Apple: Supply Chain Management and Pc Business Essay

Submitted By anhtuanars
Words: 383
Pages: 2

Everything Dell does correctly can be copied by careful operators. Custom computer preparation (e.g., RAM amount, hard drive number and capacity, CPU speed, and screen size) is now so ubiquitous that the absence of options is now the exception. Supply-chain management may not be easy, but the careful operator can duplicate Dell's feat: Apple (AAPL) now tops Dell in supply chain management. Like Disney (DIS), it's well-known in its market, but not unassailable, Dell has no readily-identifiable, durable, competitive advantage over industry peers even if its prospects for continued profitability appear solid.

But Dell has another problem.

Dell is also a commodity vendor. When selling commodities (in the absence of market manipulation), sellers bid each other down in the fight for sales and to choke off each competitors' margins. (The alternative is to offer a differentiated product that cannot be considered a commodity, because lacks the requisite of commodities: true substitutes.) Unlike HP, which has substantial intellectual property in its high-margin software and consulting businesses, and can offer enterprises a differentiated deliverable, Dell is just a box vendor.

The math on commodity vendors is not good. Without a differentiating feature like customization (which, being now standard, is no longer differentiating) or single-source software (which HP can offer to enterprises and Apple can offer to consumers), one expects Dell to compete chiefly on price against rivals like Acer and Lenovo (LNVGY.PK) for