El poder de la integracion virtual

THE POWER OF VIRTUAL INTEGRATION: AN INTERVIEW WITH DELL COMPUTER'S MICHAEL DELL
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BY JOAN MAGRETTA
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OW DO YOU CREATE A $ 1 2 BILLION COMPANY IN JUST I 3 YEARS?

Michael Dell began in 1984 with a simple business insight: he could bypass the dealer channel through which personal computers were then being sold. Instead, he would sell directly to customers and buildproducts to order. In one swoop, Dell eliminated the reseller's markup and the costs and risks associated with carrying large inventories of finished goods. The formula became known as the direct business model, and it gave Dell Computer Corporation a substantial cost advantage.

The direct model turned out to have other benefits that even Michael Dell couldn't have anticipated when he founded hiscompany. "You actually get to have a relationship with the customer," he explains. "And that creates valuable information, which, in turn, allows us to leverage our relationships with both

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THE POWER OF VIRTUAL INTEGRATION:

suppliers and customers. Couple that information investments others have made and focusing on dewith technology, and you have theinfrastructure livering solutions and systems to customers. to revolutionize the fundamental business models Consider a component like a graphics chip. Five of major global companies." or ten years ago, a whole bunch of companies in the In this interview with HBR editor-at-large Joan personal computer industry were trying to create Magretta, Michael Dell describes how his company their own graphicschips. Now, if you've got a race is using technology and information to blur the tra- with 20 players that are all vying to produce the ditional boundaries in the value chain among sup- fastest graphics chip in the world, do you want to he pliers, manufacturers, and end users. In so doing, the twenty-first horse, or do you want to evaluate the field of 20 and pick the best one? Dell Computer isevolving in a direction that Michael Dell calls virtual integration. The individIt's a pretty simple strategy, but at the time it ual pieces of the strategy-customer focus, supplier went against the dominant, "engineering-centric" partnerships, mass customization, just-in-time view of the industry. The IBMs and Compaqs and manufacturing-may all be familiar. But Michael HPs subscribed to a"we-have-to-develop-everyDell's insight into how to combine them is highly thing" view of the world. If you weren't doing cominnovative: technology is enabling coordination ponent assembly, you weren't a real computer across company boundaries to achieve new levels company, it was like a rite of passage. You someof efficiency and productivity, as well as extraordi- how proved your manhood by placing smallseminary returns to investors. Virtual integration har- conductor chips on printed circuit boards. nesses the economic benefits of two very different And Dell Computer came along and said, "Now business models. It offers the advantages of a tightly wait a second. If I understand this correctly, the coordinated supply chain that have traditionally companies that do nothing hut put chips on mothcomethrough vertical integration. At the same erhoards don't actually earn tremendous profit dotime, it benefits from the focus and specialization ing it. If we want to earn higher returns, shouldn't that drive virtual corporations. Virtual integration, we be more selective and put our capital into activias Michael Dell envisions it, has the potential to ties where we can add value for our customers,not achieve both coordination and focus. If it delivers just into activities that need to get done?" I'm not on that promise, it may well become a new organi- saying those activities are unimportant. They need zational model for the information age. to get done very, very well. But they're not sources of value that Dell is going to create. When the company started, I don't think we How has Dell...