attitudes with one of the highest ranking laptop Apple. Like other products,

consumers’ perception for choosing laptop relies upon different sources of

information. In this particular case, they choose newspaper and websites to build

up their perception. Though newspaper and websites play the vital role for

organizing, evaluating information, they rarely help them to choose the brand.

Dr. Ansir Ali Rajput, Sabir Hussain Kalhoro (2012) presented in this article

has significant impact on both price and quality, one thing has been noticed during

the survey that people do give more focus to price rather quality because of low

income level. People have more alternatives in products that are the reason people

go for lower price products.

Laptop & PC Industry is expected to grow fast in developing countries like India

& china because of changes in government policies. In 2005, Indian government

removed the import duties on Laptops, which resulted in growth of 94% in 2005.

(Physorg.com, 2006) Cyber Media Research (2011) study states that nearly 10

million desktop & notebook personal computers have been installed in 2010 and

thus India has estimated to cross 52 million till Dec 2010 for total installation of

both.

IDC is India’s quarterly PC sales marker, for the quarter ending in Oct-Dec 2010;

it suggested that Indian PC market had found recovery from the effect of global

recession. Compared to last quarter of 2009, Laptop market has seen the growth

of 49%, while with compare to 3rdquarter it has decreased by 7% because of High

inflation & low industrial growth. (Shinde J.)

According to Vadlamani S.(2011), Desktop & laptop market has achieved the

growth of 6% (2.6 million units) in India in first quarter of 2011. The growth was

driven by laptop vendor by 23%. Top five brands are Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo and

HCL with combined market share of 57.5%. IDC(2011) wrote that, in the second

quarter of 2011, the sales of laptop & desktops has decreased by 4.2% at 2.44

million units, compared to Q1 2011; Dell has again leaded the International

Journal of Advanced Research in market share by 17.4%, while top 5 companies

cumulating 60% market share; companies are targeting tier-3 & tier-4 cities now

through large-format retails. Brand equity concept & model

Branding will add value to the product which will influence the customer’s

purchase decisions; the brand which gives strong, optimistic & enduring

impression in customer’s mind can become successful (Kotler, 2003).

According to Aaker (1991), A brand is name and/or symbol used to identify the

goods/services of sellers, and to differentiate it from the competitors. Brand equity

is an impact on mental association created by customers for different brands; He

gave the model to measure customer based brand equity, involving six brand

building blocks, namely brand salience, brand performance, brand imagery, brand

judgment, brand

Feeling, brand resonance (Keller 1998) Brand equity assets can help customers

interpret process & store huge quantities of information about products & brands;

he proposed the model to measure brand equity based on consumer’s point of

view, including perceived quality, brand awareness, brand association & brand

loyalty components. (Aaker 1991).

Perceived quality

Aaker (1991, p.7) defined Perceived quality as “the customer’s perception of

overall quality or superiority of a product or service with respect to the intended

purpose, relative to alternatives” Consumers always want to spend less time &

efforts in selection of brand, so they mostly rely on feelings about the

characteristics of products of particular brands. Here their perception is driving

the decision making process. It also depends on the willingness of the customer

for purchase decision.

Tsai (2004) Suggests those brands with lower emotional ratings may redirect

marketing resources and efforts to increase consumer’s emotional perceptions,

which will give higher satisfaction.

Brand Awareness

According to Aaker (1991, p.61), brand awareness is “the ability of potential

buyer to recognize or recall that a brand is a member of a certain product

category” International Journal of Advanced Research in

It will lead customers to select the most familiar brands under their knowledge.

When customer takes decision, he considers many alternatives based on brand

recall. So brands those are not recalled will not be considered in selection process.

It will also increase the familiarity of brand with customers, thus the customers

will be able to recognize the brand among the group of brands.

