Indirect Power

Dell India has been among the fastest growing technology companies in the country. An engine for Dell's global growth, Dell India is a strategic component of Dell's evolution and focused on end-to-end offe­rings. Dell today is leading across all custo­mer segments in India and their expansion and investment is reflective of the growing commitment to the customers and the Indian market.

Dell has a very lean hierarchy aligned with its go-to-market-strategy and global business unit structure. Each of the businesses is headed by the India GM and channel, marketing and sales teams are aligned accordingly. Recognizing the diverse segments where Dell customers exist, Dell in India has formed 3 dedicated customer business units-public and large enterprises (PLE), consumer and small and medium busi­nesses (CSMB), and Dell services.

KEY LEADERS AND THEIR ROLES

Suresh Vaswani is the executive VP, applications and business process outsourcing (BPO) for Dell Services, and chairman of Dell India. His responsibilities include the transformation and growth of Dell's global applications and BPO capabilities across industries. Specifically, he is accelerating the development and global deli­very of next-generation technology solutions, including applications and domain consulting, cloud integration and solutions, mobility, and process capabilities to power the world's mid-size-to-largest corporations, governments, and insti­­­tu­­tions. In his role as a chair­­man of Dell India, Vaswani is also res­­ponsible for fur­ther enhan­­cing Dell's delivery capa­bilities in India to drive the company's global growth, and expanding the company's presence and posi­tion in India's growing information technology markets.

Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, VP, global CSMB ser­vices and president, Dell India heads the global CSMB services at Dell. In this role, he is res­ponsible for the $600 mn point-of-need services business and delivery of war­ranty and value-added services across all chan­nels. His team pro­vides custo­mer service (tech support and care) to CSMB customers worldwide handling over 50 mn contacts every year. He manages one of the largest workforce for Dell which spreads across multiple global locations. Lakshminarayanan manages a large and complex network with approximately 54 sites worldwide, including Dell Badge facilities and also partner sites. He is also the president for Dell in India. Moreover, he is the corporate leader for Dell in India for all these functions.

PA Sathyaseelan, is the executive director, enterprise solutions business in Dell India where he has the overall res­pon­sibility to manage and grow the entire port­folio of Dell's enter­­prise products and solutions. P Krishnakumar, executive director, marketing, CSMB Dell India and mobility, APJ is currently the executive director, marketing for the consumer and small and medium business segments of Dell India and for the mobility business for APJ. Previously, he was the APJ SMB product and solutions director for commercial business in Dell India, where he had the overall responsibility to manage product and solutions.

Mahesh Bhalla, executive director and GM, CSMB, Dell India, leads Dell's consumer and SMB business in India. As consumer became one of Dell's big five global initiatives, Bhalla was charged to set up this business in India and has successfully led this, growing it from scratch to a leadership position in the Indian market. Business has seen significant initiatives under his leadership including opening up the consumer channel and building a Dell retail presence in India while also bringing some of the leading Dell consumer brands into India. With the global merger of Dell's consumer and SMB business, he now leads the combined segment, making this among the fastest growing segments within Dell India.

Vikas Bhonsle is the GM for the commercial account business for Dell in India. He leads the team res­pon­sible for selling the entire gamut of Dell products, services, and solu­tions offe­­rings to all his customers in India. Another important face in the overall top management is S Sridhar, who is the director, marketing, India relationship, Dell India. He is part of the India leadership team. In his present res­ponsibility, he handles product management across products and services besides driving marketing and demand generation for the com­mer­cial enterprise, public sector, education, and healthcare segments.

Besides top names, the company has regional sales managers for each region and they manage the Dell regional business and relationship with the partners.

CHANNEL BUSINESS OUTLOOK

Although, Dell took the long away to go indirect; its overarching channel approach is to accelerate channel revenues without cannibalizing the direct business, while providing minimal disruption for existing part­ners and allowing for customer choice. Its strategy to achieve the same is simple-develop a loyal net­work of solu­tion pro­vider partners by leve­raging a diffe­rentiated value-add that expands its reach into the channel segments through certified practice areas aligned to Dell's strategic areas.

