Michael Dell - The Man Behind DELL

In 1993, DELL faced a cash crunch, because of which it had to cancel its plans to make an initial public offering. It also posted its first (and only) quarterly loss in its history. Michael realized that the company had been growing 'too quickly,' at a pace much faster than the market According to company sources, 'The new order of the business was liquidity, profitability and growth - in that order. 'Instead of wasting time in denying that company had a problem or trying to explain it away, Michael decided to get outside help and appointed consultants Bain & Company. Soon, a set of metrics was developed to determine which business units were succeeding and which weren't. Groups identified as 'not performing well' were examined closely.

Though Michael had a huge fan following amongst business entrepreneurs and industry observers, he had a fair amount of critics as well. Many interviewers found Michael to be an extremely private person who, unlike many famous business leaders, never spoke much about his private life nor his daily and monthly routines. Analysts commented that this prevented people from understanding and learning from his leadership skills. More importantly, Michael was criticized for being a major reason for the lack of innovation in the PC industry...