Dell Channel Blog : Dell Channel DNA

Dell’s Kathy Schneider Talks PartnerDirect with Hexus.channel

DELL-Amie P — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Scott Bicheno, of Hexus.channel, recently sat down with Dell’s Kathy Schneider, EMEA Channel Marketing Manager, to discuss the first year of Europe’s PartnerDirect programme. In Kathy’s informational interview, she highlighted PartnerDirect’s milestones, programme simplicity, deal registration, partner feedback and the latest organizational structure under Greg Davis’ leadership.

While we’ve recently formalized our PartnerDirect programme, and made it available across the globe, Dell has been working informally with channel partners for years. By creating PartnerDirect, we’ve enabled 15,000 partners to work with Dell as Registered and Certified partners. Via programme simplicity, value-add through the PartnerDirect portal, marketing materials and deal registration, we’ve been able to grow our partner base substantially and incorporate ongoing feedback delivered by our partners worldwide. In return, our programme efforts such as deal registration have allowed over 8,000 partners to engage with us, share information and win business.

In closing, Kathy makes a great point about Dell’s latest global organizational changes as she comments about Greg Davis and his leadership. Kathy notes that this recent organizational change allows Dell’s channel team to respond to partners more quickly by understanding what they buy versus their location. With a more holistic approach, Dell’s channel program is maintaining its momentum and Dell leaders, like Kathy, will continue to inform our partners with programme updates and feedback.

To listen to Kathy’s interview, click here to visit Hexuschannel

4 Questions with Dell's Paul Shaffer of PartnerDirect

DELL-Amie P — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Today, we're talking with Dell's Paul Shaffer, Director of Global Channel Marketing, on his perspectives of the channel program, opportunities and what the future holds.

Q: You’ve been with Dell for over 9 ½ years and focused on the channel for over 1 year. What are your specific responsibilities and how does your team add value to the PartnerDirect program?

Last year I was asked to start up a new global team focused on a strategic growth area for Dell as Director of Global Channel Marketing. I had worked with the channel for 3 years while at 3M prior to Dell so I was excited about this new opportunity to work in this area once again.

We created and staffed a new team focused on marketing with, through and to the channel. This new team worked with regional marketing organizations to drive global programs, tools and content focused on the channel and included team members based in Singapore, India, Switzerland, United Kingdom, France and Round Rock, Texas. For example, prior to this team being formed, we did not have any collateral to co-brand for our channel partners nor did we create advertising on a global scale talking to the channel and the benefits of Dell to help them grow their business.

In my new role, we will continue with our efforts around globalizing channel programs, tools and campaigns and will also pick up North America Marketing, Programs and Operations. The North America team is focused on all local activities related to the PartnerDirect program. This includes driving program awareness, partner acquisition and partner enablement for the Americas in addition to all aspects of online partner experience, web site sustainment and e-commerce.

From an operations perspective, my team is responsible for implementation, execution, and maintenance of PartnerDirect programs. This includes Deal Registration, on-boarding, maintenance and requirements and partner communications.

Q: Upon launch of our PartnerDirect program last December, an industry writer stated that Dell’s entry and build out of PartnerDirect is a marathon and that our company culture doesn’t think the way it needs to for channel execution, how has our progress in the past 14 months proved this statement wrong?

In the short amount of time since PartnerDirect has been in existence I think we have done a pretty decent job of building out a partner program that is easy for our channel partners to understand and participate in. We have built a portal in 19 different languages that is available to 140 countries worldwide, enabled deal registration to minimize conflict both within the channel and with Dell’s direct sales force and we are creating tools to help our channel partners sell Dell products and solutions. If you talk to the executives of the different business units running SMB, Public and Large Enterprise, the channel plays a key role in their growth plans. We actually had a separate module at our national sales training event to kick off the year that was focused on how to partner with the channel that was well attended and received.

Q: We keep mentioning that our program will take time to build and I do believe the industry as well as partners knows this is true, what does the future state of the marketing program look like and how will these next steps benefit our partners?

Like I mentioned above, we are trying to build out the “partner enablement” portion of our program. This includes co-brandable collateral, online syndication capabilities and such tools as a campaign builder are things that we have just added or planning to add in the next three months. We are also looking at adding an external “Partner Finder” capability in the next few quarters. We will also continue to look at building out our current Certification practices such as Enterprise Architecture in addition to looking at new practices for our partners to gain certification.

