Bangalore, December 24: Global hardware giant Dell will continue to recruit channel partners, especially in the emerging markets as the company believes the resellers are essential cogs of the IT landscape, specifically for fuelling growth of personal computers in the small and medium enterprise segment.
In a chat with Anurag Agarwal of Techaisle.com, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell said the company will continue to recruit partners that align with its value proposition and is capable of adding business value to a customer’s needs by giving the customers choice of best-of-breed solution components.
He said, “the recent announcements of the revamped PartnerDirect program and the corresponding reorganization of Dell’s channel organization were made to address the changing needs of the channel partners across all geographies.
Apart from growing the channel base, Dell is also planning to increase spending on sales/marketing within the emerging markets thereby creating enough pull in the marketplace to enable channel partners not only sell more but also sell more effectively within and across its channel friendly solutions – PowerEdge VRTX, Storage, Networking, Software, Thin Client, Workstations, and SecureWorks, Michael Dell said.
However, not all solutions, especially, software solutions, can be sold without proper localization; Dell recognizes this, and is investing in R&D to make sure that products and solutions are enabled for the emerging market countries.
As per Techaisle research there are over 340,000 channel partners in emerging market countries. To support growth Dell has to have a rich landscape and integrated fabric of channel partners that are moving in unison with Dell as its trusted supplier.
As Dell moves to create better alignment with the channel, it needs to be mindful of two interesting changes that are occurring within the emerging market channel partner community – members now refer to themselves as solution providers, (not as VARs, SIs, or resellers), and they have started calling their customers “clients” much like a consulting organization would do.
To be successful in emerging markets channels, Dell has to capitalize on these changes. It also has to quickly develop a timeline for the roll-out and implementation of its new PartnerDirect Programs and Incentives for countries outside of North America.
Dell may not be able to make bold statements of how many accounts have been opened up (similar to the US) for collaborative sales efforts with channels but at a minimum it has still to identify named accounts that are being transitioned to channel-led, and a compensation accelerator to incent direct sales force to work with channel partners.