L-R: Tian Beng Ng, Peter Marrs (Dell Technologies)
Dell Technologies has launched a new partner strategy for its global storage business, claiming it will compensate Dell sellers more when transacting storage solutions through a partner.
Speaking to Channel Asia, Dell leaders Tian Beng Ng, SVP and general manager of channels across Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), and Peter Marrs, president of APJ, claimed the new "Partner First Strategy" will funnel more revenue opportunities to partners.
“Now, over 99 per cent of Dell customers and potential customers are considered partner first for storage,” said Ng. “Effective Monday, [7 August], we are compensating Dell sellers more when transacting storage through a partner. This includes Dell’s full storage portfolio, including our Data Protection solutions.”
Furthermore, Ng said Dell plans to quadruple the number of accounts eligible for the vendor's storage Partner of Record (POR) designation.
The POR program has been running for about three years and is how Dell “protects and accounts” for a partner while making transactions with customers. Expanding the program is a chance to drive more predictability, said Ng.
“We know POR is an effective method for driving predictability and growth with partners,” he said. “Over the past three years, storage POR accounts have grown at a premium to non-POR accounts.”
A ‘win-win-win’ for all
According to both leaders, the change in strategy was motivated by feedback from partners – many were seeking more collaboration opportunities between the organisations.
“[This] is an opportunity to capture even more share together with our partners,” said Marrs. “The Partner First Strategy for storage is a significant change to our go-to-market strategy that doubles down on our commitment to partners.
“Our partners are all-in with us. When we asked our partners what they believe will help us collectively capture that opportunity, we heard even greater collaboration, predictability and teaming – and we are delivering.
“We are combining our partners’ strengths with Dell’s advantages to deliver transformational outcomes. It’s a win-win-win for our customers, our partners and Dell.”
Ng also said that Dell has been seeing “really strong channel momentum” that it wants to “further accelerate” and enable the business to grow “even faster”.
In the company's financial report for last year, Dell’s revenue for 2022 was recorded at US$102.3 billion, up 1 per cent year-on-year – despite a fourth quarter revenue decline of 11 per cent to US$25 billion.
Dell’s commercial and consumer units were hit the hardest during the quarter, with revenue for those segments declining 17 per cent and 40 per cent, respectively.
However, revenue in the company’s infrastructure solutions group (ISG), which includes servers, storage devices and networking hardware, rose 7 per cent in the fourth quarter. At US$9.9 billion in revenue, the ISG unit drove in about 40 per cent of overall sales for Dell during the period.
“Frankly, we’ve always been working with partners,” Ng said. “When we speak to a lot of partners, they ask, how have we grown with them? So we [think] what more can we do?”
Thus why Marrs said the new strategy is a chance to drive even better business outcomes, gain greater market share, and sell more across the portfolio as well as deliver better results as a collective.
“What this says to the partner community is we want to work first with you,” he said. “You’re going to be our primary venue to go to market.
“What we’re going to be driving for storage is a global initiative [and] this solidifies for us that there shouldn’t be any debate with our partner community. I think this just removes any cloudiness or mystification for partners about working with Dell.”
