Transformative Change at Dell

Jeff Jarvis has published a very interesting article in Business Week reviewing the changes made by Dell to become a company that engages with its customers online. The transformative changes were initiated after a 2005 public relation disaster when a blog storm engulfed the company. Among the transformations made is the launch of a dedicated series of community sites targeted at the Dell user community. Dellcomunity.com is a forum site where customers interact with Dell staff to help each other fix product related problems. Dell is also making its customers part of its product development strategy via the ideastorm.com website. Among the products that have resulted from this initiative is a range of Linux PCs. Dell has also set up a dedicated bogging site: direct2dell.com , it’s publishing on average 2 blog posts a day on the site. Most bravely it is allowing its customers to directly review its products on its websites.

An extended version of the article that appeared in Business Week can be found on Jeff Jarvis’ blog: buzzmachine.com .