Dell transforms into a complete Solutions company

 The Dell India IT Executive Summit was a three day conference held for customers and channel partners in Dubai at Marriott, Al Jaddaf. Over 113 customers and channel partners attended the event.

Day one of the event, Amit Midha, President, Dell Asia Pacific and Japan Region, Chairman, Dell Global Emerging Markets inaugurated the Indian IT Executive Summit held in Dubai by describing the journey of Dell and what the future has in store.  He spoke about what Dell is doing in the marketplace with our customers and how they are working towards making technology more accessible by reducing IT cost and complexity. He also alluded to Dell’s vision for the Third Platform and how they will enable customers on this front.

Alok Ohrie, President and Managing Director, Dell India spoke about Dell India’s growth to an organisation that employees 27,000 people and that has the largest global R&D centre for Dell (outside US). He also shared pointers on the impact of privatisation on Dell India and described it as being “the biggest turning point” in the company’s transformation journey. He also described Dell’s superior relationship engagement model, consisting of Dell led, Partner led and Distribution led as one of the factors that clearly sets Dell apart from its competitors.
 

Amit Midha
President - Asia Pacific & Japan Region
Chairman – Dell Global Emerging Markets
 

“Fundamentally, the changing role of CIOs today demands them to be business leaders as they are the future CEOs of tomorrow. The big turning point here is that the society is changing on how value creation happens and how the businesses will run. A lot of MBA programs have started to make data analysis a core curriculum because they know business is not about business anymore, but it's all about data. IT is creating new business models and new ways of creating value. Today data is the king. Even cloud has a bigger role to play as we can't ignore it. What we have to think about is how to design the whole architecture which is flexible enough, secured and ready for data analysis. There is going to be more mobility and more smart sensors all over the place. It is a proven fact that Dell is providing the most flexible architecture with the best customer relationship, best service model and a long-term engagement with the customers that is sustainable. As the perception of Dell in the consumer’s mind has been more of a PC company, I personally make sure that my product services and solutions are better understood in the market.”

Alok Ohrie
President & Managing Director, Dell India

“There is a huge amount of opportunity for Dell in the country to participate and be able to contribute, roll out new projects and initiatives with lot of value to the customers for running their existing infrastructure. From a transformation point of view, one of the biggest milestones for the company was going private at a global level. From then on, there has been significant advancements in a lot of areas and the speed at which we are executing new initiatives are obviously much, much higher than what we have seen in the past. The new go-to-market model that has come into effect six months back has also evoked a very positive response from all the possible constituents of the ecosystem. And even the partner engagement has improved dramatically. At this moment we are serving the customers across all segments - large enterprises, small and medium businesses, government enterprises, nodal agencies of the government, and so on and so forth. We have specific solutions for each of the industry verticals, and we definitely find our value propositions resonating very well with these customers. To add to it, we have a manufacturing facility that can scale up to produce three million units.
We are very proud of the legacy that we started as a PC company and changed the way PCs were designed, manufactured and sold. In all of those three areas we have been extremely innovative. Some of those things have also been adopted as the best practices in the industry. I'm quite confident that given what we have to offer to the market and the way we have started to build our solutions, we would be able to repeat the same success that we have had in the PC business in the past.

Manish Gupta
Director, Enterprise Solutions Group - Dell India

“Today the server is evolving considerably with the rise of software defined infrastructure and the rules of IT are being rewritten. Dell has drawn from its deep knowledge of both traditional and new style IT to create a new suite of future-ready data center solutions designed to make traditional IT more efficient and more practical. Dell’s future-ready IT model includes technology solutions that brings server, storage and networking closer together that are more tightly integrated, modular to scale to meet business demands, and software-defined to automate and simplify IT operations and service delivery. The result is customers can gain the flexibility and efficiency received by web technology companies like Google, Facebook while working with their existing IT investments, unleashing unprecedented growth and innovation. Dell understands that each enterprise customer’s requirements are unique. In reaching out to customers, our four step approach ensures that we provide a holistic solution that addresses all their IT needs: Transform, Connect, Inform, and Protect. Dell is bringing that expertise and innovation to bear by offering customers flexible, elastic, service-centred IT model, smartly matching technology to support their business processes, both existing and new.”