Brand Association

Aaker (1991, p.109) claimed that brand association is “the category of brand’s

implication which include anything linked in memory to a brand”. According to

Keller (1998), it is set of information nodes attached with the brand in mind of

consumers, which can be classified as attributes, attitudes & benefits related to the

brand. It is helpful to customers to retrieve information about some brands from

their memory. When they are confronted with the brand, the associated benefits or

experience or features will be reflected in customer’s mind. Laptop firms need to

increase brand awareness to increase the familiarity of brands in the mind of

consumers; high level of brand association can moderately work to increase

buying behavior of Chinese customers. (Liu Z., 2007)

Brand Loyalty

It is the inclination of customer to purchase the same brand every time (Collin et

al, 1991). Gilbert (2003) wrote that when customer purchases the same brand of

products on regular basis it is brand loyalty. It costs six times more to gain the

new customer than to retain the old customers (Kotler, 2000). Brand loyalty will

be helpful to increase the market share. The existing old customers can be

effective communication to prospects for assurance of brand commitment. So

brand loyalty can also attract new customers. Because of brand loyalty customers

will purchase the same brand, recommend it to others, and choose it over the

competitors even if provided at lower price & better features/services. College

students are loyal to higher priced brands (Lodes M., 2010). The post purchase

services are extremely important as they are directly related to customer’s brand

loyalty; the companies should also invest in technology through R & D and create

differentiation at utmost level.5

5http://www.studymode.com/essays/Literature-Review-On-student-Behavior-

While-1399008.html

CHAPTER-3

RESEARCH

METHODOLOGY

OBJECTIVES:

To know about the consumer preference level associated with dell laptop.

To understand brand loyalty of consumer.

Factor that influence decision making in purchasing a laptop.

NEED OF THE STUDY

The needs of the study are:-

This research is intended to describe and analyze consumer brand

preference on dell laptop purchase.

The purpose of this report is to understand the personal experience of dell

laptop and analysis on preference of branded laptop among the consumers.

This will give a conclusion on how does consumer perceived brand among

different criteria in order to take the decision in purchasing the branded

dell laptop.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Findings of the study might be useful and important among consumer.

It can also become good information for those companies who has been

engaging in research of branding process in order to indentify perception

of the consumers for their branded product.

This finding will broad enough to generate interest among a sufficiently

large group of researchers because it analysis of load of facts about the

various criteria of choice that determine the perceptions and preferences of

dell laptop.

This finding will give a data of various sources from where consumer can

get information about the product in percentage form which will help the

planner, to make decision regarding which source will be more effectively

to promote their branded products.

RESEARCH DESIGN:

A research design is the framework or plan for a study used as a guide in

collecting and analyzing data. There are three basic types of research design:

exploratory, descriptive, and causal. The names of the three types of research

design describe their purpose very well.

The sample technique employed in this research was a non probability sample

method given that questionnaire was distributed randomly, which gives a fair

representation of the study population. Among various non probability techniques,

the researcher selected convenience sampling technique to study the project

because the data was collected like as stopping people on a street corner as they

pass by. Respondents were selected based on their convenient accessibility.

METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION:

The key for useful systems is the selection of the method for collecting data and

linking it to analysis and decision issue of the action to be taken. The accuracy of

the collected data is of great importance for drawing correct and valid conclusions

from the detailed investigations.

PRIMARY DATA:

The primary data are those which are collected a fresh hand for the first time and

thus happen to be original in character. There are several methods of collecting

primary data, particularly in survey and descriptive research.

SECONDARY DATA:

Secondary data are used means that are already available Among them the

study use survey or structured questionnaires to obtain specific information such

as ways of information search to obtain information , perceptions, attitudes ,

factors and behaviour regarding mobile phones.

SAMPLING METHODOLOGY:

Sample Unit - Consumers are using different mobile phone.

Sampling Area- GandhiNagar.

Sampling Technique - Convenience sampling technique.

Statistical Tools Used- SPSS, t-test, chi square test

Software used - SPSS, ms-office

Sample Size - 385 respondents are needed

Confidence level = 95%

Standard deviation = .5

Margin of error = +/- 5%.

= (Z-score) ² – Std Dev*(1-StdDev) / (margin of error) ²

=(1.96)²x.5(.5))/(.05)²

=(3.8416x.25)/.0025

=.9604/.0025

=384.16

=385 respondents are needed

CHAPTER-4

DATA ANALYSIS

AND

INTERPRETATION

B. Gender

Male Female260 125

Table no -1

68%

32%

Gender

MaleFemale

Graph no -1

Interpretation

The graph will show the 68% are male, 32% are female.

