Dell EMC channel on edge ahead of distie rejig announcement

Cheryl Cook claims news of global distie rejig is coming this week

Dell EMC channel chief Cheryl Cook has told CRN that a global announcement about its distie rejig is coming this week, a move partners are desperate to hear about.

Dell EMC admitted to partners at Dell EMC World last October that it was over-distributed on a global basis, and just before Christmas it said its review was under way, with a request for information sent to disties by the vendor. Cheryl Cook has confirmed to CRN that news about the review on a global basis will be relayed to distributors this week, with more announcements on a local level to follow.

"We are going to be communicating [this] week to distributors, so we will begin sharing and cascading that information from a global distribution [standpoint]," she said. "There will obviously be - in the next quarter, and coming quarters - information about how that cascades around the globe and what it means in specific countries. From a global perspective, we are going to be announcing [this] week."

Brett Edgecombe, managing director of Dell EMC partner 101 Data Solutions, told CRN that he urgently needs clarity about the vendor's distie line-up.

"The biggest challenge we've got, and we can't do anything about it, is who do we buy products through?," he said. "We know that there is a mixed bag of enterprise products and volume products. What's going to happen in distribution - who is going to get the volume play? Who is going to get the enterprise products? Who will get a mix of both? And where will that all sit? We've had that movement with Avnet TS and Tech Data, so there is flux there as well."

He said he can work on his own company's distribution strategy only once Dell EMC has shown its own hand.

"We are just waiting to see what happens," he said. "A lot of time and resource will need to go in if it's mixed between several distribution partners. It's just not viable. They've got to think carefully about how they will do it because it will impact what focus a reseller has. We're not going to put our energies into five different distributors; it's not viable. You've got to have contacts and trust - it is a valuable thing. We have to really consolidate it down to one - you will lose MDF and rebates [otherwise]. You have to have a preferred distributor so we need to think carefully about who that is. But we cannot do that at the moment because we haven't had the announcements. We are ready to go. It is a little bit of a pain for now because there is a lot of work to be done."

Another Dell EMC partner, who wished to remain anonymous, told CRN that they feel the vendor has taken its time to sort out details of the new partner programme.

"Having had nine months to sort it out, we should be in a better state that this," said the source.

Speaking to CRN, Cook said that her firm has stuck rigidly to the timetable it set out for the integration.

"We are progressing nicely and everything is on track," she said. "The dates we shared and communicated are on track."

Click here for a full Q&A interview with Dell EMC's Cheryl Cook.