Dell Storm broadens the opportunity for its partners

 Anil Sethi,
Director & General Manager- Channels,
Dell India

A strong channel eco-system and an ever-growing channel relationship – this is how we can describe Dell’s approach to its Channel. The change in strategy from a direct model to a partner-led Dell business has met with both skepticism and appreciation, but the end-result has been very interesting for everyone to see.

With increased focus on Channels, all campaigns bearing business priority have the involvement of channel partners. “We are not only engaged with the partner owners, but also their sales makers. They are both invited to participate in such campaigns. The IT executive Summit that took place in Dubai is a classic example where we had partners participating along with our customers. There are also various joint marketing campaigns that we run along with some of our key partners in the form of focused workshops, tech days, etc.,” explains Anil Sethi, Director & General Manager- Channels, Dell India.

A strong Channel approach
There have been multiple initiatives that Dell has taken for Channels in last few quarters under a broader program called “Dell Storm”. Dell Storm is an umbrella program that covers all channel partners, distribution partners and System integrators to open up avenues and opportunities to increase their profitability. This new strategy of Dell adopts a channel friendly approach that maximizes customer coverage across the country.
Channel partners, system integrators and distributors have always been a significant factor in driving Dell’s enterprise business. “With introduction of the new strategy, we have not only renewed our channel policies and programs but also transformed our go-to-market strategy with the channel as our key route to market.  Being the only credible OEM to have products and solutions that cover the end-to-end gamut of products and solutions, this will in turn enable our channel partners to cater to their customer’s’ end-to-end needs from a single vendor and make business with smoother and easier for channel partners,” says Anil.
The company reworked on its channel rebate structure and made changes which make it highly rewarding for partners. Dell is also engaged with many of its partners on joint marketing and awareness campaigns that they run for their customers. Lead management campaigns run by the marketing team ensures that all the relevant leads are handed over to the channel partners with proper hand holding. “Similar initiatives have been launched for our distribution business as well where we have launched an aggressive market penetration campaign for T2/T3 cities across India. Also, we are highly focused on the enablement of our partner’s sales teams and have invested in these programs and will continue to do so,” Anil asserts it.
Dell’s Channel training and enablement program covers 9 key competency areas including cloud services and solutions. This program enables the partners to pitch on the value propositions of the cloud model and customers can leverage Dell’s cloud services and solutions portfolio to reduce their capex by hosting some of their applications on cloud.

Opportunities ahead...
 FY 2014 - 2015 is and has been a very crucial year on the channel front for Dell. Earlier this year Dell has announced its renewed focus on the channel front by shifting several of its direct accounts to channel. By proactively sharing and working with partners on an identified set of accounts, Dell has been able to build a strong leveraged network of partners to complement its direct reach. Additionally, through its renewed distribution focus and tie up with several distribution partners such as Redington, Ingram Micro and Iris, Dell has been able to strengthen its coverage across India and across its end-to-end range of its products and solutions. Lastly, the company has been working at enabling channel partners to serve its customer better by collaborating collectively with channel partners on business and opportunity planning. “With these initiatives we are very positive about the growth in profitability of channel partners over the current financial year,” sums up Anil.

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