The vendor should stop thinking about solution providers as customers and start treating them as partners.He called it a program! Wow, that's a change. Greg Davis, vice
president and general manager of Dell's Americas Channels Group, told
me last year at the Ziff Davis Enterprise Channel Summit in Chicago,
"We're not creating a program. We're creating a value proposition for
solution providers that want to engage with Dell, and some elements to
the engagement structure." At least that's how I remember it. Well, at
another Channel Summit in February, this time in Dallas, I heard Davis
refer to Dell's PartnerDirect as a "program." In fact, in his keynote,
he said the word "program" many times. He mentioned Dell is engaging
about 30,000 solution providers worldwide and that with the acquisition
of EqualLogic, Dell believes it will have a strong program to engage
and empower partners.
This isn't the only change in Davis and Dell we've seen in the last
six months. Dell also launched a partner portal that includes marketing
tools, financing and ordering capabilities, a managed services training
path, and deal registration. But what really turned my head during
Davis' keynote was when he mentioned Dell will be compensation-neutral
with the direct-sales team in 2008.
My jaw nearly dropped as he explained sales representatives will
make as much through a partner as they would selling direct. Now that's
a big change. We see companies here in The Valley that have been
working with partners for years, producing upward of 25 percent of the
overall company revenue through partners that don't have a
compensation-neutral program.
Dell's come a long way in the terms it uses to talk about
partnering, but the vendor has a long way to go before it embraces the
channel, if that ever happens. For one thing, Dell must stop thinking
about the channel as a customer and start treating it as a partner.
Responding to a question about driving loyalty with solution providers,
Davis said, "I wouldn't give a quota to a customer." The
more-successful channel vendors embrace solution providers, treating
them like an extension of their sales, marketing and support
organizations.
Dell also has some work to do on its managed services message.
Considering the vendor bought Silverback and Everdream, no one is
surprised Dell is building a managed services offering. Davis confirmed
in no uncertain terms Dell will sell managed services directly. Still
fuzzy is how Dell will pull the Silverback and Everdream teams together
to build a managed services program to support the 182 managed services
providers already engaged with Dell. Hmm, how do you balance that with
your direct managed services model?
Certainly, changing a machine as huge as Dell, steeped in such a
direct culture, has to feel like an uphill battle. Davis has done an
admirable job—he got a compensation-neutral plan in place within six
months. It will be interesting to see how some of the new channel
management blood mixes with the old Dell direct team.
Bob Skelley and the EqualLogic team will be a pro-partner boost.
Another will be that longtime channel executive Donna Troy has landed
at Dell. Troy, most recently the executive vice president of global SME
channels at SAP, is a channel champion and will add an interesting mix
to the Dell culture. We look forward to watching what results from the
changes to Dell's channel management, partners and the "program."
Diane Krakora is president and CEO of Amazon Consulting. She can be reached at dkrakora@amazonconsulting.com.
