Dell channel team underline as-a-service approach

The partner session at Dell Technologies World has seen the vendor’s senior channel management continue to signpost as-a-service as the direction in which its ecosystem should be travelling.

The last couple of days have seen Dell host its virtual event with it clear that the firm is expecting spending on edge infrastructure and solutions to increase and more customers will be looking for subscription models, which the vendor is looking to cover with its Apex offering.

Rola Dagher, global channel chief at Dell Technologies, said the experiences of the past year had underlined the importance of its partners in guiding customers through their transformation processes.

“While technology is an enabler, our partners are true transformers,” she said. “What a transformation we’ve lived through in the last year. Within the span of months, all businesses, regardless of industry, had to adapt and transform, and technology has never been more imperative to business success or to the wellbeing of our shared community. We stepped up together to meet our new reality, and we’ve helped our customers meet theirs with new demands. We reinvented what partnership looks like.”

The theme of reacting to change was picked up by Hayley Tabor, global head of industries at Dell Technologies, who said its channel had created plenty of examples across verticals, including, notably, health and education, where it had been on hand to help those industries react to the pandemic.

“Organisations went virtual overnight,” she said. “They needed new levels of speed and agility and scale for the majority of the businesses around the globe. This was nothing short of a seismic shift in the way they operate. We had to engage in real-time transformation. And it was all hands on deck across virtually every industry.”

Denise Millard, senior vice-president, global alliances at Dell Technologies, said the consequences of these changes had been felt in the channel and the way partners worked together and delivered technology.

“Today’s world requires us to think differently and more strategically about where and how we work together,” she said. “Let’s face it, the digital future has arrived, and with it the need for an extensive ecosystem. I am talking about the ability to leverage things like 5G, edge, AI and machine learning, and deliver it as a service.”

Dagher added that to meet customer demands, the channel was taking more of an ecosystem approach and collaborating more to make sure the user got the outcome they were looking for.

“The lines between partner types are blurring and they are recognising the tremendous value they can deliver together,” she said. “Customers are engaging more than one partner because they are focusing on an outcome and experience, better, faster and at a lower cost. That is because today we live in a world where experience in personalisation is paramount.”

Millard said that as well as changing the way that partners worked in the ecosystem, there were also signs that managed services were increasingly important.

“As-a-service has become the standard,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons you’re seeing us go all in with Apex. It’s an incredible opportunity for partners to create their own IP around consumption offerings and services. What does that mean? It means deeper customer relationships and new recurring revenue opportunities.

“Our future is becoming increasingly multicloud/hybrid cloud. It’s all about putting workloads where they work best together. We can help our customers build multicloud solutions that take advantage of both architectures, and at the same time, maximise choice mobility, cost and performance.”