Seven Principles for Building Successful Businesses

“If you can see it, you can be it.” Based on 25 years of experience in Silicon Valley, David DeWalt’s first principle for building a successful enterprise is to communicate a strategic vision—capturing employee loyalty by framing it as a noble undertaking. His second is to create a winning culture, one in which competing to be Number One not only drives strategic imperatives but also flows through to actionable projects, budgets, and timelines in order to accomplish your goals. If you can’t get these two principles right, notes DeWalt, you’ll fail. Devotion to customer success is his third requirement. Customers don’t believe you have to be perfect, but they do expect you to do the right thing, particularly when something goes wrong. Fourth, develop an entrepreneurial spirit among your employees, and track attrition and retention to ensure their success. Fifth, execute well on acquisitions by aligning the goals of both companies, and sixth, take practical steps to market globally. And finally, strive for operational excellence.

 

Since joining McAfee in 2007, David DeWalt has guided the company through consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, doubling its revenue and turning a nearly 80% gross profit margin—leading to the recent $7.7-billion acquisition announcement by Intel. Before joining McAfee, he held executive positions at several companies, including EMC, Documentum, and Oracle. DeWalt received his BS in computer science and electrical engineering from the University of Delaware.