Supply Chain Management: Dell's Strategy and Competitive Advantage

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Dell's supply chain management, focusing on its configure-to-order strategy and its role in the company's success. The report examines the key reasons behind Dell's competitive advantage, including its use of modern technology, modular manufacturing, and customer-centric approach. It also explores strategies to maintain this advantage, such as understanding customer needs, focusing on core strengths, and monitoring competitors. The report further discusses the applicability of configure-to-order and postponed production in other environments and concludes with recommendations for effective supply chain management, emphasizing the importance of communication and adaptation to maintain a competitive edge. The document offers valuable insights into the strategic decisions and operational practices that have shaped Dell's success in the market.

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Dealing with Various Aspects of Logistics Management
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THE SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY IMPLEMENTED BY DELL COMPANY
Executive Summary
Dell Company has been able to gain much popularity across different boarders as a result
of its adequate performance. Moreover, it is a company that has been able to offer to a wide
range of its customers who are known to be situated in various locations. Moreover, the
organisation is known to have the capability of dealing with quite a several computer products
and services that have been able to help organisations together with various individuals (O’Neill,
Sohal and Teng 2016). The entire company is being managed by a well-trained group of
individuals who have been well-trained on how best they can implement various forms of
managerial skills in order to satisfy a good percentage of the customers in real time thereby
minimizing any chances of delay that are likely to occur irrespective of the areas where the
customers are situated. Currently, Dell came up with a more advanced strategy that aims towards
bringing on board quite several changes within the supply chain sector. It is specifically referred
to as configure to order supply chain strategy. It is a strategy that has gained popularity all over
the world and is currently on the verge of being adopted by several other sectors with the major
ones being the Volkswagen group.
Moreover, the current manufacturing associates within Dell Company are currently
known to have the capability of assembling various desktops at a specific rate of 16-17. It is an
operation that is normally being carried out on a daily basis through the implementation of what
is known as ‘single person build' system. It is a technique that has adequately led to the
emergence of increased job satisfaction among different employees together with the production
of quality products that are meant to meet the needs of all the customers by lasting longer

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without encountering any damages or complications as far as their performances are concerned.
One major thing that is interesting about Dell Company is that the top management officials have
been able to recruit various experts with the capability of handling different operations within the
logistics and chain supply sector thereby making it easy to identify some of the areas where
loopholes might be existing as far as the supply chain attached to various products are concerned
thus bringing on board a perfect opportunity to implement a good number of reasonable
recommendations that will help to curb the situation (Reijula, Reijula and Reijula 2016).

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Table of Contents
THE SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGY IMPLEMENTED BY DELL COMPANY.................................2
Executive Summary......................................................................................................................2
Body.................................................................................................................................................5
What are some of the major reasons that enabled Dell to become a success?...........................5
What should be done by Dell Company to maintain its competitive advantage?.......................6
Will configure to order and postponed production work in another environment?....................7
Conclusions..................................................................................................................................8
Recommendations........................................................................................................................9
References..................................................................................................................................11

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Body
What are some of the major reasons that enabled Dell to become a success?
Success is an essential parameter that is aimed at nearly every organisation. Dell being
one of the organizations that has been working its ways through the path of success, has been
able to implement various strategies which have given the entire organization an easy time on
how to carry out multiple performances in order to reach out to all their customers irrespective of
the areas where they are situated (Suryanto, Haseeb and Hartani 2018). As far as Dell's success is
concerned, there are quite a several fundamental reasons that enabled the organisation to attain
its current position within the market platform. One of the major reasons that have been able to
contribute towards the success Dell Company is the implementation of modern technology that
has enabled the organization to neglect the use of various traditional assembling techniques in all
the operations being carried out within the company (Castán et al. 2016). It is a technique that
has enabled all the manufacturing associates of Dell Company to assemble various desktops at an
adequate and reliable rate of 16-17 daily thereby leading to an increased job satisfaction together
with the production of different quality products.
Moreover, Dell's success has also been contributed by modular manufacturing techniques
through the use of various forms of standardised components that are adequately employed with
the intention of building ‘Vanilla products' that that tend to be customized at a later stage. On the
other hand, the ability of Dell Company to shift much of its concentration to sell solutions
instead of products has been one of the major factors that have contributed to its success. thus
giving it one of the best opportunities to provide quality and reliable services to all its customers