C. Age

Below 20 years Below 30 Years Below 40 years 40 or above years

50 220 90 25

Table no -2

13%

57%

23%

6%

Age

Below 20 yearsBelow 30 YearsBelow 40 years40 or above years

Graph no -2

Interpretation

The graph will show the 13% are below 20 years, 57% are below 30 Years, 23% Below 40 years, 7 % 40 or above years of age.

D. Occupation

Service Housewife Business Student Retired90 25 65 180 20

Table no -3

24%

7%

17%

47%

5%

Occupation

Service HousewifeBusinessStudentRetired

Graph no -3

Interpretation

The graph will show the 24% are Service, 7% are Housewife, 17% are Business, 47% are Student, and 5% are retired.

E. Educational Background

Schooling Graduate Post Graduate Doctorate Illiterate65 195 115 10 0

Table no -4

17%

51%

30%

3%

Education Background

SchoolingGraduatePost GraduateDoctorate Illitrate

Graph no -4

Interpretation

The graph will show the 17% are Schooling, 51% are Graduate, 30% are Post graduate, and 2 % are doctorate.

F. Income Level (per month)

Less than or equal to 10,000

10,001 – 20, 000

20,001– 30,000

30,001 – 40,000

More than 40,000

75 117 103 55 35

Table no -5

19%

30%27%

14%

9%

Income

Less than or equal to 10,000

10,001 – 20, 000

20,001– 30,000

30,001 – 40,000

More than 40,000

Graph no -5

Interpretation

The graph will show the 20% are Less than or equal to 10,000, 30% are 10,001 – 20, 000, 27% are 20,001– 30,000, 14% are 30,001 – 40,000, 9% are More than 40,000.

G. For how long have you been using your laptop?

1-3 years

3-5 years 5-7 years 7 years and more

57 165 95 68

Table no -6

15%

43%

25%

18%

Using laptop

1-3 years3-5 years5-7 years7 years and more

Graph no -6

Interpretation

The graph will show the using laptop 15% are 1-5 years, 43% are 3-5 years, 25% are 5-7 years and 17 % are 7 years and more

H. What was the most influential factor that affected your choice when you bought your laptop??

Friends Family members

Advertisements Sales person

Brand image

Product reviews

others

43 37 91 6 149 54 05

Table no -7

11%

10%

24%

2%

39%

14%

1%

Influential factor

Friends Family members Advertisements Sales person Brand image Product reviews Other

Graph no -7

Interpretation

The graph will show the 11% influence by friends, 10% influence by family members, 24% influence by advertisement, 1% influence by sales person, 39% influence by brand image, 14% influence by product review and 1% influence by others.

I. Which channel did you use when you bought your laptop?

The brand's own website

Online retail stores

Electronics retail stores

Warehouse stores

Others

45 23 200 17 100

Table no -8

12%

6%

52%

4%

26%

Channel

The brand's own website Online retail stores Electronics retail storesWarehouse stores Others

Graph no -8

Interpretation

The graph will show the 12% use brand’s own website for purchase, 6% use online retail stoe, 52% use electronics retail stores, 4% use warehouse stores, 26% use others source for purchase laptop.

J. What do you think about features of Dell laptop?

1. Processors

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

67 173 129 13 3

Table no -10

17%

45%

34%

3%

1%

Processors

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -10

Interpretation

The graph will show the 17% strongly agree, 45% agree, 34% neutral, 3% disagree and 1% strongly disagree with processors.

2. DVD drive

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

87 147 117 30 04

Table no -11

23%

38%

30%

8%

1%

DVD drive

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -11

Interpretation

The graph will show the 23% are strongly agree , 38% are agree, 30% are Neutral ,8 % are disagree, 1% are strongly disagree.

3. Inbuilt HDD

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

76 181 101 26 01

Table no -12

20%

47%

26%

7%

0%

Inbuilt HDD

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -12

Interpretation

The graph will show the 20% are strongly agree, 47% are agree, 26% are Neutral, 7% are disagree,0% are strongly disagree

4. Operating system

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

93 115 148 21 08

Table no -13

24%

30%

38%

5%

2%

Operating system

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -13

Interpretation

The graph will show the 24% are strongly agree, 30% are agree, 38% are Neutral, 6% are disagree,2% are strongly disagree.

