Michael Dell : A Successful Entrepreneur

Michael Saul Dell was born on February 23 1965. He is an American business    magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. He is known as the founder and CEO of Dell Inc., and also one of the world’s leading sellers of personal computers (PCs). He was ranked the 41st richest person in the world on 2012 Forbes list of billionaires, with a net worth of US$15.9 billion as of March 2012.

In 2011, his 243.35 million shares of Dell stock were worth $3.5 billion, giving him 12% ownership of the company. His remaining wealth of roughly $10 billion is invested in other companies and is managed by a firm whose name, MSD Capital, incorporates Dell's initials. On January 5, 2013 it was announced that Michael Dell had bid to take Dell Inc. private for $24.4 billion in the biggest leveraged buyout since the Great Recession. Michael Dell founded one of the world's most well-known computer companies from his college dorm room.

ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAITS IN MICHAEL DELL

INITIATIVE

Initiative is a way of looking at problems or situations from a   fresh perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions. Initiative also can be stimulated both by an unstructured process such as brainstorming, and by a structured process such as lateral thinking. Michael Dell founder of Dell Computer is known as a initiative.

Michael Dell spent much of his Houston childhood hanging out in computer stores. At age 15, he famously broke down a brand new Apple II computer and rebuilt it, just to see if he could. Being in an optimal state of mind Michael Dell could generate new ideas. His contribution to the computer world, however, was born not from his technical background, but from his ability as Initiative man to see that what needed improvement were not just the computers themselves, but the way in which they were sold. 

The process of exploring multiple avenues of actions or thoughts by Michael Dell has made the company recall of four million laptop batteries after a series of reports of those batteries catching fire and stiff competition from Gateway in the mid-1990's. However, Dell's successes far outweigh its setbacks. The company's entry into the printers and servers market was seen as a huge gamble. It has been a notable win for Dell.

In 2004, Dell stepped down as CEO of Dell but remained chairman of the board. The company's lacklustre performance led to him to return as Dell's CEO in January of 2007. Despite the tough economy, Dell continues to thrive. In the first quarter of 2009, Dell shipped 3.9 million PC's in the U.S., and 8.7 million PC's worldwide. On average, Dell ships 140,000 systems per day. Twenty-five years have since passed since Dell started his company by sifting through stacks of computer parts, but he is no less involved today in running the business than he was back in 1984. Some might see that as a fault, but doing things his own way has managed to work out pretty good for Dell so far because Dell has the ability to be creative.

All of the statements above prove that Michael Dell is well known as an initiative man which is his ability to think of original, diverse and elaborate ideas.

ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Micheal Dell began in 1984 with a simple business insight. He would sell directly to customers and build products to order. In one swoop, Dell eliminated the reseller’s markup and the costs and risks as sociated with carrying large inventories of finished goods. The formula become known as the direct business model, and it gave Dell Computer Corporation a substantial cost advantage.

Michael Dell is a ethical consciousness in the case in direct business like Dell, ethics with customers is the one more important. Beyond the mechanisms Dell company have for sales and support, Dell have to set up a number of forums to ensure the free flow of information with the customers on a constant basis.

Beside that, the senior technologist share their views in where the technology is heading. This also shows how Dell conscious on ethics with another senior technology. There are also breakout sessions and working groups in which Dell engineering teams focus on specific product areas and talk about how to solve problems that may not necessarily have anything to do with the commercial relationship with Dell. The relationship in the corporation like “Dell engineering” shows that there also use the ethical consciousness in their work.

Dell also try to help their customers understand what the flow of new technology really means, how it will translate into specific product. Dell try to help the customer anticipate whats happen and be ready. This relationship ethical consciousness make Dell company very famous with among their customers.

 FORESIGHT

Michael Dell of course can’t be separated from the business and electronics. At a young age, his interest in both these fields growing up cause he can’t wait to start a business that is based electronics. His foresight was evident when at the age of 12 he started a small business selling stamps and achieved a profit of $ 1,000. As a result, he became more determined to continue the business with selling newspapers. Due to his work hard in the early stage, he managed to buy a BMW car at the age of 16 as a reward for himself. This is achieve because he is a foresight person.

