Re-inventing Dell
Lacklustre performance, resurgent competition from companies such as HP, Apple and Lenovo (which has taken over IBM’s PC division) and the ousting of CEO Kevin Rollins by founder Michael Dell, all created the perception of a company that had lost its way.
However, James Quarles, marketing manager for south east regions at Dell, says the company is driving new processes and innovations to ensure it returns to its position of prominence in the industry.
"We are looking to strengthen our capabilities to ensure customer support issues get highest priority," he says.
He adds that small and medium businesses and emerging markets have been identified as key areas of growth and that resources are being put in place to properly service these markets.
Dell has traditionally used outsourced service providers to deliver customer service in the SA market, but Quarles says that while this will continue, the company will be moving more of its services offering in-house, thus increasing staff numbers at the local office.
For larger customers, which have traditionally been the backbone of Dell’s success, the company is looking to beef up its service offerings in the hot technology areas of virtualisation and data-centre design.
Whether this offering is enough to fend off concerted attacks from, for example, HP, which offers a broader scope of products and services, remains to be seen. But if Dell wants to survive the next 20 years, it’s clear it has to keep evolving its offerings to keep pace with customer needs – something it lost sight of in recent times.
Finweek
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