5. Webcam

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

55 121 167 27 15

Table no -14

14%

31%43%

7%4%

Webcam

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -14

Interpretation

The graph will show the 14% are strongly agree, 32% are agree, 43% are Neutral ,7% are disagree, 4% are strongly disagree.

6 .Screen size

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

43 135 189 17 01

Table no -15

11%

35%49%

4%

0%

Screen size

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -15

Interpretation

The graph will show the 11% are strongly agree 35% are agree, 49% are Neutral ,5% are disagree,0% are strongly disagree.

7. RAM

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

86 155 110 25 09

Table no -16

22%

40%

28%

6%3%

RAM

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -16

Interpretation

The graph will show the 22% are strongly agree, 40% are agree,28% are Neutral, 7% are disagree,3% are strongly disagree.

8. Battery

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

37 40 149 147 15

Table no -17

10%

10%

38%

38%

4%

Battery

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -17

Interpretation

The graph will show the 10% are strongly agree, 10% are agree, 38% are Neutral, 38% are disagree,4% are strongly disagree.

9. Sound Technology

Strongly agree

Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

08 55 182 137 02

Table no -18

2%

14%

47%

36%

1%

Sound technology

Strongly agree AgreeNeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree

Graph no -18

Interpretation

The graph will show the 36% are strongly agree, 14% are agree, 47% are neutral ,36% are disagree,1% are strongly disagree

K. Colour

7%

36%

16%

10%

19%

12%

Color

GreenBlackBlueRedWhitePink

Interpretation:

The graph will show the

L. . . What would you be willing to pay for a dell laptop?Below 25,000

25000 to 29999

30000 to 39000

40,000 to 49999

More than 50000

24 76 146 95 45

17%

28%

32%

14%

9%

willing to pay for a dell laptop

Below 25,000 25000 to 29999 30000 to 39000 40,000 to 49999 More than 50000

M. . . Where did you often see the dell laptop advertisement?TV Newspaper Magazin

eOnline outdoor Radio leaflet other

24 76 146 95 45

12%

12%

3%

67%

7%

Advertisement

TV News Paper MagazineOnlineOutdoorRadioLeafletsOther

N. Which size of screen you prefer?13 -13.9 inch

14-14.9 inch 15-15.9 inch 16-17.9 inch

24 76 146 95

23%

64%

9%4%

Screen

13 -13.9 inch 14-14.9 inch 15-15.9 inch 16-17.9 inch

Hypothesis: T-TEST

1. PROCESSORS

Step 1: hypothesis

H0: µ>3(Customer are agree with Processors feature)

Ha: µ≤3 (customer are disagree with Processors feature)

Step: T-test

Step 3: Alpha Value

α=0.05

Confidence interval 95%

Step 4: Decisional rule

If observed T value is greater than tabulated value, then H0 is rejected.

Step 5: Data

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

PROCESSOR 385 3.7481 .80778 .04117

Step 6: Calculate the T value

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

PROCESSOR 18.171 384 .000 .74805 .6671 .8290

Step 7: rejected or accepted

Observed T value is -17.104 so it is less than tabulated value -.9007. So the null hypothesis is accepted.

Step 8: business implication

Customers are satisfied with Brand Image facilities.

2. DVD drive

Step 1: hypothesis

H0: µ>3(Customer are agree with DVD drive feature)

Ha: µ≤3 (customer are disagree with DVD drive feature)

Step: T-test

Step 3: Alpha Value

α=0.05

Confidence interval 95%

Step 4: Decisional rule

If observed T value is greater than tabulated value, then H0 is rejected.

Step 5: Data

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

DVD 385 3.7351 .93120 .04746

Step 6: Calculate the T value

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

DVD 15.489 384 .000 .73506 .6418 .8284

Step 7: rejected or accepted

Observed T value is -17.104 so it is less than tabulated value -.9007. So the null hypothesis is accepted.

Step 8: business implication

Customers are satisfied with Brand Image facilities.

3. Inbuilt HDD

Step 1: hypothesis

H0: µ>3(Customer are agree with Inbuilt HDD feature)

Ha: µ≤3 (customer are disagree with Inbuilt HDD feature)

Step: T-test

Step 3: Alpha Value

α=0.05

Confidence interval 95%

Step 4: Decisional rule

If observed T value is greater than tabulated value, then H0 is rejected.

