Xiamen has much to offer
By Enid Chen

戴尔公司于1998年8月在厦门建设了"中国客户中心"(CCC).在生产,管理,营销,财务等各个方面都按照戴尔模式运作.李和晟(Hudson La Force III) 先生现任戴尔(中国)公司家庭及中小企业部总经理,负责推动戴尔公司在中国大陆和香港地区家庭及中小企业市场的业务增长.自2002年12月进入戴尔(中国)公司以来,他凭借卓越的领导才能引领戴尔在中国市场取得了迅速的成长,全面提升了公司的赢利水平.他说戴尔中国进入中国市场五年所取得的市场份额同比其他国家都要大,这使得他们对在厦的投资感到"很振奋".(文中引用数据截至今年第一季度.)


Name: Hudson La Force III
Nationality: American
Position: General Manager (HSMB) of Dell China Co., Ltd

Dell Xiamen's successful growth
Q: How has Dell's business been since its establishment here in Xiamen in 1998?
A: Dell has been in Xiamen for about 6 years. During these years Dell's business has been very successful in China. During the past five years, Dell has been gaining more market share in China than we have in any other country within the first five years. For example, after we had been in the UK or Japan for five years, we gained a certain amount of market share. And we gained more here in China. By the first quarter of this year, Dell had become the No. 3 vendor in the overall Chinese PC market with 7.8% market share and No. 1 server vendor with 24.1% market share. We are very excited about it. This has strengthened China's strategic position in Dell Asia-Pacific and Dell global.

Q: Dell is the biggest taxpayer and fastest growing company in Xiamen. But there has been a saying that Dell considers moving its China Customer Center (CCC) to another city? Is that true?
A: Actually we are the biggest employer too, with more than 2,000 employees, creating a lot of job opportunities here. Our business has been going on very smoothly and we have been very happy in Xiamen. There is no plan for manufacturing outside Xiamen. We have sales and procurement offices in other cities. And we have established the China Design Center in Shanghai. But everything we manufacture in China comes from right here in Xiamen. We have a fabulous relationship with the Xiamen Municipal Government, who has been supporting us very actively. That's very important.

Q: What are the advantages of making investments in Xiamen?
A: The first great thing about Xiamen is its location, being a port city and also being located near our supplier base, which ships mainly in the southeast part of China and the coastal areas. Last year, we spent over USD 8 billion in buying components in China and this year we will spend USD 12 billion on it. Most of them are around the coastal areas and Xiamen is at the center of it. The logistics out of Xiamen for Dell is great.
Second, as previously mentioned, the support of the government here is one of the important reasons for basing ourselves here.
Third, we have over 2,000 employees in Xiamen now. From the employee's perspective, this has been a very good location. We hire hundreds of employees every year and we are able to find them in Xiamen.
In addition, when you look out of the windows from Dell, you can see how nice the city is and how much it has to offer.

Direct operation model
Q: As we have all known, Dell is famous for its direct operation model and nowadays the online orders have become a significant part worldwide. However, most of the Chinese consumers' buying behavior has tended to be centered around the principle of "seeing is believing", which means that they like to see and feel the real products. How does Dell deal with it?
A: For the businesses this is not a problem at all. They are more comfortable with buying PCs through the direct models that we currently have. They have established good relationships with Dell. They trust that we will give them good customer experiences and they already have a very good idea of what they are going to get from us. That's more important than being able to see and touch the computers in the buying relationship.

Q: How does your after-sales service model vary in terms of home consumers and businesses?
A: Well, we sell thousands of thousands of computers here in China and problems do occur sometimes. We always tell our customers to call Dell when there is a problem, and we will be responsible to fix it. That's part of the basic idea of our direct model. In the buying relationship, it's always between the customers and Dell and nobody else is involved, which differentiates Dell from its competitors. You buy the computer from Dell and if there is any problem you will deal directly with Dell, which we call the "single accountability".
The basic ideas will not change whether you are the home consumer or the small and medium businesses or the large corporations. If a problem occurs, the first thing is to call Dell on the phone and we have hundreds of technical experts who will help you to identify exactly what the problem is. Dell will send a technical expert to the customer's home or office and work directly with the consumers and solve the problem. Whether they are home consumers or corporations, it essentially works the same way. We spend a lot of time on training those technical experts how to ask questions and identify and solve the problem.

General Manager of the HSMB
Q: Now that you are in charge of the Home, Small and Medium Business(HSMB) Department, which one do you focus on?
A: We focus on the Small and Medium Businesses. When we are exploring the Chinese market, we see the biggest profitability in the small and medium businesses and large corporate accounts. Therefore our first strategy is to focus on them. That's our priority before the home. Dell is very concentrated on growing businesses and being profitable. We make more money in dealing with the businesses.
However we are definitely not neglecting the home sector because China's consumer market is huge. Nowadays, Chinese consumption abilities are also increasing at a very fast pace. However, it's not as important as the businesses. More than 90% of our sales revenue comes from businesses.

Q: What do you think is the most important qualification for a top manager?
A: I think the most important ability of a top manager is to be able to focus on the organization and development of the people. A leader should be able to prioritize, make decisions and provide some directions. There are more than 2,000 employees in Dell Xiamen. If I can give full play to those employees' potentials, it will be a pretty good team of 2,000 members. We are a fast growing company, so there are many opportunities for employees to progress. You can start in Dell as a sales representative and within a year or two you might become a sales manager and move to a more responsible position at a very young age. So the biggest thing we have is to make sure they have the right training and development to achieve success.

Q: What are your methods of training people?
A: By far, the most important method is on-the-job experience. 70% of learning and development comes from on-the-job training, 20% from working with a mentor or a coach and the other 10% comes from classroom training. We have classroom training going on every week because in the IT industry, things are changing very fast and you have to stay updated with piles of new knowledge. We introduce a new product every month. So that's a big part of our focus as well.
From time to time we send people to headquarters in Texas for training and then they come back to Xiamen with lots of new ideas. It's a kind of motivation to them. At the same time, we have people coming to China to teach our employees how to improve their effectiveness.

Q: What's the greatest accomplishment that you are proud of since you became the General Manager here?
A: I've been working with Dell since 1997 and have been here for over a year and a half now since the end of the year 2002. A couple of things have changed since then. I'm in charge of the Home, Small and Medium Business Department. The market share has doubled from 9% to nearly 20% over a year and a half. Also, I'm very proud of my team who has done a good job. We have significantly increased our profitability as well during this period.