His knowledge of the intricacies of the business resulting from the sale of stamps and newspapers, at the age of 19 years, he has set goals and strategies for the future as he have foresight. He knows and is sure to follow his foresight for making the right decision. Furthermore, when he was 15, his parents bought him an Apple’s computer. However, he did not use the computer, but he disassembled all the components in the computer to see how it works. Finally, he re-assembling all the components of the computer and it works.

He continued his studies in the medical course where it is far from the scope of the business. However, he still runs the business while at the University. At the University, he sells hard disk to friends and through other contacts. In addition, he has also acquired an IBM computer and makes improvements by adding additional memory and disk drives and sell it at a price 10% up to 15% less than retail prices. Finally, he managed to register the name of his own company in the State of Texas with a capital of $ 1,000. This shows that he is foresight when he started his company just with a few employers.

Dell quit his medicine study to pursue his dreams. And when the business progressed, he was moved to a small office and hired several workers to take orders and manage the machine. Dell was the first person that introduced direct sales method in the IT industry. He believes that he is able to compete with traders selling other computer programming at a lower price as he wish it earlier when he was a young.

In 1983, he changed the company name to Dell Computer Corporation and making it to the public. His company has grown and is recognized by the rest of the world, with manufacturing facilities, partnerships and subsidiaries in Asia, Europe, Latin America and Australia. Dell Computer Corporation has been listed in the Fortune 500 list of largest companies in the world. In fact, he himself was also listed as the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Finally, even though he succeeds in his life but he still has a foresight to develop his company more. Dell knows if he follows his foresight and aim, he was able to succeed.

VERSATILITY

Just like other successful entrepreneur, Michael Dell also started with almost nothing in his hands but all are in his head. He just a person with full of versatility in his life. He is a very committed guy because when he created a plan, he will attain it with full strength. Just because of his self believeness he just sold the stamps and made his $1000 at the age of 12.Most people can’t earn enough money to buy BMW at the age of 16.But,Michael Dell did the great thing.

Moreover, Dell Computer Corp. has remained so successful because of his versatility. He always belief in constantly rethinking his company’s operations. While looking for ways to expand his fledgling start-up, Dell concluded that computer would soon become an important commodity for everyone. He just thinks about the price and delivery only. He realise that he could buy the components and assemble the whole PC himself more cheaply. From this we can identify that one of the reason for Michael Dell’s success is his versatility.

In addition, in 1998, Michael Dell changed the firm’s name to Dell Computer Corporation and took the company public. Soon the company went global, with manufacturing facilities, partnerships, and subsidiaries, in Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin. By 1992, Dell computer had entered the fortune 500 list of the world’s largest companies. By the age of 27, Michael Dell was the youngest CEO ever to lead one of the 500.He just achieved this success because of his versatility.

In a nutshell, Michael Dell is a successful entrepreneur with a lot of good habits. One of the most important traits that he used is versatility. His ability in whatever he is doing for his business. Even when want to take any decisions also he belief and trust that his decision will give him success in his business field. And therefore he achieved all this success in his life.

INTEGRITY AND RELIABILITY

As we know, people who have a sense of integrity and reliability will be honest and trustworthy about the future as always positive in life. Michael Dell portrays integrity and reliability when he realized that the PC world is still young in the world. He seized the opportunity to create and sell a computer that allows Dell to achieve a good profit.

In the beginning, Dell began to sell his products in the dorms at the University of Texas. Dell sell his computers to people he knew in an effort to continue to thrive in the future. He made ​​the sale without using a middle man. His products have been named as PC Limited.

Michael Dell also thinking of ways to make it easier for customers in the business. So, he has sold on-line and via the Internet. So he does not need a large space such as a store for the stock. Customers can also ask the computer specifications they want. His emphasis, however, was not just on good machines, but strong customer support and cheap prices. This make the customers trust in him by his honesty.

Although regarded as wealthy, he is not stingy to help people grieve by doing well to others. He also thought about the future of people who cannot afford their life. Therefore, the welfare of which he did was committed more than $ 650 million to children's issues and community initiatives in the United States, India and South Africa. In 2002, Dell received an honorary doctorate in Economic Science from the University of Limerick in honour of his investment in Ireland and the local community and for his support for educational initiatives. This show how much the community reliable to Dell.

