1. Introduction
2. A Direct Approach
3. Dell’s Leadership Style
4. No excuses – quick and effective decisions
5. First step in a marathon – No victory laps
6. Watch each dime and turn it into at least a quarter
7. Every product should be profitable from Day One
8. Direct To Customer Service
9. Two-in-a-box Management
10. DELL Company Overview and Time-line
11. Dell Products and Services
12. DELL – Key Facts about the company
13. Michael Dell – Personal Profile and Achievements
14. Michael Dell – Entrepreneurship Skills – Early Years
15. Quotes by Michael Dell
16. Questions for discussion
17. Bibliography
18. Exhibit 1 – Managing the Dell Way
19. Exhibit 2 – Five key strategies in Dell’s Direct Model
20. Exhibit 3 – Dell Inc. – Historical Income Statement
21. Exhibit 4 – Dell Inc. – Historical Stock Chart

Sample Page

“There are a lot of things that go into creating success. I don’t like to do just the things I like to do. I like to do things that cause the company to succeed. I don’t spend a lot of time doing my favorite activities.”

“What matters is our future plan of action. We are systematically moving to increase efficiencies, improve execution and transform the company.“-Michael Dell, CEO Dell Inc.

Introduction

DELL Inc., based in Round Rock, Texas, was a company remarkable at balancing growth and profitability since its inception. DELL’s direct-sales business model had worked incredibly well over the years. However, towards the end of the decade (2000-10), the company’s struggles over pricing and profitability contrasted with market leaders, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Acer . In recent years, DELL’s PC-sales growth lagged behind those of its competitors. DELL’s rivals were able to better take advantage of demand from consumers. DELL was struggling with dismal earnings and a fast eroding market share.

In 2007, Michael Dell (Dell) returned to revive the company he had started in his college dormitory. Majority of the analysts praised the idea of Dell’s return as CEO without a clue about what it is that he would actually do to turnaround the company. In the past, DELL Inc. was recognized as one of the best-managed companies in technology and under Dell’s leadership had transformed itself from a no-name PC player into a powerhouse brand. Michael Dell’s value to the company can be gauged from the fact that, in 2008, the company spent $1,164,625 on personal and residential security.

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• Meg Whitman and eBay – A Leadership Case Study
  This case study on Meg Whitman discusses eBay’s success and her leadership qualities.
• Warren Buffett – The Investment Leader
  This leadership case study on Warren Buffett outlines the entrepreneurial skills of the world’s most successful investor.

All cases are compiled from published sources, and are intended to be used as a basis for class discussion.

1. Introduction – eBay CEO Meg Whitman plans to retire
2. Meg Whitman – Early years and Career Growth
3. Meg Whitman and Leading eBay
4. Hiring the right people
5. Quickly understanding the new business model
6. Leading eBay’s IPO – a hands-on approach
7. Changing eBay’s policy
8. Building one of the most powerful e-commerce systems in the world
9. Focus on Metrics
10. Customer Focus – ‘Voice of the Customer’ program
11. Strategic Decision Making
12. Exhibit I: eBay stock performance graph
13. Exhibit II – Quick Facts/Key Information on eBay
14. Exhibit III – Awards Received By Whitman
15. Exhibit IV – Major Awards Received By eBay

Case Study Abstract

Introduction – eBay CEO Meg Whitman plans to retire

“In the beginning, I was certainly not an entrepreneur who came up with the idea, but I think I was fairly entrepreneurial in trying to figure out how to bring that idea to life and build a backbone for the company that could take it to the next level.“
- Whitman commenting on her journey from a novice to a leader in the dotcom world.

At the beginning of the year 2008, Margaret Whitman (Whitman), the chief executive (CEO) of eBay, announced plans to retire so as to breathe fresh life into the company and also provide a much needed radical reinvention of eBay. By March 2008, Ms. Whitman, 51, had served in the position for 10 years. Whitman joined eBay as chief executive in 1998. She was popularly known as Meg Whitman and ‘darling of the Internet’. In 2007, she accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award for the community of buyers and sellers that make up eBay. Whitman ranked 22nd on Forbes.com’s list of the world’s most powerful women. In October 2002, Fortune Magazine ranked Whitman, as the world’s third most powerful women in business, after Carly Fiorina and Oprah Winfrey.

