Clark saw some shocking statistics on the Dow Jones News Wires recently. The principal story explained why Dell has become such a monstrous force in the Internet market. It’s mostly because of the smart and cost-effective way the company does business. In contrast, Best Buy is suffering. The story mentioned rumors that Best Buy is about to lay off about 7,000 people because their administrative overhead is so high. They spend about 22 cents on each dollar sold on this overhead. That’s huge. Dell spends about eight cents of every dollar on administrative costs. That’s because most of the business is done online and there are very few retail stores. There is a human component to this, however. Recent stories have focused on Dell’s lack of customer service after the sale. So, the lack of humans on staff has hurt them, as well. The company has upgraded the quality of customer service given to big companies and corporations, while the service given to individual customers has dwindled. Dell needs to do something to fix that gap.