Q: Building a program from the ground up is no easy task, how do you incorporate partner feedback into your marketing strategy and planning? If partners have feedback, can they talk to you directly?

Absolutely. Between Partner Advisory councils, trade shows, sales feedback and Executive briefings with our channel partners, we are able to leverage our direct relationships with our channel partners to implement and drive programs and marketing activity. I will gladly ask for input from our channel partners and they can email me at Paul_Shaffer@Dell.com.

We know we have a long way to go but we hope that the channel sees our commitment to this area of our business. I would like to personally thank our over 40,000 Registered Partners who are now a part of PartnerDirect.

4 Questions with Dell’s Iqbal Marican of PartnerDirect

DELL-Amie P — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Over the next few weeks, we’re going to introduce you to Greg Davis’ new channel team across the globe. We’re starting off our Channel DNA series with Iqbal Marican, Director, Channel/VAR Programs & Strategy.

A brief bio on Iqbal

Iqbal has joined Dell as of January 14^th and is based in Singapore and responsible for our Asia Pacific region. His role includes defining and directing our Channel & go-to-market strategy, Channel Partner Program, support acquisition & nurturing channel partners for sustained long-term growth as well as co-owning.

Iqbal joined Dell from Cisco Systems where he spent nine years in key management positions. His most recent role was General Manager for Distribution, Cisco Systems Asia Pacific, and had responsibilities for Channel Distribution as well as Commercial Channel Resellers. During his tenure, Iqbal led the growth of Cisco Systems distribution business in excess of 30 percent. Prior to Cisco Systems, Iqbal held key leadership positions in multinationals like Compaq, Unisys, Ashton-Tate and Wang Computers.

Q&A

Q: What excited you about the opportunity to work for Dell and join the PartnerDirect team? Beyond the responsibilities in your bio, can you share any further insights into your role and the impact on the APJ program and partner relationships?

>> Dell has the unique ability to bring value to its relationships. Be it with end-users or with its channel partners. This stems from Dell’s proven capability to add value in high impact areas while removing cost and complexity across all of IT. Add to that the desire to excel through channel relationships, and you have a very compelling value proposition- one that’d transform channel relationships across the industry. It is indeed exciting to drive, and, be a part of this transformation.

Keeping the channel partner at the centre of it all, we built out teams and infrastructure to create a program that’s truly simple, efficient and transparent. In short span of less than a year we have signed up thousands of partners and are meeting or execeeding our revenue expectations in APJ . This gives us the confidence that we are doing the right things. Specially in making sure that the Dell’s interests in Direct business do not conflict with the interests of our channel partners.

Q: You have been in the channel for some time, what advantages do you see in the PartnerDirect program especially in Asia? How can we continue to improve our program offerings to the region and what does the future look like?

>> PartnerDirect Program’s unique value proposition lies in simplification. Our focus is to simplify pricing, rebates, ordering, supply chain and support/services. Each one of these elements is critical to the success of our partners. If delivered well they become a competitive advantage and conversely, if not delivered well become either a cost disadvantage or a complete show stopper for our partners.

Individual markets in Asia have unique requirements in terms of enabling the ‘critical few’ elements I mentioned above. Keeping focused on the local requirements and making sure that all improvements are towards further simplifying and improving the efficiency is key to our success.

Looking to the future, we’ll be driving deeper relationships with our partners across all segments that Dell is aligning across. We believe that significant opportunities lie in the area of solution implementation. Dell’s product and services portfolio, while amongst the broadest and best in the industry, is truly complementary to the capabilities of SI’s and VAR’s. By delivering a value chain that enables these partners to implement customized solutions faster and at a lower cost, we’ll continue to drive the success of PartnerDirect program.

As the economic challenges come to bear, two things are becoming very clear. One, channel partners need a vendor who will help their customers manage cost. Second, channel partners are looking at a trustworthy vendor who can help them manage their own cost of doing business. These are times when keeping things simple will have a real advantage and, I believe, Dell is the vendor who does this best.

Q: Building a program from the ground up is no easy task, how do you plan to incorporate partner feedback into your everyday role? If partners have feedback, can they talk to you directly?

Listening has been and will always be the critical to how we design, implement or run our business. While we have structured means to seek feedback from our partners, nothing beats the ability to get to hear views directly. I invite partners to write to me at Iqbal_marican@dell.com

Q: Any final comments or asks of our Partners?

