Dell's PartnerDirect Program Gains Momentum with Solution Providers

As IT spending contracts, supply chain checks indicate lower PC shipments into next year, and the rest of the economy seems to be falling apart, Dell's nascent PartnerDirect program has become a bright spot for the PC maker.

While Dell's Americas channel chief Greg Davis has never provided details about the company's mix of sales through the channel versus direct sales, Davis now says that on the channel side he has a line of site to $12 billion through the channel in this fiscal year. That compares to $9 billion through the channel last year. For the fiscal year ended Feb. 1, 2008, Dell posted total revenue of $61.1 billion.

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Davis provided Channel Insider with some additional data points around Dell's nearly year-old PartnerDirect channel program.

• Dell received 5,300 deal registration requests from partners in fiscal Q2,
• Dell approved 74 percent of deal registration requests from partners in fiscal Q2,
• Last week partners registered 300 deals,
• Of those 300 deals, 13 came up as conflicts,
• Greg Davis and his team sit down every Thursday to resolve conflicts,
• Dell now has 12,200 registered partners in the Americas,
• Registered partners have seen a 14 percent increase in year-over-year revenues from the sale of Dell products,
• Certified partners have seen an 84 percent increase in year-over-year revenues from the sale of Dell products.

"We've seen a successful growth in those firms that have invested in Dell, and we are paying it back with investment in our certified partners," Davis said, with benefits such as lead generation, incentive-based co-marketing funds, demo units, and expanded deal registration.

One of the possibilities Dell is considering, in response to partner feedback, is to make the catalog it sends to partner customers a co-branded Dell and partner catalog. Davis is investigating the logistics of such a move.

As for deal registration and channel conflict, Davis pointed out that it is not always the case of someone being at fault.  For example, he told Channel Insider, one of the conflicts that arose in the last week came from two different partners who had registered the same deal.  One of the partners registered the deal under the department name and the other had registered the deal under the parent company name.  The conflict was a misunderstanding, as many are, he said.

Back in May, Davis told Channel Insider that the company had approved 80 percent of registered deals. Back then, Dell had registered 7,200 U.S. partners and 700 Canadian partners.