By Sharmee Roy
After much success in the retail market, Dell has turned its focus on the SMB. The company has embarked on a plan to expand the number of certified partners, introduced new products, and launched customer-channel marketing.
Dell has already initiated a 9-city road show where it will bring partners and customers together, demonstrate a range of products, and help them align with each other.
Since the launch of its SMB partner program, PartnerDirect, in April 2008, Dell has enrolled 150 partners.
Explained Sandeep Sharan, Channel Sales Director, SMB, Dell India, “Because SMB is a segment that is widespread, and because of the limitations of Dell’s direct approach, we can’t spread our wings beyond the metros. That’s why channels become imperative to touch those millions of accounts for growth.”
Dell has already put in place a deal registration mechanism for SMB partners to log in and lock in deals.
Sharan said, “To avoid conflict between our direct sales team and partners, we have a strong deal registration mechanism where once a partner deal is registered and approved by our team, we will fully support the partner and not pitch for the business directly. The entire process takes no more than 24 hours.”
Dell’s SMB business is entirely back-to-back. “If it is a server-led deal, the fulfilment is back-to-back. However, if the deal is for a small number of PC clients, our SMB partner can buy products from our stock-and-sell MSAs,” Sharan informed.
According to him, Dell’s focus over the next 12 months is to create a strong base of certified partner sales teams. “We have introduced a drive to certify our partners’ sales teams. Our aim is to have strong sales people on the ground who can articulate the benefits of our range of SMB solutions, including the SMB-specific Vostro range, EqualLogic storage, and high-end client PCs and servers.”
The company is also looking at appointing authorized service providers (ASPs) to service its commercial customers. “We have a 20-city service presence, but beyond that we will look to appoint partners with good service infrastructure support as our ASPs,” Sharan said. |