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who are known to be situated in various parts of the world irrespective of their age, gender, color
or even ethnic backgrounds (Ogunseye 2016). It is an organisation that constitutes of a set of
reasonable top management officials who have been able to implement quite several managerial
skills within the organisation appropriately thus ensuring that different operations are carried out
accurately and reliably. The ability of Dell company to concentrate on various aspects of supply
chain has adequately contributed to the success of the entire organization since this is where the
organization has been able to learn some of the best techniques on how various products can be
supplied to different customers within the stipulated time frame thus giving the entire
organization a humble time to build its reputation across large groups of customers.
What should be done by Dell Company to maintain its competitive advantage?
Maintaining an adequate and reliable competitive advantage within an organisation is one of the
best skills that should be learned by both the management team of the organisation together with
the employees. The market platform being full of various competitors, Dell Company should be
able to Cleary come on board to implement multiple strategies that will help it to attain its
competitive advantage within different market platforms. The first step that Dell should perform
to maintain its competitive advantage is to understand all the potential customers adequately.
Through this, the entire organisation will be able to appropriately identify various forms of
demographic qualities that are related to a specific group of customers. The ability to understand
multiple customers on a personal Level will enable Dell Company to collect a wide range of
information that is related to all the customers thus having a full understanding of various aspects
of the business or products that are capable of resonating with all of them.
Moreover, to maintain a substantial competitive advantage, there is a need for Dell Company to
examine all the unique strengths that are related to the whole business. Considering the forces

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that are associated with the entire industry can enable the top management officials to be aware
of the specific areas that they can be able to build on to maintain a competitive advantage.
Additionally, to keep a competitive advantage, Dell Company needs to put much focus on all the
competitors (Kesimci et al. 2016). Maintaining a reasonable competitive advantage indicates that
the entire company needs to offer various things to all the customers that are not being provided
by nearly all the customers. Therefore, it is of much importance to know some of the areas where
the competitors of the organisation are capable of performing better together with the areas
where they don't do well. After that, there is the need to come up with a list that is full of various
reasons as to why Dell Company feels a particular group of customers would prefer the business
that is being offered by its competitors. To ensure that appropriate competitive advantage is
maintained throughout, Dell should be able to hire a specific company that only specialises in
providing various aspects of the business. Due to this, the hired company will be able to come up
with an extensive form of a database that will enable quick access to the required information
(Clottey 2016). The more information that will be available, the easier it will be to make various
decisions on various parameters that are performing better together with the ones that are not
playing. Detailed customer knowledge appears to be equally important just like the knowledge
that is attached to the competitor. Obtaining a wide variety of insights about the customer
portfolio of all the Dell customers will enable the entire company to be able to maximise on
different aspects of revenue potential and even go as far as increasing customer retention thus
maintaining the required competitive advantage at all times.
Will configure to order and postponed production work in another environment?
Configure to order and postponed production is capable of adequately working in quite several
working environmental conditions thereby bringing on board a right amount of positive

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outcomes geared towards implementing various changes within the surrounding environment
(Toytok 2016). One reason that clearly shows the configure to order strategy is capable of
working elsewhere can be obtained from the evidence which clearly states how the plan is
currently being adopted across various sectors with the major ones being in the automobile
sectors together with the fashion sectors. Moreover, the fact that the configure to order and
postponed production has been able to work better in Dell company is a clear indication that it is
also capable of operating in several other companies in as much as all the guidelines and
strategies are followed to the latter.
Conclusions
It is therefore clear that there is the need to appropriately implement different forms of
supply chain strategies within an organisation to scale up various operations within the
boundaries of the organisation. Moreover, Dell's configure to order supply chain strategy has
emerged to be one of the best plans ever within the organization that has enabled the company to
obtain a good number of objectives within the recommended time period thereby leading to the
emergence of some positive relations between the organization and the loyal customers who tend
to be situated in various locations across the world. At the same time, it is a strategy that is
capable of providing an adequate and appropriate guideline to the company on what should be
done together with what should be avoided. This will therefore ensure that appropriate and
reliable performance is well maintained throughout the implementation of various processes. On
the other hand, Dell's configure to order supply chain strategy has been a game changer to the
entire company by bringing on board various aspects of positive relations that exists between the
company's top management officials and together with the employees thereby giving the
employees one of the best opportunities to scale up their performances under various

