| | April 20148CIOReviewopinionin myDell has played a significant role in transforming computing, enabling affordable and more pervasive access to technology around the globe. And over the last five years, four major technology trends have forced customers to rethink their entire IT infrastructures­Cloud, Big Data, Mobility and Security­and ultimately created an environmental shift that drove the strategic evolution of Dell's business model. Dell began as a PC hardware company with a build-to-order model and started its shift to become a leading end-to-end solutions provider more than five years ago based on incorporating customer feedback about their needs for broader, standards-based, open solutions to help them better solve their business issues. Since then, Dell has rapidly expanded its capabilities through a series of acquisitions as well as through organic investments resulting today in a $57 Bn revenue company­almost half of which is generated by businesses in client cloud computing, enterprise data center solutions, security, software and services. Our traditional client business of notebooks, tablets, and desktops continues to be an important and strategic part of our solution portfolio. As the business model of Dell advanced, it became apparent very quickly that our financial infrastructure needed to evolve to support these new, solutions-based capabilities. I use the term financial infrastructure deliberately as all of our transaction cycles­order-to-cash, procure-to-payment, employee compensation, including variable incentive structures, and our core general ledger capability­needed to change. These modifications to our infrastructure included core system functionality enhancements, expanded data models, reporting capabilities and significant business process re-engineering. Making these changes has required, and will continue to need, a significant amount of effort and investment. As we have gone through our growth and evolution to a solutions company, we have learned a number of valuable lessons that we continue to build upon. Our experience has led us to better understanding of what it takes to transform the infrastructure of a large multi-By Thomas W. Sweet, SVP & CFO, Dell IncEnabling Business TransformationThomas W. Sweet
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