Dell on Quest to integrate partners

Newly appointed global marketing boss Kathy Schneider stresses importance of keeping the best bits of subsidiaries' channel schemes

Partners of Dell and recent acquisition Quest Software will not integrate overnight, according to Dell's newly appointed global marketing boss, Kathy Schneider.

Her previous role of European executive director of channel marketing and programmes at Dell will be filled by her former right-hand man Andreas Schuetze.

Dell, which appointed newly acquired distributor Magirus in the UK in March, has a uniform integration policy regarding business buyouts, according to Schneider.

Speaking to ChannelWeb, she said: "We have a pretty standard approach on how we deal with partners once a company has been acquired. We aim to get [new] partners into our partner programmes so that ultimately we have one programme for all of our partners.

"This integration will not happen overnight, but as we aim to acquire more, we want to take the best of the programmes [of those acquired] and ensure they move those aspects over to us and maintain the same popular features.

"People are really concerned over compatibility once acquired, and they say ‘do not take stuff we like away', so we make sure we do not."

She added that it would be business as usual following Avnet's acquisition of Magirus and that there would be no immediate change in strategy, but did not comment further.

Schneider (pictured), who will now manage the marketing across EMEA, Asia-Pacific and Japan as well as the Americas, told ChannelWeb of her plans to simplify Dell's message and create more of a community with channel partners.

She said: "A priority for me is that I want to build communities within the company. We have 100,000 partners, and have done a good job of developing capable and committed partners, but if you look at the partners, we have good relationships with executive teams, but should be more integrated with the channel sales teams too.

"Another priority is simplicity. Basically, we want to be the easiest vendor to do business with, and for me, there is a lot of opportunity to simplify our marketing, for example with our portal.

"While we acquire companies and integrate their marketing into ours, there are a lot of opportunities there, but it does not mean they have to be complex."