Dell SA hosted an Executive Forum in Limpopo for its top partners, to outline the company’s offerings and to demonstrate how it is open for business with partners. Kathy Gibson reports
Serious about partnering
The IT reseller channel is critically important for Dell, and the vendor has come a long way from its roots as a direct-to-market player. Doug Woolley, GM of Dell South Africa, points out that the channel has become a substantial part of the business; and this quarter will make up 75% of the company’s business in South Africa.
“As Dell has progressed as a company, from being client centric to an enterprise-rich business, we have are not able to scale the direct model effectively,” he adds. “The skills sets of partners, specialisations you offer, and the value you bring to market make it a good fit with Dell.”
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A legacy of good
Dell’s Legacy of Good programme is not very well-known in South Africa, but it is doing a huge amount of good work in this country.
Doug Woolley, GM of Dell SA, explains that Legacy for Good is Dell’s programme for bringing sustainability and business objectives together to benefit people and the planet.
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Full range of solutions from Dell SA
Dell may have started life as a PC company, but it’s come a long way since then. The vendor now boasts a full array of enterprise IT products and services as well, making it a full-service IT infrastructure company – and one of the few still operating across the whole IT environment.
Bradley Pulford heads up the enterprise sales division at Dell SA, and speaks eloquently about the fact that the conversation in this market nowadays is less about products and specifications than about solutions and helping customers plot their digital transformation journeys.
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Partner programme rewards new business
Dell is still trying to shrug off its reputation of being a direct business, and has introduced a new partner programme that makes it very attractive for resellers to partner with the IT vendor.
Channel director David Futter outlines the new programme, pointing out that it is now a global, unified programme that aligns the entire global team across business units an regions.
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Premium support available in SA
Dell recently announced the availability of Premium Support, a service for consumer PCs that dramatically improves the customer experience through simplified, hassle free support. Premium Support provides 24×7 anytime, anywhere access to expert technicians, onsite service after remote diagnosis and proactive automated support for consumer PCs and tablets.
Powered by Dell’s innovative, award-winning SupportAssist technology, Premium Support automatically detects both hardware and software issues and proactively alerts consumers when they occur.
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Channel conflict is under control
When Dell first started out in the PC business, it turned the market upside down by selling its products direct to end users rather than through the reseller partner channel.
Although it abandoned this model some years ago, enthusiastically embracing a channel-led route to market, many resellers harbour a persistent feeling that the vendor still prefers a direct model.
Bennie du Plessis, channel account manager, says he runs into the objection about Dell being perceived as a direct vendor quite often, with accompanying mistrust from reseller partners.
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Get great finance deal with Dell
There are many good reasons to buy Dell technology: it’s superior quality, its reliable and backed by an effective services infrastructure – and customers can get great financing that could end up actually saving them money.
Bianca Watson, who heads up Dell Financial Services in South Africa, says the company offers companies buying Dell technology an operating lease.
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