04 to a current trading value of $10.62 (the Motley Fool, 2009). This negatively impacts its perception among investors.
A second strength was manifested in the packaging of their products. The Dell management sustained intense efforts to ensure that the organizational customers would receive their products as rapidly as possible and in the best of conditions. To ensure then the full protection of the hardware items, they would pack the products in large packages. This however brought severe criticism from environmental organizations which argued that Dell was wasting precious resources that were already scarce (Murray, 2008).
Following the same agenda of reduced prices and customer satisfaction, the Dell engineers sometimes fail to pay enough attention to all details. In 2006 for instance, 4.1 million laptop batteries were withdrawn from the market for fear that they might ignite. The same year, Dell profits decreased by 51% and the stock also plunged (Kirkpatrick, 2006). The drastic decreases called for an investigation, which severely impacted the manufacturer's reputation.
A fourth weakness is given by the retail focus adopted by Dell. In this line of thoughts, the hardware producer has centered its sales and promotional campaigns on corporate entities and for-profit operators. They have however neglected to address the public domains, especially the schools system. This generates a twofold loss -- first of all, schools and colleges could spawn large demands for computers; secondly, the students' processes of purchasing computers are based on the influences at school and had...
This was met with resistance in the sector of individual consumers, who find it less satisfactory to order online than simply go to the store. Also, the same model sees the manufacturing of computers based on customer requirements. This is a weakness from two standpoints -- first, not all customers have a computers' background and are able to state the product specifications they would like their PC or laptop to integrate. Secondly, the customized production of the computers takes more time and orders might be lost as customers are unwilling to wait the extra days or weeks when they can buy a new computer on the spot from other stores (Cuizo, 2009).