Murli Mohan
Director & General Manager,
Dell Software
 

“Dell Software organization is a part of Dell’s transformation story in becoming an end to end solutions provider. Since 2011, Dell has made several acquisitions and investments to build its capability as a Software provider. Dell addresses the software needs of organizations in four categories: Datacenter & Cloud Management, Information Management, Mobile Workforce Management and Security that cover the end-to-end spectrum of an organization’s software needs. Additionally we have solutions that cater to the entire spectrum of customers from end users to large and mid-size enterprises across the country.”

Indrajit Belgundi
Director & General Manager
End User Computing – Dell India

“In India, the market has been flat and it’s been coming down, but Dell is growing YOY and QOQ. From a Dell perspective we are confident in maintaining the growth rate across all the segments – Desktops, Notebooks or Graphic workstations and we are very bullish about it. Our route to market has always been Partner-driven and distributor-driven. Dell is also a pioneer when it comes to after sales services. It has helped us in going after some of the acquired accounts or the accounts which were not purchasing Dell earlier
Today, we are looking at Dell as an end to end solution company. The opportunity is huge, at least from a EUC perspective. We are seeing consolidation happening in the industry and we are working along with them to realize the opportunity.”

Finally...
In the last 30 years of its operations, Dell has played a critical role in trans forming computing and offering best-in-class solutions. Having had a large string of acquisitions in the past several years, it has earned itself the fame of being one of the most successful companies in Tech history. Under a new private ownership structure, Dell aims to transform itself from a pure-play hardware vendor to an end-to-end scalable solutions provider.
Dell India has been among the fastest growing technology companies in the country. An engine for Dell’s global growth, Dell India is a strategic component of Dell’s transformation into a true IT solutions partner and a ‘trusted IT advisor’ focussed on end-to-end offerings. It is leading across all customer segments in India and its expansion and investment is reflective of the growing commitment to the customers and the Indian market. To maximize customer coverage and to deepen its engagement, Dell India has recently rolled-out a new go-to-market business model. Earlier having worked directly with 40,000 to 50000 customers, the model will now incorporate Dell-led, Partner-led and Distribution-led accounts. With these key new initiatives and announcements up its sleeves, one might just wonder how exciting the journey of Dell will probably be in years to come.

“ACQUIRE, INTEGRATE AND ACCELERATE“
Alienware – high-performance computer maker | Silverback Technologies – a service delivery platform provider | ZING Systems – Consumer technology and Services Company | ASAP Software – software solutions and licensing services provider | EqualLogic – iSCSI SAN solutions | Everdream – SaaS solutions | MessageOne – email archiving, continuity and recovery services | Perot Systems – Applications, technology, infrastructure, business processes and consulting | KACE – Systems Managment appliance | Ocarina Networks – Storage optimization technology | Boomi – Software-as-a-Service integration | SecureWorks – Security-as-a-Service solutions | RNA Networks – Memory virtualization | Force 10 Networks – Solution provider for virtualizing and automating a data center | SonicWALL – Advanced Network security and data protection | Wyse Technology – Cloud client computing | Clerity Solutions – applications modernization and re-hosting solutions | Quest Software – IT management software provider | Enstratius – enterprise cloud-management software
 