Foresight - Warren Buffett

Information usage describes the information which is collected. Foresight is used to interpret the information. People & networks describes characteristics of individual employees and networks used by the organization to acquire and disseminate information on change. Organization describes how information is gathered, interpreted and used in the organization. Culture describes the extent to which the corporate culture is supportive to the organizational future orientation.

We can take Warren Buffet as an example. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. was extraordinary by its performance because of perfect foresight of Warren Buffet. Investors didn’t see the foresight as a whole but some investors saw Buffett’s performance with foresight. We use this evidence to highlight the pitfalls of hindsight in the assessment of investment foresight. Berkshire Hathaway’s stock has been extraordinary performance. A share of Berkshire Hathaway stock could have been bought for $18 on May 10, 1965, the day Warren Buffett took control of the company (Lowenstein 1995). That share could have been sold for $71,000 on December 31, 2000. The annualized return of Berkshire Hathaway’s stock during the period was 26.18 percent, more than double the 11.69 percent of the S&P 500 Index. Samuelson (1989), who called Buffett a genius, also noted the difference between foresight and hindsight: “When Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s fund, bought into the Washington Post, it was anything but clear that this would turn out marvelously well”. Samuelson did not trust his foresight at the time he wrote this comment any more than he had trusted his foresight before. Although he offered neither a recommendation to buy nor a recommendation to sell shares of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffet understands well the distinction between hindsight and foresight. Lowenstein, writing in his biography of Buffett about the events surrounding the increase in the DJIA beyond 1,000 in early 1966 and its subsequent decline by spring, noted that some of Buffett’s partners called to warn him that the market might decline further.

Ethical Consciousness - Oprah Winfrey

Ethical consciousness is an ethical awareness which become one of the main traits for an entrepreneurs in their business field. It is because a good entrepreneur can be defined as a person which has thousands of ethics in their life. An entrepreneur which follow a goo ethics in their business will reach success very easily and in a good way too. Business ethics is important because it’s help entrepreneurs to provide a major contribution to our socities, in term of producing the products and services we want, providing employment, paying taxes and acting as engine for economic development indirectly. Every entrepreneur should have their own ethics which they have to follow in their business and they have to conscious about it.

Oprah Winfrey can be the best example for this trait. She is a very successful entrepreneur because she had follow many ethics in her life and business. First of all, she follow that an entrepreneur should not get down or become weak when there is a problem. This can be a good ethics which can change or solve the negative things to positive. Oprah always will find the good in the bad. An incident can prove that she is a very ethical conscious person, which is when Oprah was co-anchoring the evening news in Baltimore, a botched hair treatment destroyed her hair and left her totally bald. She was devastated, knowing how important a good head hair is essential for an anchor. But she was able to look on the bright side. She waited with patient while doing the inner production of the show. She didn’t give up by running away from the programme. It gives her more experience and she earn more on that field. So she always tell that there is a good in a bad. Oprah Winfrey always tell that “ I am not going to tell you that everything happen for a reason but I can promise that there are two sides on every coin. So Oprah Winfrey can be an example for the ethical consciousness traits. If we didn’t give up for the bad thing which happen in our life for sure we will get more stronger to archieve something better.

The Ability To Learn From Mistakes - Michael Kors

Mistake can defined as an error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness. Mistake also can be said as misconception or misunderstanding. Actually, mistakes are not all that brings negative effect. Sometimes, mistakes is the one that give us experience and usually we learn lessons from mistakes. Each man will make mistakes, but one should learn from the mistakes. The ability to learn from mistakes is very essential for everyone.

            The example of the entrepreneur that had the ability to learn from the mistakes is Michael Kors Michael David Kors born on 5^th August 1959 and he is a New York City-based fashion designer. He is the honorary chairman and chief creative officer for his company, Michael Kors Holdings Limited (KORS), which deals in fashion accessories.   Michael David Kors started his own fashion line on 1981 and had launched in high-end department stores in America including Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales. The brand Michael Kors was introduced and sold as a luxury product. Slowly Kors had built his empire, but in the year of 1993, the designer’s company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with total debts of $1.4 Million.

