“Profitability for Partners is what Dell Aims at”

Richard Lee
Vice President, Global Commercial Channels
Dell Asia Pacific & Japan Region

Dell as an enterprise leader today represents its commitment of supporting its partners wholeheartedly through extensive trainings and education and evolving with them together as it strives forward to achieve new goals. The Dell Partner Direct logo itself speaks of this quality, of Dell being directly connected to its partners.It is a good connotation of the fact that Dell wants to be close to its partners and explains clearly of what as a principal vendor Dell offers to them and how it communicates with them. “It is also a platform where we recognize the various levels of a partner, whether they are premium partners, preferred partners or registered partners,” explains Richard Lee, Vice President, Global Commercial Channels, Dell Asia Pacific & Japan Region.

Dell’s Global Commercial Channel (GCC)…

Dell’s Channel businessis built around a global perspective with a consistent platform and a common message to reach out to partners from every single country. It first established its Channel presence in US, Europe and then Asia Pacific. GCC started in Australia 5 years back and the Asian region 3 years back in 2010. “We want to have a team locally to understand what the best of the partners want and desire. GCC represents Dell’s holistic approach of how we run the Channel. Our local team on the other hand builds on this global platform and adds a local flavour to it,” says Richard. Like for instance in India, Dell has an initiative of expanding to tier II and III cities.With the help of its current structure, Dell is trying to adapt to a local environment. GCC hence exists to be consistent globally but deploy locally to cater to local needs. 

The GCC Partner Summit covers 3 areas –

• To have a worldwide presence in all the regions where Dell sees an opportunity to grow

• Do the right amount of public communication in the country where the Summit is held. Partners who have been working with Dell for some time now have established sufficient trust and through this Summit Dell intends to identify these top partners mutually committed to it

• This would also be the right place to meet and interact for partners who want to expand to other countries with their knowledge and expertise

“We have launched this first ever APJ summit to bring all our partners together on one platform.This will also be an opportunity for them to learn more about Dell. We have dedicated a time slot to share about our new solutions, whether it is health care, education with the audience and partners will get to know about new capabilities they have not known earlier,” Richard reiterates.

Dell’s Positioning in the Enterprise space today…

As an end-to-end solution provider, Dell understands well the business of its customers. There are 4 pillars that support Dell – Transform, Connect, Inform, and Protect. In the enterprise space, Dell ensures to differentiate its products by identifying the right approach to reach its customers. If it is a mainstream product, the approach will be a distribution channel. “If you look at our enterprise product line - low-end storage, low-mid level servers, we want to leverage on distribution channel. This will also be an opportunity for SIs and VARs. But for high-end products, we should be getting the right partners and this is where we are spending more time with global SIs like Infosys,” says Richard. 

The kind of acquisitions Dell has completed also speak volumes of its ever rising stature. From acquiring SonicWall to AppAssure and the recent Enstratius, Dell has reaffirmed its leadership strength to one and all in the industry.