Dell to Increase Partner Benefits, Programs in 2016

Written by Michael Cusanelli
October 26, 2015

With Dell World giving us a host of new solution and service announcements to think about, we thought it would be important to zero in on the company’s ongoing efforts to bolster its channel business.

With Dell World 2015 giving us a host of new solution and service announcements to think about, we thought it would be important to zero in on the company’s ongoing efforts to bolster its channel business. Luckily, Dell’s worldwide channel chief Cheryl Cook took the time to provide a report card for the company’s 2015 channel progress and to preview some of the changes resellers can expect to see in 2016. Keep reading for the biggest channel-centric announcements from this year’s show, straight from Dell’s blog.

In keeping with Dell’s ongoing goal of driving partner development, Cook emphasized that the company will continue to work on helping its partner ecosystem to be “Future-Ready.” That means the company will work to identify the right solutions for individual customers and providing ways to sell and deliver said solutions.

Among these efforts are a series of incentives, financing options and IT investments aimed at helping partners to benefit from their relationship with Dell.

Key features include:

Rebates and growth accelerators for global Premier and Preferred partners selling Dell Storage, Networking, Server, Client and Software products to new customers. Cook said this could lead to doubling the existing incentives in some situations.
North American partners will also have access to select rebates when they attach Dell ProSupport, ProSupport Plus and ProSupport Flex to qualifying hardware.
North American Premier and Preferred partners who bundle software solutions with Dell storage hardware will receive incentives on data protection software capabilities for Dell’s Data Protection and Rapid Recovery solution, with discounts for integrated appliance deals by up to 60 percent.
New Scale Ready Payment Solutions via Dell Financial Services for service providers, including Pay as You Go, Provision and Pay and Scale on Demand options.

New PartnerDirect competencies and training initiatives announced include:

New deployment services competencies: Partners in 123 countries with Certified Deployment Professionals on staff can earn new competencies to co-deliver Storage and Networking Deployment Services.
Updated software competencies for Data Protection, Identity and Access Management, Endpoint Management, Windows Management and Network Security Solutions.
Dell has also updated its cloud competency, giving partners with medium and large customers access to sales and technical training on the company’s scalable hybrid cloud solutions.
New big data and analytics solutions competencies will allow partners to pursue sales and technical training for Dell’s big data portfolio.
New Services Provider program will allow partners to only charge customers for value-as-consumed, helping them to save money.
Select distributors will be authorized to offer Dell training in 2016. Dell will partner with these distributors to authorize trainers, share course materials and enable partners to help resellers growth their respective revenue bases.
Of course, Cook said Dell will continue to invest in the overall growth of its channel partner program in 2016 following last year’s $125 million investment in the company’s PartnerDirect programs and incentives.

Stay tuned to The VAR Guy for more updates on Dell’s channel initiatives and follow Michael Cusanelli on Twitter @MCusanelliSB for additional announcements.