Dell - The Power To Do More

Ajay Kaul
Director and GM
Global Commercial Channel
Dell India

Recognizing the pain points of the mid-market customers, Dell has dedicated SMB specific offerings and they are not just for products and solutions but also for the service and support. According to Ajay Kaul, Director and GM, Global Commercial Channel - Dell India, Dell remains committed to offering simplified IT solutions that free up time and money to foster growth and innovation in the SMB segment.  

How can an enterprise benefit from Dell enterprise solutions? 

Dell's long term aim is to support the enterprise segment of India and give them 'the power to do more'. Dell's strategy is to help its enterprise customers build the most rock-solid infrastructure possible, one that empowers users with information-driven applications, while driving cost and complexity out of the IT room. Our technology and services help customers do more and better, with maximum long-term value. We believe our legacy qualifies us specially to help SMBs expand their businesses; our offerings meet their special requirements - be it the Vostro range of desktops and laptops, be it the way we simplify their datacenter with our hyper-V embedded servers or our iSCSI storage network.

How was your journey during the last 1year in terms of acquiring more customer base?

Dell's increasing range of enterprise solutions has helped us grow year on year. Dell is an end to end solutions provider for SMBs, and since customers prefer a single contact point for their IT needs we are the preferred solutions provider for them.  Our global acquisitions of Quest, SonicWall along with Wyse, Force 10 Compellent and others have helped further strengthen our position in India as an industry leading solutions provider with end-to-end technology solutions.

We currently have 1700 commercial channel partners in the Indian market and are continuously looking for opportunities to increase our reach and are keen on working with partners who are keen to offer customized technology solutions.

What are the key verticals of users for your solutions?

We have customers over a large range of verticals; every industry now a days need IT solutions and recognize its benefits to their business. The SMBs are looking out for a partner to whom they can outsource all their hardware/ software solutions and service decisions.

What works for Dell now, is that with all the capabilities we have built organically and via acquisitions, Dell is clearly changing as a company. We are changing the role we play for customers. Five years ago, we would have a series of ingredients that we would sell to customers: laptops, servers, desktops, storage etc. But we are now evolving to be able to provide a complete solution to business institutions of all sizes.

 Can you elaborate on your solution offerings?

Our end user computing brands that cater to specific segment needs are Latitude, Vostro and XPS and the other range of major solutions are: 

Storage: The Dell Fluid Data architecture gives customers the agility and efficiency to meet change head-on. It provides the ability to put the right data in the right place at the right time for the right cost today - with the vision of transforming IT from operations to innovation tomorrow.

12th Generation Servers: The Dell 12th Generation Servers harness the power of virtualization to free up resources and brainpower; Adapt easily to change and be prepared for whatever the future brings;  help businesses work without interruption and provides a dependable support for solutions built upon ones unique needs.

vStart 50: Dell vStart accelerates and simplifies virtualization adoption (reducing number of steps) by providing a pre-sized, pre-racked, pre-wired, pre-tested and pre-configured pre-packaged, easy to purchase complete virtual infrastructure solution delivered ready to run physical and virtual workloads from a single management environment.

KACE: Dell KACE meets the needs of mid-sized customers who want solutions that scale to meet the growing management needs of their networks without ripping and replacing existing infrastructure.

SonicWALL: SonicWALL expands Dell's rapidly growing security portfolio, which includes Dell SecureWorks security services, cloud security solutions and data encryption solutions, and Dell KACE vulnerability and patch management. 

Force 10: Dell Force10 provides high-performance solutions designed for virtualizing and automating conventional data center and cloud networks.  More importantly, it complements and accelerates Dell's data center solutions portfolio, enabling to offer customers a broader range of enterprise offerings.

Make Technologies :  Make Technologies' unique approach to the automation of application and code migration has helped IT departments significantly reduce both volume of code and associated operational costs.

Clearity: Clearity's capabilities enable Dell services to help customers reduce the cost of transitioning business-critical applications and data from legacy computing systems and onto more modern architectures, including the cloud.

Software : Dell has laid out a plan to dramatically grow its software business by targeting mid-sized companies that are underserved. The 4 key target areas are: security, systems management, business intelligence and applications. The Quest Software acquisition was a part of this strategy to focus on software, as part of the overall transformation.

SecureWorks: SecureWorks adds critical managed security services, security & risk consulting and threat intelligence & security research.

