Partners, you roared through the first half of the year – shattering expectations, raising the bar, and winning on a whole new level and at a whole new pace. In Q2, you drove 22% channel revenue growth Y/Y and a trifecta of share gains in storage[i], servers[ii] and PCs[iii]. In the first half of the year, you brought in over 30,000 new customers. For all of this, we thank you.
While the wind is at our backs, we know we still have much more work to do. We’re continuing to listen to your feedback and every day we’re striving to further deliver on our promise of Simple. Predictable. Profitable.™ Recently we introduced a number of updates that are designed to make it easier for you to deliver remarkable results for your customers. Partners can watch the full broadcast replay here, and below we’ve highlighted a few of the key announcements.
Expanded Partner Preferred Program
In August we launched the Partner Preferred Program in the enterprise segment. Now we’re extending this program into approximately 20,000 commercial whitespace accounts where we’ve identified tremendous upside. We want you to take the lead in these accounts, hunt for new business and show these customers the power of Dell Technologies.
To enable your success in these applicable accounts, we are offering more competitive pricing, investing in a compensation true-up for the Dell sales teams and offering partners formal protection via our new partner of record designation. This program is designed to provide predictability of engagement and greater opportunities for you to win new business. You can find more information on our Partner Preferred Program here.
DP4400 Accelerate Channel Program
Another way we’re driving storage and data protection with partners is through the DP4400 Accelerate Channel Program. You’ve been asking for higher front-end margins and enablement techniques for a long time, and we’re excited to be delivering on your requests.
In order to aggressively take the DP4400 to market, we have added additional coverage with dedicated Data Protection Solutions sales and presales ambassadors. We’re offering training activities, including funded seed units for targeted partners to help drive demos, enablement, and ultimately, pipeline, plus a new DP4400 Virtual Instructor-led course that counts towards program compliance
Storage, Converged & Hyper Converged Revenue Tier Multipliers
We have extraordinary momentum in the storage, data protection, converged and hyperconverged markets, and we’re not letting up . In Q3 and Q4, Partners will earn a 3X multiplier towards Partner Program Revenue Tier Attainment for selling storage and data protection, and a 1.5X multiplier for Converged Infrastructure or Hyper Converged Infrastructure solutions. Continue to leverage your Benefits & Requirements document for more details.
Dell Technologies Advantage for Partners
First introduced at Global Partner Summit, the Dell Technologies Advantage for Partners will fast-track your ability to deliver transformational solutions across the full Dell Technologies family of brands.
We’re about to kick off the pilot phase, where select partners will help us test new agreements, resources and processes. Next year we will release this to an expanded set of partners, and in FY21, we plan to be fully operational.
Clearly this framework is a multi-year plan, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait to sell the full Dell Technologies portfolio. We are already selling integrated solutions like VxRail, VxRack, Ready Stack and Pivotal Ready Architecture; and we’re enabling select partners to earn VMware rebates while purchasing VMware licenses through Dell. We’ve also aligned sales rep incentives across Dell and VMware to better your field engagement experience around DPS and VXrail. We’ve enabled MDF usage across the family of brands; and we are well on our way to delivering on our new Dell Technologies certification badges.
Last week we introduced our first co-skilled partner badges, bringing together Dell Proven Professional and VMware Certified Professional certifications. Today these badges are for individual Administration and Design capabilities across converged and hybrid cloud, and in the future we will launch services implementation and deployment badges across the portfolio.
If you’re one of the 10,000 partners that are enrolled in both the Dell Proven Professional and VMware Certified Professional training programs, contact your account team to determine your qualification for these new badges. Wear your badge with pride!
President’s Circle Leaderboard
The Dell President’s Circle Leaderboard is now live! If you’re listed here, keep up the great work… you won’t want to miss a phenomenal trip to South Africa. If you’re not yet listed here, it’s not too late. Concentrate on storage, services and growth to secure your spot between now and February.
A Fierce Second Half
In the Dell Partner Program our mission is to be the best, in the eyes of our partners. Today we’re one step closer to that goal, but we are not done yet! All of these initiatives – plus our announcements around new tools, training and enablement, IoT and services – were built based on your feedback and guidance. Thank you for your guidance, partnership and extraordinary drive. You absolutely crushed it in the first half of the year and we are honored to work with you and earn your business every day.
Let’s seize the momentum and continue the outstanding work, together.
[i] External Storage Revenue Source: 2Q CY18 IDC External Storage data as of Sep 6
[ii] Mainstream Server Revenue Source: 2Q CY18 IDC Mainstream Server data as of Sep 5
[iii] PC Unit Source: 2Q CY18 IDC PC data as of Aug 10; starting in 2Q CY18.