We are working on developing success stories around PartnerDirect. These stories are to encapsulate the business issues that were addressed successfully and helped partners drive better value to their customers. We invite partners to be a part of this process. If you have an experience you’d like to share please email me or our channels marketing director at Ashwini_bhatnagar@dell.com

Common Mistakes for MSPs to Avoid

DELL-Amie P — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:50:00 GMT

Dell’s Peter Klanian, Senior Channel Manager, guest posts on MSP Mentor about common mistakes MSPs can avoid. Check out the post and join the discussions!

PartnerDirect in Europe, One Year Later...

DELL-Emmanuel M — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:00:00 GMT

It’s now a year since we launched PartnerDirect in Europe and the first thing we would like to do is thank all of our partners who have contributed to the success of the program in the first twelve months. When we launched PartnerDirect we were responding in part to demand from customers who wanted more choice in the way they could purchase Dell technology, and also to feedback from resellers who were keen to engage with Dell in a structured way.

On February 12, 2008, when we launched PartnerDirect in Europe, we were already conducting business with 30,000 resellers worldwide and had approximately $9 billion in Dell annual run-rate revenue globally. PartnerDirect formalised our existing channel initiatives, and was built based on feedback from thousands of solution providers.

We starting operating with some skepticism from the channel and the media, but our success over the last twelve months is a testament to the fact that we have fulfilled the promises we made to our partners when PartnerDirect was first announced. In Europe, we now have over 15,000 partners on board in nineteen countries. Globally, we have over 35,000 registered partners, who can access the portal in 19 languages in 148 countries..

In June 2008 we announced our Certification program and in September we held our first Partner Advisory Council in Europe with Michael Dell in attendance, giving PartnerDirect members the opportunity to pass on feedback and help shape our channel programs going forward

We know that the year ahead is likely to be a tough one – IT spending priorities will change and purse-strings will be tightened. Dell’s ‘Simplify and Save’ motto clearly will resonate well in the times ahead and it is up to us and our partners to make sure this message gets out there to end-users. Over the coming months we will be making further announcements around PartnerDirect which we think will really help our partners remain profitable and defy some of the warnings we see every day in the media.

We have aimed to make the idea of listening to partners and customers a defining theme for PartnerDirect. Many of the changes we have made to PartnerDirect in the first year have come around as a direct result of feedback that we have solicited from partners. We had a great start in 2008 in EMEA, but there is much more potential to expand PartnerDirect. In 2009, we will continue to evolve PartnerDirect by:

· Increasing our focus on fostering advocacy and collaboration between our direct and channel business

· Announcing the next accreditation in our Certification program

· Continuing to invest significantly in our rebate program for our partners

Today’s anniversary is the culmination of months of hard work by our European PartnerDirect team. We would like to thank our Dell team and our partners for making PartnerDirect a success in 2008. As we look to FY10, let’s continue to build on the solid foundation we have laid down for our channel partners and for Dell.

Dell Talks with CRN UK about latest PartnerDirect Changes

DELL-Amie P — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:25:00 GMT

Greg Davis, Dell’s Global Channel Chief, is visiting Europe this week and visiting with his newest team members. In the latest article from CRN UK, Josh Clamen talks about the transition, new team members and the next phase for the PartnerDirect program.

Dell and EqualLogic, One-Year In

DELL-Amie P — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:15:00 GMT

As a co-founder of EqualLogic, Paula Long has a good perspective on the last year’s acquisition by Dell. Read more about her thoughts and vantage point over on the Inside IT blog at http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/insideit/archive/2009/01/26/dell-and-equallogic-one-year-in.aspx

Partners Remain Key to Dell Success

DELL-Amie P — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 19:30:00 GMT

(Posted on behalf of Greg Davis)

As many of you have recently read in the media, Dell is organizing itself globally around four major customer segments—large enterprise, public, small and medium business and consumer (already operating globally).

These business groups all have a simple charter: to get closer to customers and partners, simplify and make it easier to do business with Dell and deliver superior, differentiated value.

