1. What impresses you about this company?

2. What is your assessment of the job Michael Dell has done, as CEO? Senior
management?
3. How did Dell segment its customers? What types of customers? What were they
like?
4. Who’s the competition for “transaction” customers?
5. Who’s the competition of the other segmented customer?
6. What are the advantages of this direct marketing and direct manufacturing model?
7. With its past distribution agreements with Staples, CompUSA, and Sam’s Clubs,
why did Dell have a problem with the retail entry?
8. Why did Dell fail in its first entry in laptops?
9. What are the implications of a server failure versus a desktop failure?
10. What are the sales and customer service implications of a server failure versus a
desktop failure?
11. Does Dell’s expansion into other products and services make good strategic sense?
12. Given that Dell is a global player, how would you characterize its strategies?