Along with the other members of the executive team, I spend a great deal of time talking with our customers and partners about the future of Dell and Dell and they clearly understand the value we will bring to their businesses. They see our combined company as a more strategic IT provider, especially around the broader portfolio we can now offer and our combined scale in the marketplace. And this is consistent with what industry research firms are hearing from the customers and partners they have surveyed.
For example, recent research reports, one from the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) and another from IDC, both validate the anecdotal evidence we are hearing – that customers and partners are excited about the merger and expect to do more business with our combined company than they did previously.
Here are a few highlights from ESG:
“Dell and/or EMC storage customers—and even non-customers—are overwhelmingly bullish about the possibility of a combined Dell-EMC in terms of more traditional data storage offerings, as well as increasingly appealing converged and hyperconverged infrastructure solutions…89% of the respondents expect to maintain or increase their storage spending with the combined entity over the next 24 months and overall, two-thirds of organizations that don’t currently purchase storage systems from Dell or EMC expressed more interest in buying from the new company, with 39% classifying this increased likelihood as significant.”1
Similarly, IDC found that:
“Customers and Partners are bullish on the Dell | EMC merger, and nearly half of respondents expect to spend more with a merged Dell | EMC…Most anticipate that the merger will create value for them…and the majority of partners view the merger positively as they see opportunities to offer new services.”2
A September 2016 survey of 560 IT professionals conducted by 451 Research shows that more than 80% of survey respondents had a positive or neutral opinion of the Dell merger, and more than one-third (37%) expressed a positive or very positive sentiment. Among those respondents who already purchased from Dell and EMC, nearly half (46.3%) viewed the merger as very positive or positive. Why? According to the report, “Customers are enthusiastic about the benefits that working with a single large organization can bring in terms of having a single entity for sales and support, having access to a broad technology portfolio and overall ease of management.”
These third-party research findings confirm what we are hearing in our conversations with customers and partners. Clearly, we have enormous opportunity ahead of us. Yet, we also know that making the most of this opportunity requires us to bring the same maniacal execution to the way we sell to, service and support our customers, offering them the same — or even better — experience they expect when it comes to doing business with us. Customers say seamless support integration is critically important to them going forward. And according to the ESG survey, when asked about the most important criteria when selecting a Data Center Infrastructure Vendor; 59% of respondents said service, support and ease of implementation.
The key to a best-in-class service experience is our ability to understand customers’ IT and business challenges, coupled with our experience and expertise to execute successful customer outcomes. Our newly combined portfolios allow us to bring “better together” solutions and deliver a differentiated service experience that enables customers to get the most value from their IT investments.
While there will be no visible changes to our customers’ support experience right away,
behind the scenes our teams are working diligently to make the combined Dell Services experience seamless, effectively raising the bar on what customers’ consider to be “best in class.” Dell’s first delivery of cohesive, consistent support across both Dell and EMC products is a new service, available October 18, that embodies our commitment to that goal, ProSupport One for Data Center.
Designed specifically for joint Dell enterprise customers, this new service provides a unified, best-in-class support experience across Dell and EMC data center products. And this is just the beginning. We are committed to the continued evolution of innovative IT services that enable our customers and partners to achieve their desired outcomes.
A high-quality service experience requires a modern service portfolio, with comprehensive deployment services, transformational consulting capabilities, personalized support experiences, and proactive and predictive capabilities that leverage data-driven insights. Dell Services will bring these things together into a single, integrated portfolio, driving transformations at scale, with personalized support that is predictive, proactive and consistent across the board. Our ultimate goal is to provide a seamless and consistent engagement across all of our products, while continually evolving our best-in-class service experience. We are committed to a customer-focused approach to innovation and excellence.
For world-class companies, customers should influence their priorities and actions at every step along the journey and success should be measured based on the voice of the customer, especially customer satisfaction with support services. We heard our customers loud and clear when they said that service and support are critically important, and although they want to protect or preserve their existing service experience, they also expect consistency and a best-in-class experience across their full Dell and EMC installed environments, and we agree.
I hope you will continue to share your feedback on what’s working and what we need to do better, and I invite you to join our annual Customer Experience Day virtual celebration on October 5 when you can learn more about our customer experience approach and capabilities, and hear from our customers, leaders and team members.
1Enterprise Strategy Group, ESG Brief: Implications of Integrating the Dell and EMC Storage Portfolios, July 2016
2IDC, Customer and Partner Perspectives on the Dell-EMC Merger, doc# US41576516, July 2016