Many of you have asked questions about what Dell’s reorganization means for our channel business. I want to reinforce that our partners are key to Dell’s success in all our segments, both here in the U.S. and globally. When we launched PartnerDirect last year, we were responding to customers’ demand for choice and expanding the way we go to market. In the past year, 36,000 registered partners have signed on with PartnerDirect in 148 countries. The PartnerDirect portal is available in 19 languages. Dell’s revenue from solution providers has grown from to $12 billion worldwide. PartnerDirect has won various awards and recognition. All these are significant proof points that underscore Dell’s commitment to our partners, and that you remain an important part of Dell’s go-to-market strategy.

To further underscore the importance of the channel to Dell’s success, I will assume a global role in running our channel business. We will have further details on the globalization of PartnerDirect in the coming weeks.

While our channel partners will not be directly affected by the restructuring, the efficiencies and synergies that result from this should positively influence our channel business and better position it to serve partners and your customers.

In our first year of PartnerDirect, we worked hard to build our channel business and earn your trust. Together, we’ve laid a solid foundation for partners that we will expand and build on in the coming year. If you have any questions or concerns, please email me directly at Gregory_davis@dell.com. Best wishes for 2009! Greg

4 Questions for Channel Vendors

jeff_johnson_blog — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

The four questions most channel vendors won’t want to answer.

In this challenging economy, we hear every day that it is harder than ever to be a channel partner. Most channel programs are complex, inflexible, hard to manage and difficult to track, pricing and deal conflicts are frequent, margins are shrinking and operating expenses are increasing. So you have to ask, what has your channel vendor done to help you deliver a lot more to your customers and still make more profit, in spite of a challenging economy? Here are four difficult questions that most vendors won’t answer:

How do I know you aren’t competing with me?

To answer this question, you need to look at a channel vendor’s actions, rather than what they say. Is your channel vendor buying services companies and giving a select few sweetheart deals giving, like 500,000 sales leads and funding 100 sales people, which compete against you? Do you have to use their services, or only use your own services, or do you have a choice of delivering the services you want and selling through the ones you don’t at a profit? Can you register deals so they are yours alone, protected from your vendor’s direct sales efforts and other channel partners?

What are you doing to make your program easier to administer, so I can use less resources?

One channel vendor just “simplified” their channel program and promotions from 140 down to only 40 (even 40 sounds like a lot). Still, many channel partners tell us that they have to hire and maintain dedicated staff just to work with a channel vendor, since the programs and compensation schemes are so complex. They tell us of multiple points of contact, complex administration rules, and having to work across multiple lines of business. Shouldn’t there be fewer moving parts in a program designed to avoid channel conflict, so the costs of administering a program are lowered? Shouldn’t there be a dedicated channel organization at the vendor, a single point of contact and online administration, so you can focus more on your customers and less on managing the details of a program? (There is a great blog post from Doug Ford, from The I.T. Pros, and a quote from John A. Sheaffer, CEO, Sysix solutions, Inc.: “Compared to other channel programs Dell PartnerDirect is a fresh, innovative, and doesn’t have a 30-year lineage of bureaucracy.”)

What are you doing to make your technology easier to get, deploy, and manage?

Face, it, IT is really complex, both for you and your customers. So how many companies are simplifying IT to ensure that each piece of technology you deliver is designed to reduce the costs of deployment, support and management? (Hint: There is only one.) Simplifying IT can help you lower your internal costs of delivering technology to your customers, so you can pass some savings on and still be more profitable. Shouldn’t your servers, clients, and storage be greener, use less power, and offer demonstrably better price/performance advantage than what is out there? Can you get a fully-functioning SAN straight from the box in under an hour?

What can you do to reduce my costs of customizing and shipping?

Many channel vendors ask you to order a ‘plain vanilla’ product from the warehouse so you can customize, and sometimes assemble, on site. Shouldn’t you be able to order systems right from the factory pre-customized, with images, software & components already loaded? And why take the extra step to ship to your site? Why not “factorize” deployments to save money by aggregating shipments, pre-installing standard & custom software loads, shrink wrapping, labeling, asset tagging, stickering, applying custom skins, laser etching, including custom pack slips, and even allowing for custom boxes (so the shipment comes from you, not the vendor)?

Only Dell PartnerDirect offers a dramatically different kind of channel program because it was built from the start to significantly reduce costs and increase channel partner sales and profitability. With Dell PartnerDirect, we work hard to avoid conflict, not create it. No program is perfect, but Dell certainly is working harder to take a different approach. If you disagree, let me know.