Dell Converged Infrastructure: Dell's Converged Infrastructure can shift provisioning and repurpose servers, both physical and virtual, on the fly. It works with industry-standard servers and networking and storage devices. It is completely software based, staying out of the data path. It provisions a business's entire infrastructure, not just their servers.

Dell's transformation journey over the past years, from being a hardware vendor to a solutions provider has been facilitated via organic and inorganic growth. On the acquisition front, our strategy is - Acquisitions around IP, Acquisitions around 'enabling technologies' and Acquisitions around service delivery models. 

How do you integrate the distribution network?

Recently, Dell India and Digilife Distribution and Marketing Services (DDMS), the distribution arm of HCL Infosystems Ltd., have announced their strategic partnership for the distribution of Dell's Enterprise class products to partners in emerging markets. Our registered partners along with Distributor partner networks can buy these products directly from DDMS under distribution program. This leads to increased coverage and availability of products for instant end customer demand.

Please explain how can a VAR become your premier partner?    

The Global Commercial Channel was formed as part of Dell's renewed go-to-market channel strategy to increase partner convenience, profitability and growth. Under this initiative, Dell's PartnerDirect program is led by a separate Global Commercial Channel (GCC) team, which serves as a single point of contact for channel partners across the company's different commercial business segments - Large Enterprise, Public and Medium Business. 

PartnerDirect's structure for certified partners consists of three new levels- Registered Partners, Premier Partners and Preferred Partners. Partners who currently hold any of Dell's certifications-enterprise architecture, networking and s ecurity, and systems management-will migrate into one of the Premier or Preferred levels, depending on their level of commitment and training.

Dell Premier Partners: Premier partners demonstrate the highest level of commitment, earn two Dell certifications, and maintain a minimum annual revenue threshold.  New benefits include: rebates on qualified products; 180-day deal registration; access to Dell-generated leads; and Case Studies collaboration 

Dell Preferred Partners: Preferred Partners are recognized experts in key Dell solutions, have at least one Dell certification and reach a minimum annual revenue threshold.  New benefits include: enhanced deal registration terms (120 days), including extended deal registration for storage products and access to Dell-generated leads.

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Nilesh Desai 
Director - Sales
Accutech Network Systems Pvt. Ltd. 

We have been associated with Dell for last 18 months. The journey as a premium partner is awesome, the only reason being the Dell’s clear focus on channel development. It starts with training on all Dell range of product & processes. Protecting partners existing account from not only internal but external competition. 

Being with Dell itself is an incentive because we enjoy the credential, preference of Dell brand from customer. Otherwise incentive programme for partner sales person is excellent & transparent. Backend discounts are also lucrative and there is also benefit / incentives for training sales people on product & technology.

Dell, earlier was known as direct company but since they have taken a global initiative to be indirect, there one can see a lot of change in Dell’s policies & working with partner which is encouraging for a partner, who is looking for a growth. Another part is, Dell is the only OEM, who has maximum products from IT perspective to support end user. This makes Dell & thus a partner a single point of contact for their customer. So with Dell, partner increases business, margins & wallet share.

Accutech has been a platinum partner for Emerson Network Power India Pvt. Ltd. & leading player in power industry. We have strong presence in large & very large enterprise segment for last 15 years. We have been associated with these companies with our power, telecom & OA products.  Along with Dell, we leverage on our existing relation & give huge strength to Dell to look at an end –to–end solution.  Accutech also has a wide geographical spread of 10 offices across southern & western part of country, which also happens to be the added advantage for Dell business. Again, Accutech is a strong player in building DataCentre (Passive) & has completed almost 50 + datacentres till date. So here along with Dell, Accutech can give excellent cost effective active & passive combination solution for Data centre requirement of customers.

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Durganadh Venkata
Director, locuz

We have been associated with dell for the last 7-8 years. However over the last 12-18 months we have been formally a Dell Premier & Elite partner. Greater visibility within Dell and escalation support from Dell senior management were the benefits we received as a Dell Premium partner. Like all partnerships there are some teething issues. We are working through them. The incentive programs are a good start.

Locuz is a company exclusively focused on its infrastructure and is deeply invested in the private cloud and workspace transformation space. We can position Dell as a true enterprise platform for cloud provided Dell can help us access the right set of enterprise customers. My message to the channel friends is - Continuously evaluate the value we are creating for end customers. Keep innovating for greater value.