An integrated marketing communications audit was performed on Dell Inc. The audit determined that Dell Inc. had successfully moved away from the mass media approach to marketing through the implementation of a direct marketing to the consumer strategy. The audit determined further that Dell Inc. could improve its marketing effort by building on the successful direct marketing to consumer program to develop and Integrated Marketing Communications Plan. The elements of such a plan were recommended, and a plan for implementing the recommendations was provided.
Dell Inc. is the global market leader in personal computers (PCs). The company offers a full line of desktop and notebook PCs designed for consumers, network servers, workstations, storage systems, and Ethernet switches. The company also sells handheld computers, and it markets third-party software and peripherals.
Dell Inc.'s mission is to provide high-quality personal computers to business and home computer users through a direct marketing strategy. The three essential elements of the company's strategy in pursuit of this mission are as follows:
Minimize inventory [build to customer order]
Obtain information directly from customers and heed customers' wishes
Globally, an important objective of Dell Inc. is to generate 50 percent of its sales in each global region on-line over the Internet. Several of the Company's global regions are not meeting the objective. Mainland China is one region that is not meeting this objective. Because of the nature of the Chinese market, the Company objective for on-line generated sales in mainland China was 15 percent by the end of 2004. The reluctance of larger business firms in mainland China to commit to on-line sales impinged on the ability of Dell to increase such sales at a faster rate.
Another important objective of Dell Inc. is to attain a market share ranking of no lower than second in each of the Company's globa...