Kors learned from the mistakes he made and started all over again. Kors become designer of the LVMH-owned French fashion house Celine. After Kors bounced back, he launched a lower-priced line call KORS Michael Kors whilst also becoming creative director of Celine. Kors thought out of the box, not only selling luxury collections but also started lower-priced collections and in the end Kors further expanded his own brand by launching different product in order to meet the social demand such as menswear, accessory and a perfume line.

Perceptiveness - Ortega

Perceptiveness has been identified as an instrumental leadership trait, and described as the ability to adapt to various needs and behaviors of organizational stakeholders impacted by internal and external influences. Perceptiveness has been described as an ability to acclimate to various requirements for different stakeholders, internal and external to the organization Small business environments adapt and innovate based on the autonomy and individual knowledge provided by the leaders as well as influential stakeholders including employees. Analysis and evaluation of perceptiveness of leaders in small business environments involves a transformative insight into sustainable growth.

For an example, let’s take Ortega. Ortega founded the Inditex Group in 1963, which owns Zara and other men’s and women’s retail apparel, footwear and home textiles businesses. He opened the first Zara store in A Coruña in 1975, shaking up the retail fashion industry by dramatically speeding up turnaround schedules so that clothes go from idea to the sales floor in two weeks. Zara’s fashions are based on runway attire but sold at prices the average person can afford. Inditex Group designs, manufactures, distributes and sells its own products in more than 6,000 stores around the world. The company went public in 2001. In 2011, he stepped down as Inditex’s chairman, but he retains ownership of 60% of its shares as of 2014. He also has significant real estate holdings, including the tallest building in Madrid – the Torre Picasso – and properties in high-end areas of London, New York, Los Angeles and Barcelona.

A self-made multibillionaire with an estimated net worth of $65.4 billion in 2014, according to Forbes, Ortega is one of the wealthiest people in the world alongside Carlos Slim Helú, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Despite his fortune, Ortega is known as a man of habit and modest attire and is famously private, avoiding interviews with journalists. He lives in A Coruña, the same small town in Galicia, Spain, where he first opened Zara. Ortega and his first wife, Mera, divorced in 1997. Ortega remarried to Flora Perez Marcote in 2003, with whom he had fathered another child in 1983. When his first wife passed away in 2013, their daughter, Sandra Ortega Mera, inherited 90% of her mother’s wealth, becoming Inditex’s second-largest shareholder and the richest woman in Spain.

Time Competence - Dato Hj Ameer Ali bin Mydin

Time competence can be defined as the ability to do something successfully or efficiently on the time. It can also refer the efficiency of entrepreneurs in developing business in current trends or according to the current high demand.

Time competence can also be seen in terms of how wise entrepreneur using the opportunities available to meet the current needs of customers. For example, air transportation requires for long distance travel, but the price is too expensive. There appeared entrepreneurs who introduce lowed priced air services and the corresponding example is intended to transport entrepreneur successful.

One of the example entrepreneurs that follow time competence is wholesale goods successful pioneer of Malaysia, Dato Haji Ameer Ali Bin Mydin. He is the Managing Director of Mydin Mohamed  Holdings Bhd or better known as Mydin Mall. He made the biggest wholesalers and retailers Mydin in the country that operates more than 95 branches throughout Peninsular Malaysia. He devoted energy and expertise to Malaysia’s economic prosperity. He made a great contribution to the development of the retail industry in Malaysia is not only actively support and promote local products and Small or Medium Entreprise (SME) but also conduct in a healthy way by adopting halal products and services. He was very smart to introduce the concept of selling wholesale with rising prices and strong demand for the basic needs of a human life. He selling the things we need in Mydin with very low prices and large quantities.

Decisive - Ananda Krishnan

Decisive can be defined as being characterized by firmness and decision. Being decisive means ability to make and decide choices quickly, confidently and effectively. From the strength of a decision entrepreneur then have the ability to act. This decision must be clear, obvious and unmistakable.

