Dell Technologies has revealed the changes it will make to its channel programme this year with the company looking to make it easier for partners to achieve gold status. In an update to the partners, Joyce Mullen, President – Global Channels, OEM, and IoT solutions, Dell EMC said that there would not be any dramatic changes but it had listened to partner feedback and was making enhancements to the existing programme. “You shouldn’t see or expect major changes, just improvements and refinements in the areas that are most important to you,” she said.
Darren Sullivan, Senior Vice President, Global Partner Strategy and Business Operations at Dell Technologies, stated that the benefits of the programme would remain consistent but it had chosen to make enhancements based on feedback from partners.
The company has gold, platinum and titanium tiers which channel partners can reach by gaining revenue, training and services targets. The more significant refinements include a further simplified market development funds (MDF) process, the addition of more products to the company’s rebate programs, and a reduction in the number of trained employees need to achieve Gold status.
Sullivan added that revenue requirements have been simplified to a single path, and the requirement to sell multiple lines of business was removed. Further, the company is extending its tier credit multipliers throughout the year. Each dollar of storage and data protection revenue will count three times toward tier credit, and hyperconverged infrastructure revenue will count one-and-a-half times. With these multipliers in place for a full year, you can really accelerate your status in our program,” he asserted.
Last year, the company made it straightforward that gold partners would require one training competency, platinum – two, and titanium – three. Sullivan said it was now going further, reducing the number of staffs that needed to have been trained by half for those going for gold. That now means only one sales and system engineer has to get trained up to hit the requirements. “We have heard you loud and clear and we hope this change allows more partners to achieve gold standard and financial benefits,” he said.
In order to enable partners, especially smaller ones, reap benefits of the partner program incentives faster, Dell EMC is reducing the number of individuals needed to complete the training to reach the Gold tier, the level above Authorized. The company also introduced a Data Analytics Solutions Competency through its Partner Academy training program.
To make it easier for partners to do business with the company, Dell EMC is adding more self-service and automation for process improvements. Sullivan outlined the company’s five partner experience improvement themes for 2019: simplification of the end-to-end process; differentiated support, or finding the right people to help them navigate through the processes and systems; investments in the online experience, particularly in quoting; predictability of engagements; and making it easier to do business across the Dell Technologies companies.
Bill Scannell, President, Global Enterprise Sales and Customer Operations, Dell EMC, who helped develop and implement the Enterprise Preferred Channel Program last August, commented that in the first three quarters of 2018, enterprise business growth exceeded 25 percent. “Today, over 60 percent of my $25 billion business is sold with and through partners, and we see that accelerating with things like the Enterprise Preferred Channel Program and deal registration,” he said.
Jim DeFoe, Senior Vice President, Global Distribution at Dell, said that it would be making sure that the push to gold was supported by its distributor partners. “We have readjusted our rebate programme to better align with what we are asking you to do, drive business with our important base of authorised and gold partners. We are rolling out a formal distributor competency programme where we will help protect the investments in partners. You will maintain any benefits for partners that move up to a higher tier in the programme. We want you to help grow these partners and we want to reward you for doing it,” he added.
Other new features in the partner program include adding Dell EMC’s new PowerVault ME4 storage solution to its 2 percent Midrange Storage Tech Refresh and 8 percent Competitive Swap rebate program, extending its 3X Storage/Data Protection and 1.5X Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Tier multiplier incentive programs through the entire fiscal year, and providing Dell EMC Test Drive – an in-person session with a hands-on lab for potential clients, for PowerMax, Unity and Integrated Data Protection Appliance DP4400.
