Hybrid Work, Exec Departures, Channel Collaboration: New Dell UK Leader Reveals Plans
Dell urges greater collaboration between its internal teams and partners.
![Hybrid work plans Hybrid work plans](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt39d20476f048c2fb/6523fc9fdbf7e6b4b7bc2c41/Plans.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Shutterstock
Dayne Turbitt’s departure came at a time when several top Dell execs in EMEA left the company. VP of enterprise Sarah Shields departed for a director role at Computacenter in April. The same month, Dell’s president of international markets, Aongus Hegarty, stepped away from the business.
Meanwhile, at board level, Dell CFO Tom Sweet retired in March, and was replaced by Yvonne McGill.
Young described the departures as “a natural evolution of the organization. There were a number of people who were probably reaching the end of the career, were looking for that next chapter in their life.”
Young said the catalyst for Hegarty’s departure was twofold.
“The first one, Angus, was ready for the next phase in his career. He’s been doing a ton of stuff around getting females in board roles in Ireland. He’s very passionate about that. He also does a ton with The Special Olympics, and a lot with Munster Rugby and was looking for the next opportunity.”
At the same time, Dell saw as an opportunity to simplify the business, he said.
“We had an international business, which included LATAM, EMEA and APJ. To simplify that – where we had APJ and LATAM reporting directly onto our worldwide head of sales – seemed like a logical move. So what you’re seeing is smooth transition, and just a natural evolution,” said Young.
On Dell’s channel partners, Young was full of praise. He said the vendor has “some incredible partners in the UK. We’re very, very fortunate. A lot of our growth over the last few years has been driven by our partners. I firmly believe partners give us relationships we don’t have. Given us skills and scale we don’t have and allow us to bring outcomes to customers.”
However, Young would like to see the firm “do a better job of getting out and telling more people, more often about the Dell story.”
To achieve this, Young said Dell needed to adopt “three Cs”: Have a customer-first mentality, be culture-lead, and collaboration-focused.
In terms of that story, Young said here are “three key areas that we believe uniquely differentiate Dell in the market.” These are hybrid working, multicloud, and cybersecurity.
“There’s a whole journey in what is hybrid work looks like for companies,” said Young. “But however it looks, people want to be able to access great services. Whether they’re at home, in a coffee shop, a customer location, or whether they’re in the office. Our hybrid work strategy helps support a lot of those initiatives.”
As a company, Dell itself now advocates for a mix of home an office-based working for employees.
“I’m seeing some of our young people looking for more interaction. They say, ‘we’ve got used to this hybrid working, but we don’t feel part of a team. We don’t feel we’re developing as quickly as we’d like to.’
“So I’m just trying to capture that all into the culture of the organization. Hybrid work is here to stay. Hybrid work doesn’t mean stay at home. It means hybrid, it means be in the office when it makes sense, and where you can collaborate with your colleagues, partners and customers. Let’s see more of an office presence. We’ve certainly seen that over the last few months and it has created a real buzz.”
Young said he has had overwhelming feedback in the UK around this approach.
“Most people I talk to seem to believe that two or three days per week, if you’re not with a customer or with a partner, and two or three days a week in the office seems like the logical way to deliver hybrid.”
“We’re not mandating that because it wouldn’t make sense for everyone. Some of our live too far away from the office and it doesn’t make sense for them to come. Some of them don’t genuinely need to be in the office. But what I would like to see in my sales teams anyway, [to] really harness that collaboration and drive the customer-first activity is two or three days per week back in the office.”
Dell’s UK channel VP, Rob Tomlin, added that on the days his team doesn’t have a planning meeting with a customer, or are in the office, they should visit a channel partner. Or they should collaborate with a partner in a customer meeting.
“Ideally, [they should be] going out and doing three-legged meetings with the channel partners. So don’t just go and see a customer by yourself. Go and see the customer with a channel partner,” he said.
“Spend some time afterwards and figure out which customer we’re working on next together. That’s maybe a slightly different approach [than] we’ve had in the past because we haven’t always encouraged that. And, we’re not just encouraging a three legged meeting. Include the advisories – we’ve got some great relationships with EY and the Accenture. We get them involved as well.”
Young also provided an update on Dell’s multicloud strategy
“Our customers have made significant investments and commitments to the public cloud. And whilst the public cloud is a relevant platform for them to work with, it’s not going to solve all of their problems. So we’re seeing companies move back towards multicloud [being] the answer. ‘We’re going to need to run data and workloads at the edge. We’re going to need to continue to invest in our datacenter. We’re probably going to have colocation relationships. And we’re also going to work with GCP, AWS and Azure.
“We’re seeing our customers say, ‘Public cloud isn’t the answer for everything. We want to really hear from Dell’s multicloud.’ We’re taking all of our software that right now exists in customers’ data centers, and we’re making that available in the public cloud. So our customers can use their pre-commits to marketplace to consume that software, with a public cloud storage back end.
“But we’re also building cloud stacks on premises and at the edge, and in Equinix, to enable on the public cloud vendors to move on premise too. We think that is unique.”
According to the 2022 Dell Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) survey, organizations have experienced higher levels of natural and modern disasters than in previous years. This has resulted in more data loss, downtime and recovery costs.
In the past year, cyberattacks accounted for 48% of all disasters (up from 37% in 2021), leading all other causes of data disruption. The survey also revealed 85% of organizations using multiple data protection vendors see a benefit in reducing their number of vendors.
Young said customers are looking for partners that can deliver secure solutions and allow them to recover their business quickly.
“We think our Cyber Resilience solution plays very nicely in that space,” he said.
According to the 2022 Dell Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) survey, organizations have experienced higher levels of natural and modern disasters than in previous years. This has resulted in more data loss, downtime and recovery costs.
In the past year, cyberattacks accounted for 48% of all disasters (up from 37% in 2021), leading all other causes of data disruption. The survey also revealed 85% of organizations using multiple data protection vendors see a benefit in reducing their number of vendors.
Young said customers are looking for partners that can deliver secure solutions and allow them to recover their business quickly.
“We think our Cyber Resilience solution plays very nicely in that space,” he said.
Dell Technologies is encouraging a hybrid work environment for its employees in the UK. It is also urging greater collaboration between its own channel teams and partners to pursue customer wins.
Dell’s Steve Young
Those are just two updates from Dell’s new UK leader, Steve Young. In a wide-ranging conversation with Channel Futures, Young outlined his plans for the business. He also commented on the recent departures of some top Dell leaders in EMEA, and how he came to secure the top spot in the UK.
Appointed SVP and GM for Dell in the UK in February, Young replaced Dayne Turbitt, who now heads up Anaplan in EMEA.
In the six years up to June 2022, Young oversaw Dell’s relationship with its biggest customers. But Young revealed he was always “in the succession plan” to run the UK on Turbitt’s departure – although this took longer than anticipated.
“To be honest, I came to the conclusion he was never going to leave!” he joked. “I had a couple of people who were ready to do my job. I promised them, [over] the last two or three years, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll go and do the UK job when Dayne leaves.’ And then he never left. So I thought I better go get myself another job.”
This job was establishing “a bit of a startup” backed by Michael Dell. This involved building Dell’s go-to-market, integration, and sales alignment with the hyperscalers.
“I was loving it,” said Young. “When, like many things in life, you wait your life for one opportunity and suddenly two come along at once. Dayne decided to leave, and I’m delighted to be offered the role.”
See the slideshow above to discover why Dell wants employees back in the office – at least some of the time in a hybrid work fashion. Also, why it needs to collaborate more with partners, changing leadership, and the greatest opportunities for the channel.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Christine Horton or connect with her on LinkedIn. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like