So I'm in the middle of ordering a whole new network's worth of stuff from Dell. Problem is, they use Citibank, currently, for their Net 30 financing. Citibank is totally being the money nazis. They won't increase our line of credit without 2 years of audited financials. I'm IT Manager for a law firm. We are privately held. Would be a waste of resources for a privately held company to have an auditing firm come in to look at our financials. We have a kick ass controller and our books were recently looked at by our bank for a new line of credit.
Citibank won't even accept a guarantee of credit from our bank. They say it's against company policy. Guess keeping Dell as customers is against company policy too. Dell can't afford to lose business because of bad blood between company CFOs/controllers and Dell's financial institution.
I can try to implement Dell all day (yes, I like Dell), but I only make the recommendation. At the end of the day, it's the accountants and upper management that pay the bills and if they have to go through a song and dance for the priveledge of spending money, they might do it once, but doubtful if ever again after that.
It is possible for large corporations like CitiBank and Dell to lose it all based on one weak link in their business model. It's happened before and it will happen again.
Caterpillers destroy crops one small bite at a time.
Sounds tech.
Posted by: Duncan | Friday, January 30, 2004 at 11:17 PM
My experience with Dell was that they dont 'do' the whole value add thing.
They just want you to buy their kit and if this means major undercutting then so be it.
Obviously for some companies, this is a huge bonus but at my last company, money wasnt my primary purchase driver.
This is why I would choose HP over Dell everytime
Posted by: Adam Field | Saturday, January 31, 2004 at 12:34 PM
Can you explain further what you mean when you say that Dell doesn't "do" the whole value add thing?
Posted by: Alex Scoble | Saturday, January 31, 2004 at 01:12 PM