Decisive is a skill that entrepreneur can build by ourselves. The ability of entrepreneur to make firm decision quickly is a skill that can be practiced. Entrepreneur can start by simply timing how long it takes them to make a right decision. Minor decision such as what input have to arrange for produce product should be made in thirty seconds to a minute. Major decision should be made in less than five minutes, even if that decision is to do more information gathering so that a decision of action can be made more effectively.

Ananda Krishnan is one of the example entrepreneurs that well decision making. He is the owner of Maxis Mobile Sdn. Bhd. As an entrepreneur, he has a set of managerial qualities and business practices which he has applied in his bid to become a Malaysian billionaire. He is planning to achieve his primary goals, where he can analyze the current situation, anticipate future undertakings and make appropriate decision to achieve his goals. As a businessman, he determines his business strategic and corporate goals together with his shareholders, business partners employees and government sector in order to delivers strategic values since his ultimate goal is to privatize and globalize the service provider Maxis. This decision on privatizing was his alone though he discussed and analyzed with other entrepreneurs and his shareholders. He has ability of applying his concept and decision making skills in identifying problems and resolving them for the benefit of his business. These skills have also directly involved the external environment, namely the Malaysian community. For an example he decided to privatize Maxis and promote the company globally for its investment benefits.

Versatility - Tony Fernandes

         

 Entrepreneurs have a mind that is enough to see opportunities and ability to adapt to their issues into opportunities. They always had the opportunity to make money or a new opportunity for the development of their business. The ability to identify opportunities, to seize and carry it out is an important quality of a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs who are versatile have their own unique way because they could see the distant future of the public regarding any opportunities to be taken. Versatility is very important for the development of a business. For example, the Malaysian entrepreneur Tony Fernandes know how to seize the opportunity and adapt to any changes in the surrounding nature to look for opportunities in the airline industry of Air Asia.

          Air Asia was found in 1993 and began its operations in 1996. It was founded initially by the government-owned company, DRB-HICOM. In 2001, the company is saddled with so much debt that was taken over by Tony Fernandes through his company Tune Air Sdn.Bhd. He is a former company executive for Tune Warner. He took the opportunity to take over Air Asia at a price of Rs.1 despite the debt of RM 40 million. Since foreclosed, Air Asia has managed to record and earned various awards and compete fiercely with other airlines including Malaysia Airlines Berhad. In just one year, Tony Fernandes has managed to solve the problem of the debt burden of the company. He has managed to improve the performance of Air Asia and record profits.

          

          In general, the success achieved by Air Asia is caused by the management under his leadership that a system of effective cost management. His versatility to take over a business which is in bankruptcy and adapting to the current economic situations makes Air Asia a successful airline company. In many cases, lower costs comes first. Lowering the initial cost business strategy is to buy used airplanes. Used aircrafts should cost less than new, this initial strategy. When the company began to achieve profits and have more funds, those aircrafts were replaced with new airplanes gradually. This shows that versatility could be one of the most important quality in entrepreneurship.

Initiative - Mark Williams

Initiative is all about taking charge fully and try something new to archieve success. Initiative is the first series of action and can mean as a personal quality that shows a willingness to get things done and take responsibility. A person with initiative is motivated to do things by theirself without others help or advice. Taking initiative can be risky and you have to be more stronger and stable to face the problems by your own. There’s nobody you can blame if it goes wrong and you have to help out yourself. Initiative can be an important trait because every successful entrepreneur must be very initiative to go up finding their success by creating new and unique products with all the requirement without expecting other to start or teach. Innovation and creative is a part of initiative activity.

            As everyone knows Mark William ’86, Ph.D, has a passion and the initiative for creating pedagogically sound, elegantly designed digital learning experiences. His passion surfaced early in his academic career and eventually led him to start Pyramis Studio, a biomedical media communications group, where he served as the president and creative director. While at Pyramis, he authored and led the development of the Sylvius project, a popular suite of software applications for teaching human brain. William also spearhead the development of award winning web design and animation for major universities and pharmaceutical companies. He never failed to keep on his initiativeness. As the prove of the initiative, in February 2006, Williams founded Modality,Inc.to design and implement mobile educational technology solutions to problem witnessed first hand as a neuroanatomy graduate student. Beginning with the launch of the Apple App Store in July 2008, he created more than 150 mobile applications spanning K-12 and higher education, health sciences and consumer reference. It has been hi biggest initiative because he start of the idea and work hard for it without depending others. Therefore he become a very successful entrepreneur.

