Posted on 05/01/2004 12:33:35 AM PDT by Enduring Freedom
Dell moves outsourced jobs back to U.S. shores
Computer maker loses quality cushion between H-P, other rivals
By Elizabeth Corcoran
Updated: 1:04 p.m. ET April 28, 2004
Dell moved product support for business accounts from India back to the U.S. It seems some customers were not happy with the prior arrangement.
Dell can assemble and ship a new computer for a customer in 24 hours. But it took six months for the company to get Karen Anderson's name right. Anderson, who lives in Calistoga, Calif., endured dozens of phone calls before Dell issued her a promised $200 rebate for a computer she ordered last October. Dell also gave her the wrong Internet service provider. And her printer broke. "I just want to scream when I see Dell's TV commercials," Anderson fumes.
Dell is number one in the PC industry, but recently has been earning more than its share of complaints. Last year it shipped 5.4 million personal computers in the U.S., ahead of rival H-P, which shipped 5.2 million, according to IDC. Dell's high marks for quality notwithstanding, it has unhappy campers.
Last year the central Texas Better Business Bureau logged 3,726 complaints against Dell from consumers throughout the U.S. That's up threefold from 2001, a period in which Dell's sales volume grew two and a half times. H-P earned only 1,362 complaints nationwide for that entire three-year period, according to the Better Business Bureau of the Silicon Valley. Last year the Texas attorney general's office logged 504 complaints against Dell and Dell Financial, more than double the pace of 2002. Complaints about the Round Rock, Texas firm for the first four months of this year are running even with last year's.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
The bigger problem of outsourcing will soon arise when those subcontractors begin giving out customers' personal information and there is no US court's jurisdiction to prevent or stop them.
Back when Mr Hewlett and Mr Packard were running the place, you could not find a company with better quality products.
Then the old founders passed away, and the next generation took over. The descendent with the most power on the board happens to be a radical feminist who just HAD to put Carly Fiorina in as CEO in 1999. It was a good move for Carly -- she bailed out of running Lucent a few months before Lucent sales collapsed and they laid off half of their employees
Carly will probably complete her destruction of HP within the next couple of years
That's an easy one.
Place the answer machiine in a paper bag, hold the bag as if you were blowing it up. Speak into the bag slowly and distinctly with your greeting.
Close the bag, put a rubber band around to top and let it sit for 3 days.
I remember several years ago that Gateway and Dell vied for top spot in the computer retail market.
Gateway's customer service suddenly went downhill and look at where they are today, on the verge of going belly up.
Some business costs simply can't be cut. Once customer perception sets in, it is very difficult to turn around.
You have to read between the lines a bit to discover what really was going on at Lucent under Carly. From the book Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett-Packard, we have some interesting excerpts:
In parts of AT&T and Lucent, old-fashioned men still plastered their office walls with Rocky movie posters. They were the Bell Heads, people she once referred to as having "twenty-inch necks and pea-sized brains." Top executives, however, wanted to transform both those companies into fresher, more open-minded places. At several key stages of her career, Fiorina benefited greatly from mentors such as Lucent chairman Henry Schacht and AT&T network systems chief Bill Marx, both of whom labored to clear a path for a talented young woman. As Schacht frequently told associates, "If you aren't promoting women and minorities into very top management, you aren’t making use of the full talent pool in America.Translation: Carly could not be allowed to fail, because that would make certain very senior people look like idiots. Bad news would have to be covered up, until it could not be covered up any longer, at which point Carly would need to "move on" before the dam broke
Finally, as Fiorina grew truly powerful, she confronted the most disruptive parts of the old-boy network and crushed them. In the late 1990s, Fiorina had risen to be president of Lucent's global service provider business, overseeing the company's largest and fastest-growing business, with $20 billion a year in revenue. She grew concerned that a new acquisition, Ascend Communications, was bringing a frat-house culture into Lucent. So a few hours before a giant talk to 2,000 Lucent and Ascend sales representatives, she prepared a surprise involving three rolled-up athletic socks, borrowed from her husband that morning. She stepped out onstage in a loose-fitting pantsuit and started her talk gently, saying that she realized the two companies had somewhat different cultures. Then she began to get blunter—and earthier. "We at Lucent think you guys are a bunch of cowboys who don't understand carrier-grade quality," she said. "You probably think we're a bunch of wusses. Well, I think it's important that we really get to know each other." With that, she set aside her suit jacket. Now everyone in the audience could see an unmistakable bulge in her pants, just where a virile man might protrude. The bulge—produced by those three athletic socks—was shockingly big. As people gasped, she delivered her closing line: "Our balls are as big as anyone's!"Translation: She decided to destroy the corporate culture that made Bell Labs (part of which split off into Lucent) one of the top technology centers on the planet, because it bothered her personally.The meeting collapsed into chaos at that point. People howled, shrieked, and gasped. Five minutes later, they still were sputtering in disbelief. And over the next year, the macho Ascend culture disintegrated. Sales representatives who learned to do things the Lucent[Carly] way stayed. Those who couldn't adjust left.
Any good ideas out there?
Outsource 'em. And may they get similar results to what Dell got. :)
Close the bag, put a rubber band around to top and let it sit for 3 days.
Okay, it's in the bag. I can't wait for the three days to pass!! Call me at 8:00 Tuesday morning and you can check it out!!!!
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