Growth Priorities

We held our annual shareholder meeting for fiscal year 2008 today in Austin.  This was a great opportunity to introduce our new CFO Brian Gladden to our shareholders and to showcase some of the new products we have recently introduced.  If you haven't already done so, I would encourage you to check out our revamped website and new products like our XPS and Studio laptops, which are truly best-in-class.

At the meeting, Michael provided an update on the progress the company has made on the long-term goals he laid out at the analyst meeting in April, including the $3 billion cost opportunity and our five core growth priorities. Brian provided a financial update to shareholders including where we stand on the commitments that we made at the last shareholder meeting.  These initiatives are to improve our financial systems and processes, grow faster than the addressable opportunity, improve profitability and competitiveness, and maximize cash flow.

I'd like to elaborate a little on the commitment to maximize cash flow because cash flow generation is a critical measure of the success of any business and the preeminent driver of shareholder valuation creation.  By virtue of our business model, we have outstanding cash flow generation capabilities.  For example, our cash flow from operations over the past four quarters was $4.2 billion and more than $22 billion over the past five years, and through a tough business cycle, we grew cash flow from operations per share from $1.55 to $1.76 in the past five years.

So, what drives cash flow from operations?  Cash flow from operations, an accounting metric, is calculated by taking net income from the income statement and adjusting for balance sheet items that relate to operations - mostly working capital accounts such as accounts receivable, inventories, prepayments, accounts payables and accruals.  You can find cash flow from operations by looking at our cash flow statement.  The Primary working capital accounts - accounts receivable, inventories, and accounts payable collectively drive a company's cash conversion cycle (CCC) and at Dell, we have a negative CCC which is a favorable attribute.  It fundamentally means that we are highly efficient at managing these working capital accounts.

About now you are likely asking why does this all matter?  Well the answer is that the intrinsic value of any enterprise (or company security in this case) is equal to the discounted (present) value of the future stream of economic benefits that an investor expects to receive from the asset.  Said differently, investors discount the future cash flow streams back to present value and add them up to determine the current value of a company or stock.

Ultimately, our focus on cash flow generation stems from the recognition that it is used as a proxy for cash profits and as the primary input for determining value in fundamental securities analysis and we are confident in our ability to continue generating positive cash flows from operations going forward.  Michael and Brian both commented on this focus throughout their presentations today, so I encourage you to listen to the replay of the meeting.

We had five proxy proposals voted on this year.  The company presented three routine proposals including the election of directors, the ratification of our independent auditor, and the approval of the executive annual incentive bonus plan.  All three proposals passed with the number of favorable votes obtaining at least 89% of the total votes cast.  In addition, two stockholder proposals were presented this year:  Proposal 1 - Reimbursement of Proxy Expenses did not pass, receiving 63% votes "Against" and 33% votes "For" the proposal and Proposal 2 - Advisory Vote on Executive Compensation, which also failed to pass as results were 60% votes "Against" and 37% votes "For" the proposal.

The meeting may be over, but we value your feedback and questions.  We encourage you to be a part of the conversation through this blog as it provides an additional means of two-way communication outside of the traditional annual meeting.

As I had previewed during our Q1 earnings call last month, I recently sat down with Brad Anderson, SVP and head of our Enterprise business, to get some more insight into our virtualization strategy, how it relates to our Server and Storage business, and virtualization's impact on the industry and Dell. Simply put, our mission at Dell is to Simplify IT by eliminating complexity in customer computing environments. There are a number of ways we are doing this - and virtualization is a critical enabler.

Virtualization has been growing rapidly because it solves real customer problems related to space, cost, and power. One of the things to keep in mind is that dynamic virtualized server environments work best when matched with an equally dynamic storage solution and that's why storage virtualization is of equal importance. In addition, you may also be interested in a host of virtualization related topics on Direct2Dell, our blog site for customers, which might further augment the v-log that follows.  

We hope you find this discussion helpful. The vlog format is a new way for us to have a conversation with you and we look forward to your feedback. We have included a few supporting slides in PDF format in conjunction with the vlog that you can download or print. As always, we will respond to your questions and comments posted on this blog site as well as via email and over the phone. So please feel free to post on this site or contact us directly. We look forward to hearing from you! 

Click here to view the PDF file associated with the vlog.  

In preparation of our upcoming Annual Meeting of Stockholders on July 18^th in Austin, we filed our proxy documents this week and began mailing ‘notice’ to shareholders.  In the past, we mailed shareholders paper documents, including an annual report, proxy statement and voting instructions.  As a result of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission e-proxy rule, public companies are now allowed to provide their proxy materials over the Internet, which is commonly referred to as ‘notice and access.’

Why are we blogging about it now?  It’s a big change and we wanted to make the transition as easy as possible.  We filed our proxy statement on Monday, June 2^nd and will begin mailing ‘notices’ to you this Friday, June 6^th.  Once you receive your notice in the mail, you can access the voting page online, where you will find:  the proxy statement, our annual report on form10-K, a link to our 2008 interactive year-in-review website and information on the time and location of our annual meeting of stockholders.

Proxy voting is an important means by which you as an investor can have a say in the business operations and activities of Dell.  Whether you plan to attend our annual meeting on July 18^th or not, we value your opinion and your vote.  Shareholder feedback enables us to serve you better.  We’re listening.

All comparisons are year-over-year unless otherwise noted. Industry growth rates exclude Dell.

We announced Q1 results today.  Revenue was up 9% to $16.1 billion on 22% unit growth.  EPS were up 12% to $0.38 per share and cash from operations was $143 million and $4.2 billion on a trailing four quarters basis.  We encourage investors to read the full press release and earnings presentation; and listen to a replay of our conference call that can be found on the investor relations web site after the earnings call. 

