Relationship Building by Dell and Merrill Lynch

In the early '80s, Michael Dell was a twenty something year old wunderkind who spent his days and nights building high quality desktop computers for friends and small businesses near his dorm room on the campus at the University of Texas-Austin. Smart and business savvy, he built his business based on his understanding of what his consumers needed. That is why it was no surprise to see Dell Corporation grow to unprecedented heights as the most dominant computer manufacturer in the 1990s. Part of the growth that Dell saw was in the way that Michael Dell conducted his business. Michael Dell never saw a person buying a personal computer as simply a customer. They were more than that. Michael understood them, built a currency with them that enabled him to develop a personal computer customized specifically for them. That gift has come to be known as relationship development in b-schools around the country.

Better than most, Michael Dell used relationship capital to build Dell. Beyond thinking strategically and economically, Dell understood that if you knew your customer and your customer knew you, the chances of you consistently doing business together increased dramatically. So when Dell began to develop a sales force for its corporate customers it followed that same path by developing relationship capital with them, earning not only their business, but their trust.

The business practices of Dell have been modeled by companies like Cisco and Microsoft, but it was Dell who first began to hire people with titles like sales engineer. The title itself sounds strange sales engineer. It would seem difficult to be good at both of these together, but Dell believed that you could not serve your customer if you could not design a system fit for their needs. Thus the need for engineers in sales was born.