Customer Relationship Management of Dell : Dell Inc: (NASDAQ: Dell, HKEX: 4331) is a American multinational information technology corporation based in Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells 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 96,000 people worldwide. Dell had 46,000 employees as of Jan. 30. About 22,200 of those, or 48.3 percent, were in the United States, while 23,800 people, or 51.7 percent, worked in other countries, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.[citation needed] Dell is listed at #38 on the Fortune 500 (2010). Fortune also lists Dell as the #5 most admired company in its industry.
Dell has grown by both organic and inorganic means since its inception—notable mergers and acquisitions including Alienware (2006) and Perot Systems (2009). As of 2009, the company sold personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, and computer peripherals. Dell also sells HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players and other electronics built by other manufacturers. The company is well known for its innovations in supply chain management and electronic commerce.
On May 3, 2010, Fortune Magazine listed Dell as the 38th largest company in the United States and the 5th largest company in Texas by total revenue. It is the 2nd largest non-oil company in Texas (behind AT&T) and the largest company in the Austin area
Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PCs Limited while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Michael Dell started trading in the belief that by selling personal computer systems directly to customers, PCs Limited could better understand customers' needs and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs.[4] Michael Dell dropped out of school in order 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", sold for US$795.[5] PCs 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 trading.
The company changed its name to "Dell Computer Corporation" in 1988 and began expanding globally—first in Ireland. 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.[6] 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.[citation needed]
In 1996, Dell began selling computers via its web site, and in 2002, Dell expanded its product line to include televisions, handhelds, digital audio players, and printers. Dell's first acquisition occurred in 1999 with the purchase of ConvergeNet Technologies. In 2003, the company was rebranded as simply "Dell Inc." to recognize the company's expansion beyond computers. From 2004 to 2007, Michael Dell stepped aside as CEO, while long-time Dell employee Kevin Rollins took the helm. During that time, Dell acquired Alienware, which introduced several new items to Dell products, including AMD microprocessors. To prevent cross-market products, Dell continues to run Alienware as a separate entity but still a wholly-owned subsidiary
Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) have added another tie that binds -- a service offering Salesforce.com's flagship CRM applications to Dell's SMB customers. Data integration and quality control are among the value-add features Dell is bringing to the table through its integration services division.
This initiative stand out from the myriad collaborations Salesforce.com and Dell have entered over the years targeting this constituency, Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone told CRM Buyer.
"Dell is providing the migration of data -- and that is a valuable service," she said. "The big stumbling block for CRM -- even in a hosted environment -- has always been data, especially for smaller firms."
Salesforce.com first targeted the small business space when it launched a decade or so ago, then expanded to medium-sized firms and enterprises with a richer feature set. It further broadened its reach with its Force.com development platform, followed by the launch of the AppExchange marketplace.
Now, the company wants to make further inroads into SMB territory. The Dell partnership "helps introduce us to an entirely new audience of these companies," spokesperson Bruce Francis told CRM Buyer. "Dell can be the bridge for those companies that have existing hardware in place and want to start working in the cloud."
Product Highlights
The offering includes the following features and functionality:
* Salesforce Contact Manager Edition works with any email application, including Outlook and Gmail, and provides a cloud-based contact management application for one or two users. Features allow users to store contacts, track customers, run activity reports, manage tasks and meetings, and more. Users of Dell Vostro laptops and desktops get a free six-month subscription to Contact Manager Edition.
* Salesforce Group Edition provides basic CRM for groups of up to five users. In addition to the features in Contact Manager, it offers Salesforce for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) AdWords.
* Salesforce Professional Edition includes everything in Group Edition with no user limit. It has reporting and analytics functionality, a custom dashboard, sales forecasting tools and mobile access.
* Salesforce Enterprise Edition is a more robust application than the Professional Edition. It offers workflow and approval management, advanced security, territory management and offline access.
* Dell Integration Appliance is an out-of-the-box integration app for Salesforce that includes data cleansing and migration tools, as wel as a library of rebuilt integration templates for connecting many commercial Software as a Service products.
* Virtual Integration Appliance, another Dell-originated offering, enables users to deploy integration appliance functionality on any hardware.
* Cloud Integration Service is a Dell service for integrating Salesforce CRM with other cloud computing applications.
The subscription based pricing for the Dell-Salesforce.com offering starts at US$9 per user per month.
Strong Presence
The new feature lineup will deepen both Dell's and Salesforce.com's presence in the SMB channel, Rebecca Wettemann, principal with Nucleus Research, told CRM Buyer.
"Dell and Salesforce.com have worked together for a long time -- but this new offering is giving Salesforce.com a cost-effective new channel for SMB firms," she said -- namely companies that may not have considered cloud-based applications, especially CRM applications, because they were deemed too difficult or too expensive for their cost structure.
Despite all the marketing that Software as a Service companies have devoted to raising awareness among these companies, the penetration rate is still low.
With Dell as the channel, these apps "will have a lot more visibility among these companies," Wettemann said.
At bottom, the offering is all about pricing and targeted packaging -- not new technology, Kingstone said.