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departments. Additionally, this strategy also acts as an essential parameter to the organization
most so when it comes to the implementation of various aspects of development since it
adequately highlights multiple issues that need to be carried out reasonably to maintain different
aspects of sustainable advantages. For such strategies to emerge as a success within any
organization, it is clear that the top management officials need to work hand in hand with both
the employees of the organization together with the potential customers in various locations
thereby making them aware of what is taking place as far as the operations related to the
organization are concerned.
Recommendations
Quite a number of organizations have been able to encounter difficulties in
implementing different forms of supply chain techniques, these difficulties have gone further to
scale down the performance of the organizations. In order to attain different desired goals in real
time, there is the need to appropriately communicate with all the potential customers whenever
there is a problem thus making them aware of some of the steps that the whole organization is
planning to take in order in order to curb the situation. Moreover, the top management officials
within Dell Company should be ready to evaluate what is taking place within the market
platforms thus making them aware on some of the areas where problems are likely to emerge.
There also needs to be an implementation of quite several ethical considerations in most of the
operations involving Dell Company thus creating some boundaries on the exact issues that
should always be avoided together with the ones that should be implemented.
Moreover, implementation of ethics will enable various personalities within the
organisation to appreciate the importance of teamwork and understanding one another most so
when it comes to the achievement of the organisation's goals. Appropriate rules and regulations

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should also be brought on board to control various operations being carried out in the market
platform thus creating a positive reputation for the organisation. There is also the need to fully
investing in good relations between the company and various potential customers thereby
making them to fully believe in the services that they are being offered without any doubt.
Finally, equal treatment of every customer is essential for the development of supply chain sector
within Dell Company; there is the need to provide a variety of products to every customer
without discriminating them based on age, gender, background or even their education status. By
employing same services across all groups, Dell will be able to market its services among
different personalities who are known to be existing within the market platforms thus being able
to compete with several other companies that exist within the market. At the same time, creation
of awareness should also be done across different groups of consumers thereby informing them
on how dell Company is capable of carrying out various distribution services to different
destinations without any delay being experienced.

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References
Clottey, T. (2016). Development and evaluation of a rolling horizon purchasing policy for cores.
International Journal of Production Research, 54(9), pp.2780-2790.
Castán, J., Martínez, S., Menchaca, J., Berrones, M., Cobos, J. and Rocha, E. (2016).
Improving vehicular mobility in urban traffic using ubiquitous computing. Journal of
Computer and Communications, 4(August), pp.57-62.
Kesimci, E., Erkilic, E., Gümüş, T. and Kanbak, O. (2016). Impact of different anesthetic
managements in outcomes of transcatheteraortic valve implantation: the first Turkish
experience. Turkish journal of medical sciences, 46(3), pp.742-748.
Ogunseye, T. (2016). Proposed Value Added Tax Increment in Nigeria: the Concern of Small
Scale Enterprises in Abeokuta Metropolis. International Journal, 3(2).
O’Neill, P., Sohal, A. and Teng, C.W. (2016). Quality management approaches and their impact
on firms׳ financial performance–An Australian study. International Journal of
Production Economics, 171, pp.381-393.
Reijula, J., Reijula, E. and Reijula, K. (2016). Healthcare management challenges in two
university hospitals. International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management,
15(4), pp.308-325.

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Suryanto, T., Haseeb, M. and Hartani, N. (2018). The correlates of developing green supply
chain management practices: Firms level analysis in Malaysia. International Journal of
Supply Chain Management, 7(5), p.316.
Toytok, E. (2016). School Leaders' Innovation Managements and Organizational Stress: A
Relational Model Study. Universal Journal of Educational Research, 4(n12A), pp.173-
179.