'This is a seismic shift' - Dell execs on going channel-first in the mid-market

Vendor's direct sales team will work with partners to grab bigger share of mid-market business, says UK channel boss

Dell Technologies is adopting a new channel-first approach to its mid-market business in the UK, senior execs have told CRN.

Rob Tomlin, VP of the channel for UK&I, described this change in its go-to-market strategy as a "really big play" for the tech titan's UK operations, which will see the vendor's 200-strong sales teams going through the channel when selling to mid-market customers.

Though Dell has developed strong relationships with partners over its decade in the channel, there was still a concern among those resellers that cater to the mid-market that the vendor would scoop up their customers directly, Tomlin added.

"One of the key things partners tell us is that our deal registration programme is super robust - and it has to be the best in the market because of our previous life of being a direct vendor," he told CRN.

"But one of the key pieces of feedback we've had consistently from our partners is about the mid-market - which is the largest segment of customers that they would deal with.

"Most resellers will have a lot of mid-market customers and - although they know we work with them well and we do a lot of our business jointly with them - they don't always have the confidence that we won't end up selling direct to one of our joint customers.

"Although our deal registration programme is there to always protect them when they do find opportunity, their frustration with us is that we potentially could sell directly to their customers."

Tomlin believes this move will instil that confidence in partners and offers customers the "best of both worlds" with the Dell team working in conjunction with the channel to support their digital transformation needs.

John Gunnning, VP of medium business at Dell (pictured right), added that this was a significant shift regarding the vendor's go-to-market and channel strategy in the UK and bolsters Dell's goal to become the biggest vendor in the mid-market datacentre space.

"This is a seismic shift in terms of where we see our route to market and our ambition to be the biggest vendor in the mid-market datacentre space," he said.

"We feel like our business has matured and the time is right to accelerate our engagements with this channel-first approach."

The channel contributes over 50 per cent to Dell's overall revenue, with the UK business valued at over £2bn. Tomlin acknowledged that the mid-market segment was playing catch-up in comparison to other segments of the business.

"This was probably the piece of the business that was [left behind] with the channel momentum we've had for the past ten years," he noted.

The UK approach

Dell piloted this channel-first approach to the mid-market earlier this year in France and Germany and its expansion to the UK is the "second phase" of the strategy.

"We feel that this approach gives clarity to both our customers and our partners," Gunning stated.

"My organisation is split up regionally in the UK across 24 districts and my sales teams have started to develop relationships with key partners within those territories. That helps us go to market to customers and bring that regional partner consultative approach.

"Feedback from our customers in mid-market across the regions is that they prefer working with partners because of that regional consultative approach in the UK."

The execs wouldn't speculate on what kind of figures they anticipate the new go-to-market strategy might have on UK revenue but Tomlin described it as a "maturity" for Dell's channel and that the plan had been in the works prior to the pandemic breaking out.

"It's the Dell channel model maturing to the point where we feel the confidence and trust both ways that the channel partners are trained, enabled, ready and fully engaged with Dell to be able to support the joint solutions," he said.

"What partners really like about working with Dell is that we are the end to end technology provider to both partners and customers; the fact that we are all the way from the datacentre to storage, server, all the way out to the edge and the client, nobody else in the market can do that."

At last week's Dell Technologies World event, much was made of the role partners played in helping clients at the onset of the pandemic. With Brexit also around the corner in the UK, the region is facing some unique challenges for companies to navigate.

"We decided a long time ago that we have no control over macro economic climate," stated Gunning.

"Our strategy won't change; whatever happens to the market, we will still go to it with this model because it is the right thing to do."

Tomlin added "Partners are super resilient; they adjust to the market that's ahead of them and we've seen that partners have got really good at financing and selling flexible solutions. We feel confident we're in a good place."