"This is two major brands targeting a sector -- the SMB -- that has not had much success with CRM," she remarked.
The hardware element is irrelevant, she added, noting that Salesforce.com can operate on just about any machine. "You can go to a kiosk and use it."
Dell has grown by both organic and inorganic means since its inception—notable mergers and acquisitions including Alienware (2006) and Perot Systems (2009). As of 2009, the company sold personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, and computer peripherals. Dell also sells HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players and other electronics built by other manufacturers. The company is well known for its innovations in supply chain management and electronic commerce.
On May 3, 2010, Fortune Magazine listed Dell as the 38th largest company in the United States and the 5th largest company in Texas by total revenue. It is the 2nd largest non-oil company in Texas (behind AT&T) and the largest company in the Austin area
Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PCs Limited while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Michael Dell started trading in the belief that by selling personal computer systems directly to customers, PCs Limited could better understand customers' needs and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs.[4] Michael Dell dropped out of school in order 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", sold for US$795.[5] PCs 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 trading.
The company changed its name to "Dell Computer Corporation" in 1988 and began expanding globally—first in Ireland. 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.[6] 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.[citation needed]
In 1996, Dell began selling computers via its web site, and in 2002, Dell expanded its product line to include televisions, handhelds, digital audio players, and printers. Dell's first acquisition occurred in 1999 with the purchase of ConvergeNet Technologies. In 2003, the company was rebranded as simply "Dell Inc." to recognize the company's expansion beyond computers. From 2004 to 2007, Michael Dell stepped aside as CEO, while long-time Dell employee Kevin Rollins took the helm. During that time, Dell acquired Alienware, which introduced several new items to Dell products, including AMD microprocessors. To prevent cross-market products, Dell continues to run Alienware as a separate entity but still a wholly-owned subsidiary
Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) and Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) have added another tie that binds -- a service offering Salesforce.com's flagship CRM applications to Dell's SMB customers. Data integration and quality control are among the value-add features Dell is bringing to the table through its integration services division.
This initiative stand out from the myriad collaborations Salesforce.com and Dell have entered over the years targeting this constituency, Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone told CRM Buyer.
"Dell is providing the migration of data -- and that is a valuable service," she said. "The big stumbling block for CRM -- even in a hosted environment -- has always been data, especially for smaller firms."
Salesforce.com first targeted the small business space when it launched a decade or so ago, then expanded to medium-sized firms and enterprises with a richer feature set. It further broadened its reach with its Force.com development platform, followed by the launch of the AppExchange marketplace.
Now, the company wants to make further inroads into SMB territory. The Dell partnership "helps introduce us to an entirely new audience of these companies," spokesperson Bruce Francis told CRM Buyer. "Dell can be the bridge for those companies that have existing hardware in place and want to start working in the cloud."
Product Highlights
The offering includes the following features and functionality:
* Salesforce Contact Manager Edition works with any email application, including Outlook and Gmail, and provides a cloud-based contact management application for one or two users. Features allow users to store contacts, track customers, run activity reports, manage tasks and meetings, and more. Users of Dell Vostro laptops and desktops get a free six-month subscription to Contact Manager Edition.
* Salesforce Group Edition provides basic CRM for groups of up to five users. In addition to the features in Contact Manager, it offers Salesforce for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) AdWords.
* Salesforce Professional Edition includes everything in Group Edition with no user limit. It has reporting and analytics functionality, a custom dashboard, sales forecasting tools and mobile access.
* Salesforce Enterprise Edition is a more robust application than the Professional Edition. It offers workflow and approval management, advanced security, territory management and offline access.
* Dell Integration Appliance is an out-of-the-box integration app for Salesforce that includes data cleansing and migration tools, as wel as a library of rebuilt integration templates for connecting many commercial Software as a Service products.
* Virtual Integration Appliance, another Dell-originated offering, enables users to deploy integration appliance functionality on any hardware.
* Cloud Integration Service is a Dell service for integrating Salesforce CRM with other cloud computing applications.
The subscription based pricing for the Dell-Salesforce.com offering starts at US$9 per user per month.
Strong Presence
The new feature lineup will deepen both Dell's and Salesforce.com's presence in the SMB channel, Rebecca Wettemann, principal with Nucleus Research, told CRM Buyer.
"Dell and Salesforce.com have worked together for a long time -- but this new offering is giving Salesforce.com a cost-effective new channel for SMB firms," she said -- namely companies that may not have considered cloud-based applications, especially CRM applications, because they were deemed too difficult or too expensive for their cost structure.
Despite all the marketing that Software as a Service companies have devoted to raising awareness among these companies, the penetration rate is still low.
With Dell as the channel, these apps "will have a lot more visibility among these companies," Wettemann said.
At bottom, the offering is all about pricing and targeted packaging -- not new technology, Kingstone said.
"This is two major brands targeting a sector -- the SMB -- that has not had much success with CRM," she remarked.
The hardware element is irrelevant, she added, noting that Salesforce.com can operate on just about any machine. "You can go to a kiosk and use it."
Last edited by a moderator: