Loss1900 million yuan, year-on-year increase 1 16%!

Debt 300 billion!

Cut the tail to survive and lay off employees again and again!

Who is this seemingly precarious company? Maybe you don't believe it, but this is Dell, an established technology company that once flourished! !

Recently, just recently, Dell released the fourth quarter and annual financial report of fiscal year 20 19. The financial report shows that the company's net loss in the fourth quarter was 287 million US dollars (about 65.438+09 billion yuan), an increase of 654.38+065.438+06% compared with the same period last year.

What is even more surprising is that Dell still owes more than 300 billion in debt!

Yes, another technology giant is going down! Dell, the former Big Mac, is in a state of self-destruction and may disappear from the computer market at any time. It fell so fast that everyone was caught off guard, so that everyone was scared and sighed!

Ma Hua Teng said, "A giant may fall down if he doesn't keep up with the situation in time. When the giant fell, his body temperature was still warm. " This is like saying it for Dale!

Isn't such a bloody tragedy worthy of our vigilance? !

two

Speaking of Dell, Chinese people are no strangers.

This used to be a great company. 1984, 19-year-old michael Dell founded Dell, which started the deepening of entrepreneurship in the PC era.

In that PC era, Dell was an absolute king: as a Fortune 500 company, Dell was once the largest computer manufacturer in the world, and its market value in its heyday exceeded 1000 billion US dollars, which made countless opponents afraid to look up.

The rise of Dell comes from the empowerment of the direct selling model in the PC era.

At that time, the reason why Dell was awesome was that it chose the direct selling mode of direct selling to users: it cut off the middle dealers and retailers and saved about 20% of the cost.

This direct selling model has achieved great success. 200 1 By 2005, Dell had become the world's largest computer company for five consecutive years. This is the first time that American Business Week once rated Dell as the top of "100 giant enterprise"!

The direct selling model has made Dell a success. Dell once said: "Our core competitiveness is direct selling, and our management style is direct selling."

The decline of Dell comes from the disintegration of the direct selling model in the Internet era.

With the advent of the Internet era, Dell's direct sales model has been achieved, which has quickly become the root of Dell's failure: obviously, everyone is used to online shopping, and it is useless to be consistent with direct sales, and your products have no innovative advantages. .....

Even the personalized computer customization that Dell used to be proud of has long lost its advantage. With the rapid rise of e-commerce platforms, brand manufacturers have also gained the opportunity to directly face consumers. They quickly moved the customization to the e-commerce platform and kicked Dell away!

In 2006, Dell's computer shipments fell sharply, and HP took the lead in the world and began to decline step by step.

The parabola that Dell computer went through from prosperity to decline is exactly the same as that sentence: success is also Xiao He, and failure is also Xiao He.

Indeed, in this rapidly changing era, what you have achieved today may become a shackle of your progress tomorrow, or even make you lose it.

At three o'clock, heaven and earth are United, and heroes are not free!

Dell is not unaware of the disappearance of the advantages of the direct selling model. It has also tried transformation, but this once giant has fallen into its path dependence!

What is the path dependence of Dell's success?

In addition to the direct selling mode just mentioned, there is another one: computer assembly, which is commonly known as "machine saving" in China. It can't be said that Dell's "rescue" has no technical content at all. There are more than 550 patents related to Dell, but they are mainly used to strengthen supply chain management and then control PC production costs.

In other words, Dell is a computer "integrator", and its product update iteration mainly depends on the update iteration of the supply chain, while its own R&D is minimal: Dell's R&D investment accounts for less than 2% of sales every year.

Dell, which lacks core technology and R&D tradition, is like a huge and clumsy dinosaur in the era of smart phones and mobile Internet. It missed the tide of industry turning to tablet computers, smart phones, music players and games, and was in a dilemma.

At present, it is difficult for Dell to transform into a mobile device manufacturer like Apple and an Internet service provider like Google. It will probably continue the parabola of further decline, and eventually the rain will blow away!

Writing here, I not only sigh: the most important thing for an enterprise is the strategic thinking and control ability of entrepreneurs. Dell, a former technology giant, failed to grasp the strategic direction of the development of smart terminals and mobile Internet. It is really embarrassing for a strong man to break his wrist and turn his bow in time.

The times abandoned you, and really won't even say goodbye.

This is an exciting time, and countless opportunities are exciting. Great brands are often established in an instant; This is also an age of adventure, and unknown risks make everyone shudder.

The arrival of these storms, as Peter Bernstein said in Risk: the prosperity or decline of enterprises, the prosperity or collapse of the stock market, wars and economic depression are all going on, but they always seem to come when people are unprepared.

In such a prosperous river and lake where death is sudden, desperate people may not live enough, or only persecuted paranoia can survive. Every entrepreneur should always be on tenterhooks, walking on thin ice and adrenaline gushing; There must be only worry, only worry, only a sense of death.

It is particularly important for entrepreneurs to define their own position and highlight one of the most important functions: strategic thinking and control!

Yes, in this era, the bigger the enterprise, the more time and energy its leaders should concentrate on analyzing all kinds of sensitive signals, gain insight into the strategic direction, avoid traps, seize opportunities and promote innovation.

Everything in the past is a preface. When China's manufacturing industry bid farewell to extensive development and climbed to the high end of the industrial chain with higher added value, China enterprises entered a step-by-step development stage. For enterprises in China, strategic thinking and grasping ability are becoming more and more important.

The key to enterprise development is often a few steps. One step forward is happiness, and one step backward is dusk. The key is to go right or wrong, which depends on the strategic thinking and grasp of entrepreneurs.

China entrepreneurs, come on!