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Andy Dow, Dells new UK Channel Director, speaking in public to the channel for the first time, made the point that since Dell has a ten year history selling through the channel,with a run-rate of $9 billion, through 30,000 channel partners,it has a pretty strong history. And indeed a sizeable proportion of the resellers present at the PCA conference in Warrington admitted to already selling Dell kit.
But what Andy Dow presented was a clear and very well thought out strategy not just to engage with the channel, but to give it all that it might wish. His response to some questions during his presentation was the usual one for the experienced presenter “I’ll come on to that later”,but unlike lesser prepared people, his ubsequent slides really did answer the questions that came from the floor.
Dell has been very successful in sales to government, education and large corporate accounts,but less successful is in the SMB space and also to consumers. The consumer range will be different from, and with different SKUs than commercial products.
There was a categorical assurance given that resellers will not see their products in a retail environment, and that they will have access to a breadth of products that is second to none – including printers, other peripherals and software; this, potentially, having an impact on the distribution channel. Dell – for the moment at least – will not deal through distribution, the resellers relationship will be direct with Dell.
Previously deals tended to be ad-hoc. Dell promises that there is now solid,fixed trade pricing meaning that in the unlikely event of meeting Dell in a high-end account there is a guarantee of “price parity”. In such circumstances Dell will respect the wishes of the customer to deal direct or through the reseller.
“Dell prizes value more than volume”. This was stated several times during Andy Dow’s presentation, however the cynical observer might be tempted to add “these days” to that statement; it’s because it has already gained volume it can afford to now look for the value that only the channel can bring it.
The company will have two types of partner, the base level “registered partner” who must be able to demonstrate a minimum of 10% services revenue in their business, and the “certified partner”whose revenues will be 40% services based. They aim to sign a minimum of this latter category over the next three quarters. The company is most definitely not looking for online box-shifters.
There will be a dealer registration procedure that will help to bring upfront special pricing and collaboration with the vendor, and there now exists a skilled resellers support team of over seventy people, based in Ireland, who are ready and waiting to help the independents. In addition Andy has now recruited UK based field account management team.
Concluding his presentation by suggesting that resellers reserve themselves fifteen minutes to complete the online reseller registration process to be found at www.dell.co.uk/partner Andy quoted Michael Dell, “We’ve transformed the business once. Now, working with resellers, we’re going to do it again”.
By and large the audience at the PCA Conference was impressed by the evident commitment, planning and resource investment that this global player has put into its new move, the mood seemed to be that there was very little to loose by, at the least, making use of one of the best know PC brands and adding it to their range, and their could be a great deal to gain. Several made the comment that the distributors won’t be best pleased.
Commenting on Dell’s announcements PCA Chairman Derek Jones said “This is one of the most significant events that we’ve seen in the reseller channel for a long time,and its impact will be felt for many months and years to come. What we’ve heard today,not least Dell’s admission that it needs to earn trust and loyalty from its new partners, must be very encouraging for resellers. We hope Dell will come back to our next conference in October and tell us just how it has been able to live up to its
early promise.”
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The latest meeting of the PCA Management Board was kindly hosted by Enta Group at the Enta Headquarters in Telford. We would take this opportunity to thank the Chairman Jason Tsai and Group Marketing Director Jon Atherton for their invitation. The Group photo shows from the left Keith Warburton (PCA CEO) Derek Jones (PCA Chairman) Steven Bambridge (GfK) Robert French (TalkInternet) Simon Halworth (Formjet) Jason Tsai (Enta) John Harris (PCA) Jon Atherton( Enta) and John Carter (DMSL)