Partners: Today marks the next step on our extraordinary journey together. Just hours ago, thousands of you tuned in as we launched our priorities for the coming year and celebrated the one year anniversary of the Dell Partner Program. We heard comments from Michael Dell; the unveiling of the 2018 Partner Program; a deep dive on the System Integrators, Systems Outsourcers and Cloud Service Providers partner strategy; updates on marketing, distribution and OEM; and announcements around Services and Storage incentives.
It’s hard to believe a year has gone by since the Dell Partner program was created. Twelve months ago, we brought together two world-class partner organizations into one team, and made a promise to deliver a program that was Simple. Predictable. Profitable. The program was informed by your input and ideas. Thanks to you, the Dell Partner Program has delivered big time. At the end of Q3, 50 percent of partners are growing worldwide, 70 percent are receiving more payouts, our partners brought in 33,000 new customers, and the Dell Technologies Global Channel business is on a run rate to hit $43 billion and is inclusive of the VMware channel organization. We have incredible momentum and we’re not slowing down. The foundation has been built and this year, we will continue to be unstoppable.
Our #1 priority in 2018 is to drive even more profitable growth. We have an extraordinary partner community and together we will deliver growth and share gains. In order to accomplish this, we’ve laid out the following key priorities for our partner community. Partners who do these things will be rewarded lucratively:
- Grow your business and ours
- Sell bigger, richer servers
- Sell storage all day, every day
- Sell client and services to new customers
- Attach services
To help you achieve these goals, we announced a few refinements to the Partner Program, requested by you, to make it easier to do business with us. By listening to feedback and continuing to drive improvements, we aim to become the world’s best channel program.
2018 Program Framework – Driving Consistency & Simplicity
With Predictability as one of our core tenets, today we introduced our 2018 program structure. The program this year should look familiar to you and will continue to have the following:
- Three tiers (Gold, Platinum, Titanium), with the elite Titanium Black Status
- Annual tier eligibility
- Two paths to profit with simplified training
Rebates – Opportunity for Increased Profitability
The four rebate categories continue, but with a few refinements:
- Base rebates start at $1
- Rebates that recognize and reward business growth
- Services rebates will start at $1; services gates have been removed so partners will be paid from the get go and earn money faster
- New business rebates for bringing in new customers or expanding lines of business. We have opened up storage to more NBI opportunities with an enhancement for Data Protection, which is now independent from storage when calculating NBI
- Adding a very competitive MDF strategy; more information below.
The new rebate structure not only offers rich profit opportunities, but it’s simpler too.
- For client and servers, partners can earn up to one percent when ProSupport is attached or one-and-a-half percent for ProSupport Plus. In addition, partners will earn three-and-a half percent of all other services that are included.
- For storage, partners can earn three-and-a half percent on attached Deployment, Consulting, and Education Services. The client peripherals and displays rebates have increased this year; now paying from $1 in all regions with no gates. The base rebate is very competitive and the growth rebates doubled from last year in some regions.
- Overall, we are providing flexible pay options to all our partner types including OEMs, Distributors and Global Alliances.
Training
World-class training is foundational to the program and is a key enabler for partner businesses. Several improvements have been made:
- The training requirements deadline is now aligned with the revenue deadline (February 1, 2019)
- Training requirements have been simplified and unified; partners must achieve one competency for Gold, two for Platinum, and three for Titanium (respective product competencies are still required to earn rebates for products, so we still encourage partners to continue to earn competencies to increase rebate payouts)
- We launched maintenance training paths for partners who have completed an initial competency. These maintenance paths require shorter refresher trainings to review key concepts
- We will roll out eight Solutions Competencies in 2018, starting with Software Defined Infrastructure, Hybrid Cloud, and Connected Workforce competencies in Q1
Marketing Development Funds
In 2018 Dell’s MDF philosophy is to deliver competitive rates while taking cost and friction out of the MDF management process. We’ve made some changes to the program to further simplify like providing the ability to track future activity or planning requests and decreasing MDF administration. We also removed front-end documentation and proof of execution requirements, and granted the ability to upload multiple activities at once. We offer a balanced model strategy as we continue to offer the predictability of earned MDF as well as proposal-based MDF to our partners. Changes have been made to the Partner portal to transform the way partners interact with Dell. Refinements make it easier to navigate and requires fewer clicks to find what you want.
Industries
Dell’s Global Industries focus on verticals that offer the largest opportunity for partner growth: Healthcare-Life Sciences, Energy (Oil & Gas, Utilities), Video Surveillance and SLED (State and Local Government, Education). Dell’s differentiated solutions address industry-specific business challenges and we work with partners to develop joint campaigns. The following are a few examples of our collective momentum:
- 71 percent of all hospitals in the US are Dell customers†1
- Dell Surveillance is recognized as the #1 surveillance infrastructure globally†2
- 92 percent of the top 25 oil companies use Dell infrastructure†3
In the next year, we see a significant opportunity in helping partners build solutions in some trending areas including IoT, AR/IR and machine learning.
Titanium Black Partners for 2018
And, we wouldn’t be unstoppable without the support of top partners. As you know, Titanium Black is an exclusive status that only a handful of partners have achieved. These partners are focusing on growth, profitability and selling multiple lines of business. Titanium Black partners are reaping the benefits of their hard work, determination and success. We thank our current Titanium Black partners and look forward to adding a few new names at the end of the month.
With Appreciation & Excitement for What is Ahead
I want to extend a heartfelt and grateful thank you to all our partners for your drive and commitment to Dell. This year is going to be extraordinary!
We look forward to seeing many of you at the Global Partner Summit, part of Dell Technologies World, in Las Vegas, April 30 – May 3. To learn more and register, please visit: https://www.delltechnologiesworld.com/global-partner-summit.htm
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Forward Looking Statements: Statements in this material that relate to future results and events are forward-looking statements and are based on Dell Technologies’ current expectations. In some cases, you can identify these statements by such forward-looking words as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “confidence,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “should,” “will” and “would,” or similar expressions. Actual results and events in future periods may differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements because of a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors, including those discussed in Dell Technologies’ periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Dell Technologies assumes no obligation to update its forward-looking statements.
**References to Dell Technologies’ Global Channels $43 billion organization include the VMware channel organization. All other references to Dell Technologies’ Global Channels exclude VMware channel metrics.
Running General Disclaimer: Figures cited represent year-to-date orders-based reporting as of Dell Technologies Inc.’s third fiscal quarter of the 2018 fiscal year.
†1 HiMSS Analytics, US Hospitals Custom Report for Dell, November, 2017
†2 IHS Markit Technology Report for Enterprise & IP Storage used For Video Surveillance by Josh Woodhouse, Senior Analyst, October, 2017, josh.woodhouse@ihsmarkit.com
†3 Dell 2018 global industries oil & gas competitive analysis