However, some analysts called Whitman old-fashioned, a low-key manager and a ‘slow-footed CEO’ because even during the dotcom boom, she avoided risk and focused on financial fundamentals. Some felt that she did not possess the ‘star quality’ of Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, or the electric energy and charisma of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com. But the performance of eBay silenced her critics. When many dotcom businesses crashed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Whitman steered eBay towards success. EBay was the only Internet Company that had registered continuous growth and profits since its inception in 1995. Under her leadership, eBay’s revenues and profits had doubled every year. With her strong belief in eBay’s business model and its customers, revenues increased from $4 million to $1 billion by late 2002. She truly succeeded where many had failed.

Meg Whitman – Early years and Career Growth

Margaret C. Whitman, the youngest child of a Wall Street executive and popularly known as Meg Whitman was born in August 1956. She grew up in Long Island, New York. She was smart, studious and academically oriented since childhood. She graduated in Economics from Princeton University. Her penchant for business was evident when she had The Wall Street Journal delivered to her dormitory at Princeton University – unusual during the disco era of the 1970s. The business inclination took her to Harvard University, where she received her Masters in Business Administration.

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Case Study Keywords: eBay, Meg Whitman, Leadership case study, Internet auction market, darling of the Internet, powerful women in business, entrepreneurship, eBay’s business model, Pierre Omidyar, eBay’s IPO and policy decisions, metrics and measuring performance, Customer Focus – ‘Voice of the Customer’ program, ‘Buy It Now’ feature, iBazar, PowerSeller program, regional auctions, eBay Motors

This leadership case study on Warren Buffett, Chairman of the Berkshire Hathaway, outlines the leadership (entrepreneurial) skills of the world’s most successful investor. The case covers Buffett’s childhood years, the initial years of his career and how he went on to become one of the richest men in the world with his investing skills. His role in building Berkshire Hathaway and his investing style (understand the investment tenets followed by Buffett) is also briefly covered.

Case Study Contents

1. Introduction
2. Warren Buffett – Early Days
3. Buffett’s tenets of buying a business or stock
4. Buffett’s Investing Strategies
5. Buffett’s Management Style and Criticism
6. Questions for Discussion
7. Exhibit 1: Berkshire Hathaway – Operating companies – Insurance and non-insurance businesses
8. Exhibit 2: Selected Financial Data for the Past Five Years
9. Exhibit 3: Subsidiaries of Berkshire Hathaway
10. Exhibit 4: Common Stock Investments by Berkshire Hathaway (12/31/2007)
11. Exhibit 5: Berkshire’s Corporate Performance vs. the S&P 500

Introduction

Warren Edward Buffett (Buffett) is the 77-year-old CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and regarded by many as the world’s greatest investor. He is among the richest persons in the world and his estimated net worth is about $62 billion. He is known for his investing style “value investing” and is the most famous disciple of value investing’s inventor Benjamin Graham .

A simple, honest man with grandfatherly looks, Buffett is considered an intellectual genius who makes rapid decisions and decides on a major purchase with just a few days of research. He has figured consistently among the top five in the Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans (the elite Forbes 400). In the early 90s he was number one and was the only person in the top five ……

Case Updates/Snippets

• Buffett’s Biggest Acquisition – In November 2009, Buffett acquired US railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp (BNSF) in a USD 26 billion takeover. BNSF is one of the biggest US transporter of products such as corn and coal. Buffet’s company Berkshire had already owned 23% of the nation’s second-largest railroad operator. This acquisition was the biggest Buffett had made in his career of 44 years running Berkshire. Buffet believed that the acquisition was a good asset for Berkshire to own over the next century as it was a business that was going to be around for 100 or 200 years.
• In the 1960s, Warren Buffett bought Berkshire Hathaway, a working textile mill in New England. Later, he shut down production realizing that it could never be a profitable business. However, he retained its name for his holding company. Berkshire has major investments in companies (and household names) such as beverage giant Coca-Cola (1988), US bank Goldman Sachs (2008), the world’s largest retailer Wal-Mart, Nestle and oil giant Exxon Mobil..

Keywords: Warren Buffett, Leadership, Investment leader