Overall, Dell divides its go-to-market stra­­tegy for chan­nel into con­­su­mer chan­nel and com­­mer­cial channel. As part of our con­su­mer chan­nel it has hybrid natio­nal and regi­onal distribution model (for the consumer segment), comprising dedicated partners to drive distribution to channel and retail.

Moreover on the retail business, Dell has about 52 exclu­sive stores across India that pro­vide consu­mers with a unique retail experience and an opportunity to view the latest products from the company under one roof. The Dell Exclusive Stores are an extension of the existing Dell Direct Model of online and phone modes, to enable customers to browse, touch, feel and experience products. Within large format stores such as Croma, e-Zone and Staples, it has ‘Dell Experience Zones' which are Dell's exclu­sive counters, with expert Dell sales staff for advi­sing custo­mers and helping custo­mize their PCs. Apart from retailers, Dell does have focus on smaller partners and for such partners it has sales affi­liate pro­gram to enable smaller part­ners who cannot invest heavily in inventory to sell Dell products directly.

For commercial partners, the recent big change was the restructuring of PartnerDirect under which there would be a single window for all Dell offerings, large enterprises, SMBs or public. In fact, post annou­ncing this change, the number of opportunities brought in by channel partners or deals that have been registered with Dell has doubled.

Under the new initiative, Dell's PartnerDirect program will now be led by a separate global commercial channel (GCC) team, which will serve as a single point of contact for channel partners across the company's different busi­ness seg­ments-large enterprise, public and medium business. Suresh Reddy, director and GM, global commercial chan­nel, Dell India handles this line of business.

"The new GCC structure, with its single point of contact for partners, will lead to higher productivity and improved time cycles and enable more aggressive programs to sup­port the par­t­ners in the mar­ket. Post anno­un­cing this change, the number of oppor­­tunities brought in by chan­nel part­ners or deals that have been regis­tered with Dell has doubled," said Reddy.

For consumer channel partners, couple of big pro­grams that are running are Dell Gainz and Dell Empower. Dell Gainz, is aimed at long term rewards program to enhance retention and loy­alty, improve overall parti­cipation of the channel uni­verse, improve scala­bility and flexi­­bility in reac­ting to dif­ferent market con­ditions and aimed at balan­cing the product portfolio and focus as and when required, wherein Dell Empower is a two-fold incentive program for the channel partners. This one-of-a-kind channel program is aimed to provide dif­ferentiated experience to the cus­to­mers and helps create oppor­tunities for enha­n­cing bene­fits to chan­­­nel part­ners. As part of the Em­power program, the channel partner whether from Dell's retail or reseller network will add value to the customer experience by providing com­­plete demonstration of the products, highlighting and explai­ning key product features and also making accu­rate and complete record of the end cus­to­mers' infor­mation, as provided by the customers.

Other than that, incen­tives to commercial partners will, under the recent chan­ges in Partner­Direct, vary accor­­ding to the group they belong to-regis­tered, premium, or pre­­ferred. Apart from the rene­wed Partner­Direct program, it also runs Dell Achievers, which is a reward based program for commercial partner sales/pre-sales representatives. It is points based rewards against products sold.

CERTIFICATIONS AND TRAININGS

Dell very recently announced an enhanced structure for channel partners under the PartnerDirect program, designed to expand their ability to deliver value to their customers and reward them for their investment in key Dell solutions, at the same time helping part­ners drive business growth.

The newly enhanced PartnerDirect program is effective for Dell certified partners globally, and features a new structure which sets out increased rewards for certification and training, including new rebates for premier partners, expanded deal registration terms, financial incen­tives, and marketing and technical assis­tance.

Under the PartnerDirect's enhanced struc­ture, certified partners now consist of two new levels-Premier partners and Preferred partners. Partners who currently hold any of Dell's certifications-enterprise architecture, networking and security, and systems manage­ment-will migrate into one of the Premier or Preferred levels, depending on their level of commitment and training.

Training partners on products is a must have essential, to ensure partners in turn offer the

right products and solutions to its customers. The company is investing heavily on building skillsets of relevant partners and are aligning instructor led classroom training programs and extending online courses to cover more relevant areas. Incentive plans are being aligned accordingly with much higher incentives for both the partner organization and partner sales representatives for selling enterprise solutions.