Supply chain visibility at Dell Inc.

Abstract

Dell is an American multinational technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services, and is owned by its parent company of Dell Technologies. Dell is known for how it manages its supply chain and E-commerce. Till 2009, Del l was a pure hardware vendor. Dell then entered the market for IT services.1 Dell Inc. was founded by Michael S. Dell in 1984 while he was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The headquarters is located in Round Rock, Texas, US. The company's initial focus was on direct-to-consumer sales model. In 2001,90% of Dell's PCs were sold straight to the ultimate consumer, essentially avoiding the reseller channe1. 2 Later, it entered ecommerce and retail businesses as well to become one of the leaders in the industry. Currently, Dell has 5 product categories - Personal Computers, Servers, Peripherals, Smartphones, and Televisions. Del l currently employs more than 133,000 people worldwide and operates in more than 180 countries. It has over 20 manufacturing locations, 9 of which are completely owned by Dell. It has manufacturing plants in Tennessee, Texas, Ireland, Malaysia, etc. There are currently more than 2400 vendor-managed service centers and more than 140 fulfilment and logistics centers.