Partner's - View Point

Ranjan Chopra
Managing Director
Team Computers

What makes it interesting to tie up with Dell?
Three things are important for us and for any channel partner - Love, respect, profits. All these three conditions are being satisfied by this relationship. As far as profits are concerned the top line has to grow. A few years ago, we were doing 10 crores, but today we are already looking at 100 crores and very soon 100 crores will grow to 500 crores. There are two large segments we see as opportunity - enterprise segment and government PSUs.
Which are the segments you focus into?
I am very happy doing desktops and client devices like desktops, notebooks, pads, very happy to do that. That is our focus because that requires distribution across the country. We are today competent enough to deliver these solutions across the country, to every nook and corner. The other big area which I am looking forward to is the software solutions, information management space and also performance management, infrastructure performance management. We have not yet done performance management, but with Dell, this will be a completely new range of software for us.
I also see a large part of the market going towards Cloud. The Server, storage and Networking business is there but in terms of how much it's going to add to 500 crores or 100 crores, its very minimal. That would be about 10% of that overall. The bulk of the business is going to come from end point.
What will be your commitment to Dell for next 1 year?
I look at Dell as, "What does it need?" They need commitment and competence and we have both, competent to deliver the solution across the country to all the segments.

 

Cherian Thomas
Director – Wysetek Systems Technologies
Tell us more about your company?
We are at the 25th year of our operations as a system integration company. Today we work on more and more products which are driven towards datacenter and are a focused datacenter company. We are headquartered out of Mumbai with branches in Pune and Bangalore, with support centers at Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai. Today, we see every customer having a data center of his own, in spite of the current trend of shared datacenters. That’s how we look at it.
What is your relationship with Dell?
We have been working with Dell for the past 2 years. Last year we have been getting a lot of positive messages for partners by the top management of Dell. We feel, Dell has a story to tell about its Storage, Security, server, networking, including its niche products. It’s a complete solutions company now. All these products interlinked, they are working perfectly towards solving customers problems. It saves time as well. Previously, we used to operate with different companies for different products and services, but today its all available under one stack handled by a single point of contact , which we feel is the biggest advantage.
Any message for partners?
I think it’s an opportunity for all of us to work together with Dell. Dell has been there in the market for the last 10 years, and now they have transformed from direct to partner led business.
 

Tarun Seth
Managing Director – Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic
Tell us about your engagement with Dell.
With Dell, we started our relationship a year back, but last quarter was the real thrust when we put in a lot of resources and  are now committed to their business. We started off with run-of-the-mill products like PC, laptop and we're also selling their software, servers and other software solutions to our esteemed customers. We created a separate team that is controlling our Dell business within Hitachi Micro Clinic and is meeting with all the Dell people across the country with our teams.
What is your expertise on cloud?
We are not in the Cloud but we want to be in it. We are working very closely with NTT as they have their data centers in India. But it is a co-host model which means that if a customer wants to go on Cloud, we can actually give them the expertise of how to build a private Cloud with the Dell products on data centers provided by NTT. So for us, it is a better bet to go and explain to the customer because we have the experience and know-how of Cloud and the data center. And with Dell solutions, it complements this very well.
What are the verticals you want to target?
We have been primarily into SMB and also into government for quite some while. And with Hitachi coming in, our thrust will also be with large enterprise and lot of Japanese customers. There are around 1700 Japanese companies in India, with whom we're going to work and bring in business for Dell. In return, Dell will also help us with new accounts, which they are vacating and now giving it to partners.
What will be your commitment to Dell for next 1 year?
Our Commitment is, we are putting our heart and soul in their business by allocating fund and people. The rest is destiny. We are sure if we work hard, we will be able to achieve our goals.
 

Girish Madhavan
Director – Technical
Quadsel Systems
How has been your relationship with Dell?
We have signed up with Dell only recently and have partnered with them on Infrastructure software. We have had a fruitful relationship with Quest and SonicWall as we have been in partnership with them earlier. We always look at large partners and long standing relationships and that is where our growth comes in. We try to identify those product segments wherein we can add value.
What are the different segments you are targeting?
There is lot of challenge in the software space in which we got into last year. We are in to analytics and business intelligence at a very different level. We check if whether we can do intelligence in the user level and give information to the management in the right direction. We operate in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bangalore and Hyderabad and are in to manufacturing, large corporates and educational institutes.
Any Message to Partners?
It’s been a good change from direct to partner led that Dell has initiated. If we have a very good understanding with the vendor we can really do well. Besides, being a technology partner is always respected by customers. We also encourage certification as we believe that if you are certified you are really good.