CASE

6
Dell Inc. in 2008: Can It Overtake
Hewlett-Packard as the World
Leader in Personal Computers?
ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS
1. What is your evaluation of Michael Dell’s performance in his roles as Dell’s CEO and Chairman? How well
has he performed the five tasks of crafting and executing strategy that were discussed in Chapter 2?

2. What are the elements of Dell’s strategy? Which one of the five generic competitive strategies is Dell
employing? How well do the different pieces of Dell’s strategy fit together? In what ways is Dell’s strategy
evolving?

3. Does Dell’s expansion into other IT products and services make good strategic sense? Why or why not?

4. Is Dell’s strategy working? What is your assessment of the financial performance that Dell’s strategy has
delivered during fiscal years 2000-2008? Use the financial ratios presented in Table 4.1 of Chapter 4 (pages
104-105) as a basis for doing your calculations and drawing conclusions about Dell’s performance.

5. What does a SWOT analysis reveal about the attractiveness of Dell’s situation in 2008?

6. Which company is competitively stronger—Dell or Hewlett-Packard? Use the weighted competitive strength
assessment methodology shown in Table 4.4 of Chapter 4 to support your answer.

7. In what respects, if any, is Hewlett-Packard’s strategy in PCs more appealing or better than Dell’s strategy?

8. What issues and problems does Michael Dell need to address?

9. What actions and strategy changes would you recommend to Michael Dell to boost the company’s
performance and its prospects for overtaking HP in global sales of PCs?