Millard, a veteran EMC channel exec who has most recently been in charge of channels at Virtustream, comes on board the Dell EMC channel team as a focused storage specialist.
John Byrne, Dell EMC’s President, Global Channels and Channel Chief
Since Dell EMC launched its new partner program this year, increasing the channel’s storage business, and Dell EMC’s share of that market, has been a top priority. That focus continues, with longtime EMCer Scott Millard, joining the staff of John Byrne, Dell EMC’s President, Global Channels and Channel Chief, as a storage specialist. Byrne also indicated that more channel initiatives around storage are coming.
The storage theme was paramount at last month’s Partner Broadcast online, which included mid-range storage-focused investments in distribution and a series of spiffs and other incents aimed at storage. Byrne indicated at that event that Dell EMC was organizing a massive campaign behind storage, which included adding 100 new storage specialists to the channel sales team. Dell EMC also announced that new and stronger collaboration models around storage are being put in place between distributors and resellers for storage products, to improve the go-to-market relationship. New spiffs and battlecards, many of them around mid-range storage, were also announced, as were Partner Activation Packs for midrange storage with a single comprehensive view of training demand, generation activities, and incents.
“We want to be the biggest channel player on the planet,” Byrne said. “Our channel revenue for the first half of the year was up double digits, while our distribution business was also up double digits. Our client business was up 11 per cent year-over-year. Services grew close to double digits. Storage was up 22 per cent.
“This is exciting because I asked partners to grow top line and bottom line, and partners moved from selling 1.6 to 2.4 lines of business,” Byrne added. “They are selling more of the portfolio, which is great. We are also delighted with the process we have had in getting partners to work more with Dell Financial Services. That business grew 96 per cent year-over-year. Partners who lead with Dell Financial Services grow at a rate 1.5 times faster than those who do not.”
Byrne also said that their incenting partners to bring in more new business has been successful, with partners closing deals with 18,000 logos in the first half of the year.
“Our pipeline is now in the hundreds of millions,” he said. “It’s still early, but we are pleased with the programs we have put in place for this and their results.”
While the strong double-digit growth in storage was good news, Byrne said that there is still a lot more room to grow there.
“We are pleased but never satisfied,” he said. “Storage takes a little longer anyway. We are still the number one storage vendor on the planet. Hyper-converged is showing triple digit growth. We are number one in mid-range storage and data protection. But I still wanted to bring more storage bench strength onto my staff.”
Scott Millard, who is being named VP of Specialty Channel Sales on the Dell EMC channels team
The key development there, on top of the 100 storage sales specialists added earlier, is the addition of Scott Millard to Byrne’s team. Millard has spent years in channel sales roles at pre-merger EMC, and most recently has been Vice President Sales, Global Channels and Alliances, at Virtustream, one of the Dell Technologies companies acquired with EMC.
“Scott will join my staff in new role, VP of Specialty Channel Sales, and laser-focused on storage,” Byrne said. “That will be effective October 2. He is a seasoned sales leader and strategist who understands the market, our partners and our Business Unit.”
Byrne said that more is coming on the storage front.
“Stay tuned on storage,” he stated. “Partners are asking for more templates about how we win in the midrange. We will be much more aggressive, and provide more clarity in terms of how we want partners to position. We also want to add even more incentives here.”
