Dell ‘Doubles Down’ On Apex, Partners Now Able to Resell Services

Dell Technologies has detailed the move to allow partners to resell its Apex managed services.

Last September Dell made Apex available for partners to deliver in 35 countries. It also launched new partner-delivered offerings including Apex Cloud Services with VMware Cloud, Apex Data Storage Services and Apex Private and Hybrid Cloud services.

However, partners couldn’t resell Apex. They could only hand over the deal to Dell, which would then contract directly with the customer. Understandably, not all partners were keen on this. Now though, UK partners can resell Apex for the first time.

Apex Managed Services

Dell’s Rob Tomlin

“We’ve doubled down on Apex,” said Dell’s UK channel VP, Rob Tomlin. “We’ve taken Apex from being something that which was available if you really wanted to do consumption, to now being standard in our DNA through our partners.”

Dell has distribution signed up and ready to sell too, said Tomlin.

“The key thing about that was simplification in the contract. It’s like any as-a-service contract. It can be quite complicated, quite erroneous going through the processes, but we’ve simplified it,” he said.

Partners can earn up to a 20% rebate when reselling Apex’s “flex-on-demand” offering, which Dell anticipates most partners opting for.

“That’s taking any of our data center solutions, designing them with a capacity consumption model. The partner feedback on that is that is fantastic and they are super pleased with that,” said Tomlin.

“The other thing is we will still offer partners a referral rebate if they want it. Some partners actually quite like the concept of referral. So we’ve taken what wasn’t that attractive before, made it attractive and put reselling in.”

‘More Rigorous Around Collaborating’

Elsewhere, partners have said Dell needs to be “much more rigorous around collaborating on accounts that we’re working on together.”

As such, the firm is implementing several programs focused on putting more structure into customer engagement.

“We feel that when we structure things, and we turn up together, the customer gets a much better experience. So there’s much more rigor going into our account pursuits and our go-to-market,” said Tomlin.

“The net benefit of that is that we win more business together,” said Tomlin. “The success of that will be seen in our overall market positioning.”

Dell’s Steve Young

“Despite the troubled waters of the UK economy, [partners] are seeing lots and lots of opportunity. They’re seeing customers lean on them more to help them navigate those troubled waters,” added Dell’s UK leader, Steve Young.

“We need to, collectively with the channel, drive better engagement on a customer and account level. That’s really where the magic happens,” said Young. “So we’re putting programs in place to ensure we can do that.”

Partners are also asking Dell to help them communicate their capabilities — on sustainability, for example.

“We’ve got some of our major partners who are very advanced on sustainability,” said Tomlin. “Our thousands of salespeople in Dell in the UK don’t always know who’s the best at that. So we are creating a ‘Who’s Who?’ internally around the capability index on most of our partners.”