A year ago we made a conscious decision to reignite growth, and our results this quarter demonstrate we're making progress.  For the first time in several quarters, Dell is growing faster than the industry in all major product categories and regions.  In the U.S. we grew 16% vs. flat industry growth.  In APJ we grew 43% vs. industry growth of 14%.  BRIC revenues were up 58% on a 73% increase in units.  And, Global Consumer revenues were up 20% and units were up 47% as we continue to move into retail.  These results reflect the strength of the Dell brand worldwide, and our ability to deliver the products customers want in the regions where they live and the places where they shop.

These are solid growth numbers in areas that matter and they are important first steps to driving competitiveness in our business.  Revenues and share are growing, enabling us to better scale operating expenses and deliver sustained earnings performance.  A year ago we made the decision to eliminate redundancies and better align our operating expenses, and last quarter we made a commitment to reduce total costs by $3 billion.  Here too we're making headway.  Our operating expenses are down 7% sequentially, headcount is down 7,000 year-over-year not including acquisitions, and profitability in Global Consumer improved significantly.  These are signs of tangible progress and we're confident this trend will continue. 

This quarter, you will also notice we changed our reporting structure to completely break out Global Consumer from each one of the regions.  We are now reporting four operating segments, Americas Commercial, EMEA Commercial, APJ Commercial, and Global Consumer and we are providing five quarters of historical data for each segment.

Finally, on the earnings call today we will be introducing our new CFO, Brian Gladden, to the broader investment community.  A 20 year GE veteran and formerly CEO of SABIC Innovative Plastics, we're happy to have Brian join our team.

The second and final day of our equity analyst meeting featured presentations by Michael Dell, Chairman of the Board and CEO, and Don Carty, Vice Chairman and CFO. 

Right up front, Michael addressed Dell's ability to execute.  He made it clear that Dell is making progress on transforming the company and we are seeing evidence in our recent growth, yet we still have to move faster on costs.  There are no longer any fixed costs within Dell - essentially everything is variable right now.  We have a $3 billion cost opportunity and we're taking aggressive actions to restore our competitive advantage.  We believe operating expense will be down as a percentage of revenue this year.  We also want to deliver a unit growth premium to the industry - this was the case in Q4, and it looks like it is continuing in Q1.  

Don Carty spoke about Dell's financial heritage - one built on striking the optimal balance between liquidity, profitability and growth.  He said that Dell's execution against these priorities hasn't been up to our standards or your expectations.  Dell is strengthening its competitive position and improving profitability by reducing total costs in three ways.  First, we will reduce operating expense, including headcount and compensation.  Second, we will reduce product and procurement costs by designing for price segments and removing features that are not valued by our customers.  Finally, we will reduce manufacturing and logistics costs by optimizing our global manufacturing network.

Later in the morning, other senior executives hosted panel discussions on our five key growth initiatives. 

Steve Felice, SVP and President of Dell Asia/PAC, reviewed our strategy in emerging countries.  Emerging countries represent 85% of the world's population, 30% of worldwide GDP, more than 50% of the worldwide GDP growth... and are a significant opportunity for Dell.  In the IT hardware space, the next billion customers will come from emerging countries.  By 2012, these countries will make up 38% of the world's PC shipments, up from 11% in 1996 (per IDC and Dell estimates).  

Dell is tailoring its products, services and engagement models in these countries to help ensure our place in this tremendous growth opportunity.  In India and Brazil, for example, we largely work directly with customers.  China is closer to a 50/50 split between direct and the channel, while Russia is predominantly channel focused.  We complement these approaches with specific products and services tailored to the needs of customers in those countries.

Dave Marmonti, SVP and President of Dell EMEA, then discussed what we're doing in small and medium enterprises (SME).  Within our SME initiative, we have four global sub-initiatives that will drive our growth: sub-segmentation, customer relationship management, IT-as-a-service and a flexible global channel strategy.  Ultimately, we'll bring differentiated products and capabilities to SMEs who just want to focus on their business, not their IT.

Ron Garriques, President of Dell's Global Consumer Group, said that his goal is simple and straightforward - grow faster than the industry and do so profitably with a great cash conversion cycle.   We get there by getting to the point where COGS and operating expense is competitive and best in class; and by innovating our products and services in order to delight customers independent of the channel they buy through. Growing the profitability of this business is the number one priority.

Jeff Clarke, SVP of Dell's Business Client Product Group, covered our growth strategy in notebooks.  In a nutshell, Dell will deliver more segment-specific products for consumers, SMEs and customers in emerging countries, while being cost competitive across all price bands and channels.

Finally, Brad Anderson, SVP of Dell‘s Business Enterprise Product Group, talked about what we're doing in enterprise.  Last year, $289 billion was spent on enterprise-related IT. Dell's share was a mere 4.4 percent of that.  We get a significant share of total server revenue, but we're under-represented in the other categories of spend - storage, systems management, professional services and support services, etc. So we're creating solutions for customers' greatest challenges.  We'll simplify IT with differentiated, industry-leading solutions, including blades, power & cooling, virtualization, iSCSI storage and cloud computing.

Each of these growth priorities implies there are significant opportunities ahead for Dell.  Our growth in every instance won't be linear, but taken together they represent a thoughtful vision of our industry, the problems and solutions we're tackling, and the white space we're addressing.  It's clearly up to us to drive the right cost model to enhance our competitive position.

Again, if you haven't already seen the webcast or presentation, I encourage you to watch a replay of them here.