Dell looking for a $50bn channel business

Dell EMC has indicated it is looking for a sizeable amount of growth from the channel this year as it looks to take revenues generated by partners through the $50bn barrier.

In a partner update the firm revealed that as it stands at the end of its third quarter $43bn was generated worldwide through the channel but it has ambitions to grow that further and rolled out a number of incentives and programme enhancements to encourage more activity.

Joyce Mullen, president global channels, OEM and IoT solutions at Dell EMC, said that it estimated the potential size of the addressable market as being worth $3trn and that left plenty of room for more channel revenue.

"We want to continue this phenomenal momentum we have seen in this past year and we know exactly what it takes to get to $50bn," she said.

Global channel revenues were up by 9% at the end of Q3 with partners bringing in an additional 33,000 customers and the contribution from distribution was also up by double digits.

Michael Dell, CEO of Dell EMC, also had a message for partners that showed his own ambitions to establish the vendor ahead of rivals.

"We have worked hard to develop a world class portfolio and partner programme but we have just begun to scratch the surface," he added "We are fully committed to winning and growing and becoming number one in the channel."

Growth plans

The plans for the firm's fiscal 2018 will be around focusing on profitable growth and there is a push to encourage resellers to sell more of the vendor's storage portfolio.

Mullen said that the growth for 2018 would come from "attacking the market and taking share" as well as selling servers, storage and services, which she described as a "pot of gold".

There were also some words about deal registration and rules of engagement with Mullen promising that partners had the firm's full support and protection.

"We are updating our rules of engagement to provide clarity [to the channel] and the Dell direct sales teams," she added "We are taking infringement super seriously and in Q4 rules of engagement infraction escalations were down by over 80% quarter on quarter."

At the end of next month there should also be some additional names added to the firm's top tier of partners. The Titanium Black level, which includes Computacenter, Insight, World Wide Technology, SHI, ATEA, Fusion Storm, Bechtle and CDW will be expanded to support the growth plans.

The combined Dell and EMC partner programme was only launched a year ago and the vendor is not planning any major overhauls but is hoping some refinements, often requested by resellers, will make life easier.

Some of the improvements concern making training requirements easier, simplifying the MDF experience and removing the penetration rate hurdles around services earning structures.

Distribution

One of the areas where there should be changes globally in 2018 is on the distribution front with the firm looking to trim the number of partners it users in that tier of the channel.

Jim DeFoe, senior vice president, global distribution at Dell EMC, said that it would be looking for reseller recruitment as one of the areas its disties could provide help in 2018.

"It is all about growth and its about net new partner growth so we really want our distributors to go out and acquire new partners for us," he said.

Those additional partners would be expected to sell the whole portfolio so distribution would be supported in providing the training the fresh faces would need to get up to speed with the products and services.

But there was also a question of focus and a recognition that the global distribution numbers would be changed over the course of the year ahead.

"You will see us continue to look at optimisation in our distribution strategy. At this time last year we had over 350 distributors worldwide. We will exit this year with about 150 worldwide. Really focusing on distributors that are committed to Dell, understand our complete portfolio and know how to train  and educate partners. You will see us reward those that are committed to us," he said.