Chapter 2: Place the Customer at the Epicenter of the Business Model

"From the start, our entire business ...": Michael Dell, Direct from Dell (New York: HarperBusiness, 1999), p. 22.

"Being in touch with customer needs ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"We started the company by building to the customer's order ...": Michael Dell,Richard Murphy's cover story, Success, January 1999, pp. 50–53.

"As a natural extension of customer contact ...": Michael Dell, Direct from Dell, p. 23.

"We're in the business of dramatically reducing the cost of distributing technology....": Michael Dell,Andy Serwer, quoted in "Michael Dell Turns the PC World Inside Out," Fortune, September 8, 1997, pp. 76–80.

"Hefty profits during the most rapid period of industry consolidation ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"It goes back to the structural cost advantage ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"If you don't have the real ability to differentiate ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"Essentially we have now taken on the number one share position ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"First, if you just step back from whether it's direct or indirect ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"Be prepared for all possible ... instances of demand whenever and wherever they may occur ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"There are goals to have 100% of our sales on line ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"Over 90 percent of our supply chain transactions ...": Michael Dell, Interview with author, January 10, 2002.

"We had gone ahead and created a product ...": Michael Dell, Direct from Dell, p. 39.

"If your business isn't enabled by customers ...": Michael Dell,Andy Serwer, "Dell's Big New Act," Fortune, December 6, 1999, p. 152.

"Teaching bright technical people to think beyond the technology ...": Michael Dell, Direct from Dell, p. 41.

"Segmentation takes the closed feedback loop ...": Michael Dell, Direct from Dell, p. 74.

"Marketing starts with all customers in the market ...": Peter F. Drucker, Managing for the Future, New York: Truman Talley Books/Dutton, 1992, p. 254.