Michael Dell brings fresh blood to supply chain organization

Filed in archive Employment on February 17, 2007

I think you might have heard about Michael Dell's return to the position of Dell's CEO since last month. It seems that Dell has started his restructuring efforts right from the beginning. An evidence of this hiring the CEO of Solectron to the newly created position of president of its global operations. Well, at least it seems so from what I read in Hack in the Box:

Solectron is a leading provider of electronics manufacturing services and counts Dell as one of its many big name customers. The hiring of Michael Cannon is the first major move Dell's made since founder Michael Dell replaced Kevin Rollins as CEO in January. Cannon was Solectron's CEO the past four years. He will report directly to Michael Dell. . "As we continue to grow worldwide, it is important that we increase our ability, via the Direct Model, to manufacture close to our customer and fully integrate our supply chain into one global organization," Dell said in a statement. "This will allow us to drive for even greater excellence in quality, cycle time and delivered cost. We will innovate and adapt our supply chain model to help drive differentiated product design, manufacturing and distribution models." Mr. Cannon will lead a new global organization that will combine all of Dell?s manufacturing, procurement and supply chain activities. Prior to Solectron, Cannon was CEO of storage maker maxtor (now part of Seagate), and also worked at IBM's storage systems division.

Having a solid background in operations in a tough industry, I think Cannon will definitely improve the current state of the Dell supply chain in the near future.