Confessions of a 10-Year Dell Direct Veteran: Why I Moved to the Channel

DELL-Amie P — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

For a little something different, this blog gets you inside the head of a long-time Dell Direct Veteran, Sean Phelan, Director of Storage Sales, and shares the story on why he chose to join Greg Davis’s Americas Channels Group (ACG) in February of this year.

Starting from the Ground Floor

I started my career at Dell by selling the things that were considered too hard to sell by everyone else (servers, storage, services, etc.) But as I worked my way up, I also put myself in the right positions to take advantage of Dell’s strategic growth areas. My willingness to learn new things and take risks in strategic areas allowed me to become an executive at Dell within 10 years.

As I watched Michael Dell return to the company and state that “direct was not a religion,” I knew a seismic shift was about to occur and that it was time for me to pay attention. Dell had a basic fulfillment business for VARs that simply wanted to procure Dell hardware, but we now needed to build a program to match those of our competitors. Michael tasked Greg Davis with figuring out how to bring a channel strategy to Dell, and I watched with keen interest as Greg set the wheels in motion for establishing:

· Partner protection via deal registration

· New team alignments so we could better serve partners

· New processes for making it easier to do business with Dell as a partner

When Dell announced the acquisition of EqualLogic (EQL), I asked to be assigned to the integration team. I helped coordinate the merging of the Dell and EQL sales teams, which was key to integrating their channel program. It was a great experience. As I learned more about the EQL products and associated teams, I grew even more excited about our possibilities for the future.

Joining the Channel Organization

In my 10-year career at Dell, I had never seriously considered joining the channel organization because it had not been strategic or resourced like the direct businesses. However, the combination of Michael Dell telling us it was OK to do business with partners for mutual profit, the purchase of EQL and the launch of a strong channel program, this seemed like the perfect time to explore the new opportunities in the Americas Channels Group.

As luck would have it, one of the sales leaders from EQL decided not to stay on, so I jumped at the chance to ask for the role. My enterprise experience and leadership on the sales integration team helped me secure the position.

My first six months with the Channel group were spent getting to know the people from EQL, who turned out to be one of the finest storage sales organizations on the planet. My team focused on helping partners to create storage opportunities and close them. Almost every week, I travelled to meet with partners large and small — to get their feedback and learn about their concerns and needs. We calmed the fears of many EQL partners, who were nervous about losing their profitability and the ownership of their accounts.

Throughout this process, I realized something very interesting: Both the channel partners and the direct sales force viewed each other with the same amount of distrust. I worked to bring these teams together and realized that through open communication, each group could quickly find ways to do good accretive business together. The first 5 months in the role flew by as we worked to integrate systems, extend our #1 iSCSI share position with EQL and empower our partners to increase sales.

Evangelizing for the Channel Team

About the end of fiscal Q2, I asked my Channel management team what I could do better for them and for our partners. The answer was clear and unanimous: Go evangelize with the direct team the same way I had done for the last 6 months with partners. They wanted me to help the direct team overcome any doubts about the quality of partners or the integrity that the majority of partners bring to the table.

We developed a one page slide that could be shared with the different direct teams at Dell. We decided to focus on the Enterprise Architecture (EA) partners, who partners had met their revenue thresholds, purchased demo units and invested the time to get their teams up to speed on the Dell Enterprise products. Our goal was to:

· Promote the numerous reasons to work with EA partners

· Identify the easy ways to get started talking with partners and building relationships together

· Encourage the regional teams to meet their local EA partners, so they could begin to do the profitable business together that reduces customer complexity and solves business issues

Moving Onward and Upward

So far, the response has been great. The Dell direct Account Executives and Regional Sales managers that get it and want to grow their business faster are having success. So are the partners that are jumping in with both feet. It’s great to see. There are folks on both sides that are taking it slower and I’m also seeing them build the relationships that will lead to sustained business over time. Finally there are partners and some direct folks that will just need more time. Luckily it seems like every week, there are fewer and fewer of these holdouts.

Moving forward, I am going to keep evangelizing to both partners and direct teams. This is the most exciting thing I have ever been involved with at Dell and we are in the process of transforming the company. To those partners that are in early: THANK YOU!!! I appreciate your feedback and help throughout this process. For those just getting started, let us know how we can improve things for you. Finally for any holdouts, reach out to me or anyone on my team. We will do our best to help you have a great experience with our program.

Thanks for the commitment and here’s to a great next 6 months.