Playing to Win vs. Playing Not to Lose

It’s that time of year again: Dell World 2015 is being held at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. Dell World 2015 brings together some of the industry’s top professionals with interactive demonstrations and important insights into topics that are vital to the business world. More importantly, Dell World 2015 helps managed service providers stay ahead of the latest news and find innovative ways to boost net new revenue.

In this article, I focus on how the PartnerDirect Channel Program can give you a way to differentiate your company from its competitors.

As you may recall, Dell started the PartnerDirect channel program eight years ago. As we head closer to the end of 2015, we now find out that the channel program has experienced strong growth. In fact, it has become a multi-billion-dollar business. In Austin, Joe DeFoe at Dell gave attendees some facts about the program:

DeFoe also went into detail about some of the important offerings available to MSPs who partner with Dell. The Solution Centers, for example, are located in key areas around the globe: Santa Clara, Calif.; Austin; New York; Chicago; Nashville and Washington, D.C. for partner use.

DeFoe said, “It’s a great opportunity to go in and see all of the relevant Dell technology at a showcase facility. I hear a lot of great stories about partners bringing end-users to these facilities and showcasing capabilities. There’s a very high close rate. If you’re not using them, I challenge you to start.”

Dell Financial Services, on the other hand, help MSPs leverage the greatest financing service with multiple manufacturers to close deals with their clients and prospects by offering greater cost savings. DeFoe explained, “Take a look at FusionStorm, who leveraged our financial services to help close the deal with one of their wins.”

InfraScience, another partner, experienced a great win with Coca Cola through the Dell Software Program. Dell, InfraScience, and Microsoft partnered together to migrate over 1,100 user mailboxes to Office 365 successfully. DeFoe expressed, “It was a phenomenal year. These wins you see from partners in the room represent multiple types of businesses and multiple end users – and validates the great work we’ve done in the last year.”

Dell puts all successful partner opportunities on the Win-Wire to promote MSPs. This helps them differentiate themselves from the competition. Said DeFoe, “We promote these aggressively. We put them on the Win-Wire and promote your capabilities and commitment to Dell.”

We Win, We Win Together: Dell Makes It Easy for You to Thrive and Succeed in the IT Industry…

Bill Rodrigues at Dell added, “We’re winning in the marketplace and we’re winning together. When I ask customers how we’re doing, if we’re bringing value, if they see a difference between what we’re doing and what our competitors are doing, they tell me, 'yes, I can see the difference.' We only have one primary thing we have to focus on: we don’t have to focus on shareholders, we focus on customers.”

Rodrigues continued: “Many times I’m engaged in customer conversations where you all have made a difference. We win, we win together! Let there be no mistake; the moves we make, the things we do, they’re targeted at two things: bringing value to our customers and winning. We want to win.”

Rodrigues explained that throughout North America, Dell has predominant share position in the desktop, but not in notebooks; HP does. He explains that he wants to change that. Eevery single quarter, the focus will be on outpacing the competition to gain a share position advantage in notebook like they have in desktop.

Said Rodrigues, “We will continue to push further to put distance between us and the number 2. It looks like in Q3, we will have gained significant share in mainstream servers in North America. We’re always measuring our relative performance to market. We have many of you working with us to accomplish that. In Q4, we expect to do the same.”

The bottom line is clear, at least from my perspective: Those MSPs who partner with Dell will have an easier time thriving and succeeding in the IT industry. Rodrigues expressed, “From a channel standpoint, we want to increase training and certification in the channel, but also for my own teams to make sure that if there are people who need help in understanding how to utilize the channel, they can do that.”

Dell is all about making it easier for MSPs to do business with them, which includes maximizing their profitability, and in turn, helping them become more competitive in the marketplace. When Dell wins, MSPs who partner with Dell win as well. 

Ulistic provides a complete outsourced marketing department for managed services providers.  Want to drastically increase your business opportunities and close ratio? Call Ulistic today at 716.799.1999 or email [email protected] to learn how we can help your managed services business.