A ‘New' Dell in the Making?

Post-privatization, like other geographies, Dell India too has undergone a transformation of its GTM model. Will it spell success for the new look Dell?

DELL IS PRIVATE NOW

It was September last year after being given approval by the shareholders, Dell became private. However, Michael Dell with a majority stake continues to be the chairman and the CEO and remains in the driver's seat. What is important is that the company's overall strategy and execution plans have not changed. Dell aims to be the leading provider of end-to-end scalable solutions. In order to achieve this, what has changed after privatization is speed and momentum with which the plans are now executed. Every effort is on to try to make Dell lot more responsive towards customers. There is massive acceleration in all the elements of the grand plans to make Dell deliver to customers in sync with their requirements, and providing them with cost-effective solutions.

Alok Ohrie, MD & president, Dell India, who is clearly excited with the re-invention at Dell, says, " We continue to provide the customers with innovative products and technologies which help them build a futuristic infrastructure. In many ways the company has gone back to its roots of being an entrepreneur organization, which implies that there is lot of encouragement in bringing about changes which are transformational in nature, lot of new ideas being promoted which help us expand our reach in the market."

Very interestingly, it was Dell India led by Ohrie, who has now completed 1 year in office, which presented the channel led go-to-market to the global team so as to remain more relevant to the market and it was accepted. Now the challenge is to implement this new model successfully in India.

THE NEW MODEL

Anil Sethi, who has recently joined the Dell India team as the director and GM, commercial channels, says, "Dell has always been known as a direct company. However, now as part of our new strategy we have shifted accounts to partners. In India, we have shifted 30,000 accounts. That has been our global strategy too. Actually, we are shifting customer relationships to be managed by these partners. Our focus are channel partners now whom we treat as our customers."

According to the new model, the entire India is now open to partners. Basically, there are three categories-Partner-led, Dell-led and distributor-led. In Dell led, the company manages the relationships executed by partners. In partner led, its partner managed relationships executed by partners and in distributor led, relationships are managed by distributors and executed by partners. So, in all the categories, the execution is by partners only. Dell-led is about 2,500 accounts whereas the rest of 30,000 accounts are falling in either partner-led or distributor-led categories. All new accounts will be added in partner-led and distributor-led categories.

In India, Dell has appointed 3 distributors who are doing different product lines. It's Ingram Micro, nationally, for desktops and notebooks, Redington for enterprise storage, servers and networking and Iris for desktops and notebooks for north and east.

THE FOCUS AREAS AND ALIGNING THE OPERATIONAL METRICES

IT has come a long way and definitely there is a very different pattern of consumption of IT now. There are 4 critical areas that Dell is focusing-Cloud, Big Data, Security and Mobility. The operational metrices are changed so as to align Dell India with the global strategy. The privatization has had a deep impact on Dell's operational metrices as now there is freedom to take decisions according to the new go-to-market strategy. These four areas are critical since each of them present huge opportunities. "The customer is now looking at the IT vendor with a completely new set of expectations, explains Ohrie, "We need partners who can define these new solutions to us and also help in implementing these solutions. In keeping with the ‘change' definitely a new organization structure was required.

A BOLDER APPROACH

Dell has realised that the company cannot go against the choice of customer in the market. Earler they were very closed not allowing partners to come in but now the value add that is coming in through the partner is being recognized. This also implies that partner led accounts and distributor led accounts even don't have company account executives. A complete freedom is being given to the partner and thats where Dell wants to build trust with the partner ecosystem and in turn, be trusted. But does this exclusivity can lead to lack of quality in the solutions delivered to the customer who is the ultimate user? Ohrie defies this vehemently, "We have strict measure to ensure that quality is not compromised. The first step is an exhaustive audit of the partner and his processes. Also, the kind of partners we are engaging with have very high level of integrity and are capable of providing complete solutions."

ENGAGEMENT WITH THE PARTNERS

The focus is on deepening the channel engagement. Channel programs are running in 18 cities with the target of going to at least 50 cities in next year. Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai & Pune are already covered in phase in Phase 1 whereas Kochi, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Nagpur, Indore and Coimbatore are being targeted in phase 2.

SOLUTION LED SELLING

In mapping with the 4 critical areas namely cloud, mobility, security and mobility, solutions are being offered from Dell. The company is working with the channel partners to provide solutions on data center practices, including design and build, virtualization; security solutions; VDI; storage - data backup and recovery solutions etc to name a few, apart from offering mobility solutions. Dell is in fact known for selling highly efficient data centers.

Dell is now on a new roadmap and all roads are leading to partners. They have completely revamped their strategy and this is a huge opportunity for the partners ecosystem as well as for the company. It is still a long way to go and expectations even higher.