Dell Simplifies Deal Registration

Five years ago, Dell introduced its PartnerDirect program, a deal registration program. It has been announced by the company that it will now reorganize this program, making it easier and more consistent because new products and services have been added in the last few years since the acquisition.

Quest Software and Wyse are two companies amongst many others which Dell has purchased since creating PartnerDirect, and the latter registration program has been changed many times in the attempt to integrate legacy channel programs. This developed into a situation where varying products need different minimum dollar requirements for registration.

The vice president and general manager of Dell's global commercial channel, Greg Davis, said: "We have continually brought down the registration requirements, but we've complicated it. We agree, and we'll look at that, and we'll simplify it." He made this statement whilst speaking to a collection of over 400 partners at a Global Commercial Channel Partner Summit in Austin, Texas, yesterday.

One partner at the summit, which is part of Dell World, commented on the situation as a cause for confusion amongst employees, stating: "Not only are the revenue levels different, but how you split the deal registration across servers, storage and more adds complexity."

Davis acknowledged that at Dell partner advisory council meetings in the U.S. and Paris, similar conversations with other VARs had taken place recently: "We will drive better incentives, not just in money, but in deal registration and other engagement benefits for those bringing complete solutions to bear. We have to look at a complete [deal registration examination]."

It has been noted that software-based solutions deal registrations which partners have brought to the attention of Dell need to be reassessed. Additionally, other applications which the company has purchased also need to be addressed. It is likely that a training curriculum for software may be introduced to reward partners certified in that area.

Davis added: "We're looking at a complete set of trainings around software offerings. With the acquisition of Quest and thinking through [the acquisitions] of SonicWall, Kace and SecureWorks, we'll bring those together in a set of training curriculums that our partners can get trained and certified on. Then we'll have a set of benefits that are consistent."

More fine-tuning may be required to iron out the issues of Dell's channel partners, and this fact has been agreed upon not only by Davis, but also other executives at the company. The latter also stated that the purchasing strategy of Dell will be more aggressive in the future.

Davis said: "There's a lot of different pricing models [and] ways to work with Dell. We have to bring them together [in] a consistent manner with partners. We are working with software partners to bring PartnerDirect a program that we can roll out globally." (CY) Link