Sticker innovation

High-impact innovation often occurs behind the scenes, and not by this lot. The Financial Times has a fairly lengthy article on Dell, a low-cost PC retailer. The article mentions how Dell's production line is being held up by the application of the "Intel Inside" and "Windows" stickers. The article states that Dell is in talks to eliminate the stickers all together. As my dad would say, "Fine trick if you can manage it." The problem for Dell of course is the fact that many customers care what type of sub components are in the PC and not having those stickers visible on the product could affect sales, especially in the short term.

Dell may have to keep the stickers and settle for cutting costs in their application. And how can they do that? And who should they ask?

I'd be getting some ideas from the people that are near the "sticker action" in the factories first. And these factories could be in any number of countries, which makes it even better for generating ideas.

On the topic of branding individual sub components, Hon-Hai, a Taiwanese contract manufacturer, has started doing this with its Foxconn brand. You can see some Foxconn-branded components in these pictures of the Apple Nano, an MP3 player.