Dell EMC Focused On Growing Already Massive Channel Business

(Pictured above: Michael Dell on stage at Dell Technologies World, April 30.)

**Editor’s Note: Read our full Q&A with Dell EMC’s Cheryl Cook on Channel Futures.**

DELL TECHNOLOGIES WORLD — Dell EMC‘s channel is now a $43 billion business, and to keep it growing, the company is investing in new programs, incentives, products and services, designed to fast-track its partners’ delivery of digital, IT, security and workforce transformations for their customers.

The new offerings and incentives were announced during the Global Partner Summit 2018, colocated with Dell Technologies World in Las Vegas. This is Dell’s biggest conference ever, with more than 6,500 partners in attendance.

Michael Dell, Dell Technologies’ CEO and chairman, said the conference is “our opportunity to share our vision of technology as the driver of human progress in every corner of the world.” Dell Technologies includes Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware.

“I started our company 34 years ago and it has accrued over $1 trillion in revenue,” he said. “What we do matters, and I’d like to think every one of those dollars represents customer success, a problem solved, an innovation launched, a life improved. The past 34 years has been amazing in terms of technology … but it’s nothing compared to what’s ahead.”

The new Dell Technologies Advantage framework aims to make it easier for partners to work across the Dell Technologies family of businesses with engagement, tools and incentives.

In addition, the new Dell EMC Ready Stack program simplifies how partners can bundle, sell and build converged infrastructure stack offerings based on current and future Dell EMC modern data-center technologies, the company said. It allows partners to build converged stacks with a broad range of the latest Dell EMC infrastructure offerings.

Dell EMC is enhancing its incentive program to help fuel new business specifically for channel partners. And its MyRewards Program, an opt-in, points-based reward program for Dell EMC solution provider sales representatives and system engineers, will offer “bigger and better promotions with up to [three times] bonus payout and simplified, express claiming globally.”

Dell EMC’s Cheryl Cook

Cheryl Cook, Dell EMC’s senior vice president of global channel marketing, tells Channel Partners her company launched its unified channel program in February of 2017 and “we just saw phenomenal success last year, so I wouldn’t say we’re changing our strategy; we’re really just refining it.”

“We’re finding that our strategy is working,” she said. “We made a commitment to the partner community to make our best efforts at being simple, predictable and profitable. We’re launching a new internet of things (IoT) competency (to help) our partners really monetize these emerging technologies, and we’ll have solution competencies around hybrid cloud, data analytics, business applications and security. There’s a whole host of incentives that we’ve launched focusing on storage and where we’re driving, and how it’s on the forefront of all of the data and protecting that data, and driving these new, emerging applications.”

Joyce Mullen, Dell EMC’s president of global channel, OEM and IoT, said partners added 54,000 new customers last year and achieved 400,000 approved deals.

“And we are going to be the No. 1 partner program in the world — the biggest and the best,” she said. “Imagine customers banging down your doors because they know you have the best technology and solutions.”

Some 60 percent of partners are growing and 70 percent are …

… making more money, and Dell EMC wants to see those percentages increase, Mullen said.

When it comes to partners, the top three imperatives for Dell EMC are: making it easier for partners to do more business with the company; fast-tracking partners’ ability to deliver transformational solutions; and embracing and monetizing emerging technologies, she said.

“You will see a deal-registration process that is faster and more accurate,” Mullen said. “We will be accelerating speed to quote and are going to make sure it’s the right the first time at least 95 percent of the time.”

Puerto Rico-based Caribbean Data System has been working with Dell for more than 20 years. Jose Mustelier, a sales director, said Dell EMC is making it more profitable for his company, “putting more spiffs and more rebates, and services.”

“The portfolio is great … and now with the announcement of the whole stack that they can bring, [it’s] going to be much of an advantage against our competition,” he said. “At the beginning a lot of people were skeptical because Dell mostly was a direct company, but it has changed a lot and I have seen that change.”

Gavin Adams, business development manager at M2M Direct, said the market development funds, rebates and incentives already were “so good, so to increase that even more if fantastic.” His company has joined Dell EMC’s Presidents’ Circle, which recognizes the top 40 partners globally in specific tracks.

“It’s really energizing, not just the incentives and things like that, but the event and the whole production,” he said. “We work with a number of vendors as a company, but Dell EMC is the best we work with.”