Step 5: Data

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

HDD 385 3.7922 .84375 .04300

Step 6: Calculate the T value

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

HDD 18.423 384 .000 .79221 .7077 .8768

Step 7: rejected or accepted

Observed T value is -17.104 so it is less than tabulated value -.9007. So the null hypothesis is accepted.

Step 8: business implication

Customers are satisfied with Brand Image facilities.

4. Operating system

Step 1: hypothesis

H0: µ>3(Customer are agree with Operating system feature)

Ha: µ≤3 (customer are disagree with Operating system feature)

Step: T-test

Step 3: Alpha Value

α=0.05

Confidence interval 95%

Step 4: Decisional rule

If observed T value is greater than tabulated value, then H0 is rejected.

Step 5: Data

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

OS 385 3.6857 .96686 .04928

Step 6: Calculate the T value

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

OS 13.916 384 .000 .68571 .5888 .7826

Step 7: rejected or accepted

Observed T value is -17.104 so it is less than tabulated value -.9007. So the null hypothesis is accepted.

Step 8: business implication

Customers are satisfied with Brand Image facilities.

5. RAM

Step 1: hypothesis

H0: µ>3(Customer are agree with RAM feature)

Ha: µ≤3 (customer are disagree with RAM feature)

Step: T-test

Step 3: Alpha Value

α=0.05

Confidence interval 95%

Step 4: Decisional rule

If observed T value is greater than tabulated value, then H0 is rejected.

Step 5: Data

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

RAM 385 3.7377 .95539 .04869

Step 6: Calculate the T value

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

RAM 15.150 384 .000 .73766 .6419 .8334

Step 7: rejected or accepted

Observed T value is -17.104 so it is less than tabulated value -.9007. So the null hypothesis is accepted.

Step 8: business implication

Customers are satisfied with Brand Image facilities.

6. Battery

Step 1: hypothesis

H0: µ>3(Customer are agree with Battery feature)

Ha: µ≤3 (customer are disagree with Battery feature)

Step: T-test

Step 3: Alpha Value

α=0.05

Confidence interval 95%

Step 4: Decisional rule

If observed T value is greater than tabulated value, then H0 is rejected.

Step 5: Data

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

BATTERY 385 2.8519 .98763 .05033

Step 6: Calculate the T value

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

BATTERY -2.941 384 .003 -.14805 -.2470 -.0491

Step 7: rejected or accepted

Observed T value is -17.104 so it is less than tabulated value -.9007. So the null hypothesis is accepted.

Step 8: business implication

Customers are satisfied with Brand Image facilities.

7. Sound technology

Step 1: hypothesis

H0: µ>3(Customer are agree with Sound technology feature)

Ha: µ≤3 (customer are disagree with Sound technology feature)

Step: T-test

Step 3: Alpha Value

α=0.05

Confidence interval 95%

Step 4: Decisional rule

If observed T value is greater than tabulated value, then H0 is rejected.

Step 5: Data

One-Sample Statistics

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean

SOUND 385 2.8130 .76126 .03880

Step 6: Calculate the T value

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the

Difference

Lower Upper

SOUND -4.820 384 .000 -.18701 -.2633 -.1107

Step 7: rejected or accepted

Observed T value is -17.104 so it is less than tabulated value -.9007. So the null hypothesis is accepted.

Step 8: business implication

Customers are satisfied with Brand Image facilities.

CHAPTER-5

FINDING

Suggestion

Limitation

A small sample size of 385 students is taken, so we cannot draw inferences

about the population from this sample size.

Time period is short and resource constraints.

The scope of the project is limited to the city of Gandhinagar.

This study is based on the prevailing a study on consumer brand

preference of dell laptop.

Consumer test and preference keep on changing day by day so the findings

from the survey may not be applicable in all cases.

Surveys should thus be undertaken periodically in order to gauge changing

consumer laptop usage patterns and perceptions over time.

Test of null and alternative hypothesis can be done based on the literature

review. Only integrating the literature review with the theory was done.

The study can be further analyzed in terms of different dimension like

brand preference among gender wise, income wise as well as various

factor they choose feature of dell laptop .

CHAPTER-6

CONCLUSION

CHAPTER-7

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER-8

ANNEXURE