Canadian partners selling into approximately 1,000 designated accounts in the Commercial segment in Canada will receive additional incents, and Partner of Record Status if they win the deal. The same status is not yet there for Enterprise accounts, but the company says that they are working on it.
Joyce Mullen, President Global Channel, OEM & IOT, Dell EMC onstage at the event
TORONTO — Last August, Dell EMC announced a Partner Preferred Program to give partners preferred access to 2,000 enterprise accounts globally, that Dell EMC wants to win. Last quarter, they followed that up by extending the Partner Preferred Program to include 20,000 commercial accounts. These accounts were designated as partner-led, where partners would take the lead in trying to land these logos, backed by additional Dell EMC incents. These include more competitive pricing with front-end margin, and a new acquisition deal registration with an incremental discount tied to it. For Canadian partners, there was a major catch, however. The Preferred Partner Program was not available here, in either the Commercial or Enterprise segments. That has now been remedied, at least in part.
“We are launching the Partner Preferred Program in the Commercial Segment in Canada, and are in the throes of working on it for the Enterprise,” said Deanna Thomson, National Director, Channel Sales, at Dell EMC Canada. The announcement was made at Dell EMC Canada’s sixth annual Partner Summit at the Toronto Convention Centre.
“Globally, there are tens of thousands of accounts that we want partners to take the lead on,” said Joyce Mullen, President Global Channel, OEM & IOT, Dell EMC. “We are providing new resources for joint account planning, and a new competitive front-end price. We have also neutralized the impact on the direct team with compensation for them. Partners who win a deal also earn Partner of Record status on that account.”
“We started in the U.S. first, and Deanna has worked hard to make sure it was available in Canada,” said Gregg Ambulos, SVP North American Channel Sales at Dell EMC. Ambulos indicated about 1000 accounts would be impacted in Canada.
Thomson said that the Partner Preferred Program is intended to incent as many partners as possible, not just the top tier partners in the Dell EMC ecosystem.
“The program has data centre PAMs who liaison with partners and do joint account planning and sales alignment,” she indicated. “When a partner wins a deal, they become the Partner of Record in that account for a year. That doesn’t mean that other partners will be off limits to the account, but it does mean that the Dell team will work with the Partner of Record for the account on any opportunities that they come across.”
The program has done well since its inception in the U.S.
“I’ve seen terrific responses from partners and customers in the U.S.,” Mullen said.
“The main reason behind the program is to accelerate growth and share and also to increase our mindshare,” Mike Sharun, President of Enterprise Sales at Dell EMC Canada told the assembled partners. “We want to use it to go where we are not today. At Dell EMC, we need to make our own market from a technology perspective, but we need you from an integration perspective to drive that message home with our customers.”
“I feel strongly about this program,” said Kevin Connolly, President of Commercial Sales at Dell EMC Canada. “I hope you feel that we are listening. The biggest takeaway is we are not perfect. We are two years into a merger that has been bumpy. But we are all-in in Canada. “Look for us to roll this out and I’m looking forward to really supporting it. We are all looking forward to the new logos coming in.”
While getting Dell EMC to break down data by geos to provide separate Canadian information is often a challenge, they did disclose some numbers put up by the Canadian channel, which indicated that it has been having a very good year.
“We’ve performed on every metric and product category,” Thomson said. “36 metal partners in Canada increased their tier status, 52 per cent of partners grew their services business, and 67 per cent of partners saw a growth in rebates.” ‘A few’ Canadian partners moved from the basic Gold tier, which has a $500,000 revenue threshold, to the Titanium tier, where the threshold is $15 million. 72 per cent of the top 25 partners in Canada had both positive storage and server growth in Q1. She also indicated that 69 per cent of new accounts in Canada were won in the channel.
Additional promises of more progress on the program execution front were made.
“By end of this fiscal year, [January], we will see further improvements around quoting and the deal registration process,” Ambulos told partners.
The Partner Summit this year had about 400 people present, 250 of whom are partners, and three quarters of whom are metallic-tiered partners. Three-quarters of them are metal tiered partners. The Dell Technologies Toronto Forum, a large customer event, will run at the same venue on Tuesday.
