Kathy Gibson reports from Dell EMC Channel Update in Sandton – The IT industry is experiencing a massive change as companies in all industries and all geographies are under pressure to transform themselves.
Jonas Bogoshi, channel director of Dell EMC SA, points out that the industry today is changing – and changing fundamentally.
“If you are an IT department today, you have a challenge: on the one hand you have the business asking about digital transformation that helps to make businesses more profitable; on the other hand you must manoeuvre a plethora of technologies and make sense of them all.
“Channel partners are having to answer the question: what companies have to do to transform for the future,” he says.
And this is not just for large companies, but for small companies as well, Bogoshi points out.
“If you are running an IT company you have to decide where to invest your money to have the biggest impact on your customers.”
Bogoshi says there are four good reasons for companies to building their businesses with Dell EMC:
* Today, Dell EMC has the industry’s most innovative and comprehensive portfolio.
* We have the fastest growing channel business.
* We have introduced one of the best partner programmes in the industry.
* We have rules of engagement that we adhere to, and which give you peace of mind.
In terms of market share – be it cloud, server or laptops – Dell EMC is gaining traction. “This tells you that the merger of Dell and EMC was the right thing,” Bogoshi says. “Between them they provide solutions from the edge to the cloud.
“Their technologies map to the fundamental building blocks for digital transformation.”
Bogoshi adds that Dell EMC leads the market in many areas, including some of the fastest growing industry segments.
“Today your customers don’t want point solutions any more. They are looking for solutions.”
Dell EMC solutions are aimed at enabling three key transformations, he says:
* Dell EMC helps resellers to help their clients drive workforce transformation.
* Dell EMC helps resellers to help their clients with IT transformation – how they have to modernise, automate and transform to a truly digital environment. This can take cost out of the environment.
* Dell EMC helps resellers to build the key transformation – a holistic transformation that takes into account the business context.
“Today if you are trying to build a business with the biggest impact, focus on these three transformations,” he says.
Bogoshi adds that, since Dell EMC is the fastest-growing channel business in the industry – in fact, only 30% of the company’s South African business still goes direct today.
“More and more we are moving from being a direct business to an indirect business,” he says.
“One reason is that this is a function of market maturity. But the other part is that Michael Dell decided that the merged company would be a channel-centric business.”
Dell EMC has put its money where its mouth is, and has reduced the number of named accounts from 1 000 to just 300.
“The final reason to partner with Dell EMC is the channel programme,” Bogoshi says.
The programme is designed to be simple, predictable and profitable.
“in terms of simplicity: there is one programme worldwide. And there are just three tiers – gold, titanium and platinum.”
Moreover, qualification is on an annual basis.
Partners can get rebates from the first dollar; they get rebates if they grow year on year; they get rebates for new customers; and they get rebates if they add services. They also qualify for market development funds.
“So regardless of whether you invest in networking, security or client – you can make money,” Bogoshi says.
“If you aggregate all the benefits, ou can from 1,5-times to 8-times what you got last year.”
Predictability is important, he adds.
“As an OEM partner, what you want is predictability, so you can build your business. Dell EMC brings four things to the programme to ensure predictability:
* A deal registration process is managed on a global basis and is immune to human intervention.
* Line of business incumbency has been introduced to protect partners against the possibility of Dell EMC making your customer direct
* There is a differentiation between direct business and named account. Today, no account is out of bounds if customers decide to deal with a partner – regardless of whether it is a named account.
* A governance process has been put in place to protect partners, and punishes Dell EMC employees who transgress the processes.
The call to action, Bogoshi says, is for resellers to register as a Dell EMC partner as soon as possible. “Then meet with our distributors who will help you become a gold partner.”