Integrity and Reliability - Howard Schultz

Integrity is one of the fundamental values that employers seek in the employees that they hire. It is the hallmark of a person who demonstrates sound moral and ethical principle at work. Integrity also known as consistency between one action values methods measures and principle. An entrepreneur who has integrity lives his or her values in relationship with co-worker, customers and stakeholder. Honest and trust is a key to integrity. Acting with honour and truthfulness are also basic tenets in a person with the integrity.

While, reliability is the ability of a person to perform or maintain its function in routine circumstances as well as hostile or unexpected circumstances. Reliability is the degree to which an assessment tool to produce stable and consistent result. Types of reliability, first test rested reliability is a measure of reliability obtained by administering the same test twice over a period of the time a group of individuals. Reliability help built and sustain trust and confident. This traits is very crucial to success.

             For example, Howard Schultz is an entrepreneur that had integrity and reliability on his career.  He born on 19 July 1953 in Brooklyn, New York. He is an American businessman and known as the chairman and CEO of Starbucks.He successfully developed the company from a small coffee shop into a global brand known as Starbucks. In fact, he started his career as a salesperson for Xerox Corporation and was quickly became a general manager for Swedish drip coffee maker manufacturer, Hammarplast in 1979. Then, he opened his own coffee shop named as Giornale in 1985.After two years, he finally bought over Starbucks in 1987 at a price of USD $ 3.8 million.

            When Schultz took over as the chief executive officer in 2008, he has acted more decisively against the company. He has been interpreted that the main issue at the time that Starbucks was too profit-oriented so that ignores the needs, requirements and satisfaction of their customers. Then, he showed how reliable he could be as the CEO by implementing new strategies. Therefore, he has started to focus on the interests of all employees and also provide adequate services to the customers of their peers. As a result, Starbucks became the first company to employ employee benefit packages. By doing all this, he gradually led Starbucks through a great recovery, making it one of the best spots for people to hang out, relax and rejuvenate.

            Other than that, we can also say that Schultz is the one who emphasizes on integrity by looking through his book “Onward: How Starbucks Fought for its Life without Losing its Soul”. According to Schultz, we have to operate based on values that we believe in because by doing so, we will ensure that we can maintain a standard of integrity and ethics. For example, he does not encourage people to use products or services that he himself has never tried and approved. He prefers to encourage the use of methods, tools, and services that he really knows and understands. He said many businessmen out there are just out to promote their products in whatever way just so they can reap higher profits, but not him.

Entrepreneurship

First used in 1723, the term entrepreneur implies qualities of leadership, initiative and innovation in business. Robert Reich has called team building, leadership and management ability is essential for the entrepreneurs. Richard Cantillon and Adam Smith found out that entrepreneur is one of the factor in microeconomics. In the 20^th century. Entrepreneurship was studied by Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s but the term entrepreneurship was coined around 1920 itself. Initially, Richard Cantillon (1680-1734) considered the entrepreneur to be a risk taker who deliberately allocates resources to exploit oppurtunities in order to maximize the financial return.

In recent years, entrepreneurship has been extended from its origins in business to include social and political activity. Entrepreneurship within an existing firm of large organization has been referred to as intrapreneurship and may include corporate ventures where large entities spin off subsidiary organizations. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs are leaders who willing to take risk and extra initiative to make something successful, taking advantage of market oppurtunities by planning, organizing and employing resources often by innovating new or improving existing products. More recently, the term entrepreneurship has been extended to include as a specific mindset resulting in entrepreneurial initiatives for an example in the form of social entrepreneurship, political entrepreneurship and knowledge entrepreneurship.

From the beginning till now, there are a lot of entrepreneurs which has been successful in the career such as Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Thomas Edison, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Laksmi Mital and many more. This entrepreneurs has many experiences and challenges in their life. Not only that, they had many entrepreneurial traits which make them more quality and stable in their business field. It makes their products make people,s life very easier with the advancement of technology. For an example, handphone. It make people to contact each other anywhere and anytime with a low cost.