As enterprises in India embark on their digital transformation journeys, Dell EMC ensures that their customers find the right digital partner to help them evolve with the changing technology landscape. To evolve digitally, we believe that it is crucial for enterprises to focus on not just digital transformation, but also on security transformation, IT transformation and workforce transformation. They strongly believe that innovation is the core of progress, and this holds true not just for products and services.It is also crucial to ensure there is innovation in relationship with partners. This is because partner community has played a very important role in helping Dell EMC grow and meet the needs of the customers. Anil Sethi, Vice President, Channels, Dell EMC India, talks more on his upcoming business and channel plans with DT.
DT: What have been the crucial milestones of your company during year 2017?
Mr. Anil Sethi: This year has been historic for us in more ways than one. At the end of a successful year as a combined entity, Dell EMC has emerged as a holistic solutions provider empowering Indian enterprises to embrace change and transform their IT infrastructure. Dell EMC leads in the technology of today – servers, storage, PCs, virtualization and security – and tomorrow – cloud infrastructure, CI and HCI, PaaS, VR/AR, etc. One of the key highlights of this year has also been the unified Dell EMC partner program. The company now has a consolidated and holistic partner program with more than 4000 registered partners in India, which has strengthened the go to market strategy thereby leaving a positive mark in the partner community. The program has been created from ground up based on a strong feedback mechanism, differentiating it in various ways. Another important milestone has been the continued momentum gathered from India R&D which plays a key role for Dell EMC globally. India’s R&D team stands tall contributing to the overall server systems management software with the ground up engineering of 14G servers touching three key tenets of scalability, intelligent automation and integrated security.
DT: How do you contribute for digital transformation journey of any organisation?
Mr. Anil Sethi: According to Ravi Shankar Prasad, there is currently a 2-4 trillion dollar opportunity in India driven by digital transformation. Indian enterprises have sensed the need to transform digitally and while transformation is not pervasive, it is critical for organizations to follow the leaders and adopt practices that can enable them to ride the wave of the fourth Industrial Revolution. This is a great opportunity for companies like Dell EMC to capitalize on this and help businesses transform. The transformation needs to happen in businesses across the three key pillars: IT, Workforce and Security transformation. Dell EMC is uniquely positioned to address numerous technology touch points for organizations and governments looking to modernize their IT infrastructure, from end point devices to the data center to cloud and with a strong focus on security.
DT: How do you see adoption of Dell EMC solutions by Indian companies?
Mr. Anil Sethi: Presently, Dell EMC leads in the technology of today – servers, storage, PCs, virtualization and security – and tomorrow – cloud infrastructure, CI and HCI, PaaS, VR/AR, etc. According to IDC in Q1 2017, Dell EMC is #1 in the India storage market with 43.4% market share (by revenue). We are also at 2nd position in the India mainstream server market (by revenue) with a market share of 26.5. With Indian digital economy to touch $1 trillion in the next 5-7 years, we will continue providing holistic solutions to our partners and customers, as one strong entity, allowing the customer more choice and flexibility without being tied to a single vendor.
DT: How do you sell your solution in Indian market? Kindly share your distribution model.
Mr. Anil Sethi: In 2017, channel has been the key focus for Dell EMC. The unified channel partner program is best in class in the industry. This program has been very aggressive and covers every single product and types of market in India, allowing cross selling across enterprise and commercial. The program also includes incentives for new businesses. The main objective of the integrated channel program is to increase reach as well as improve partner profitability. The new partner program is based on three tenets – Simple, Predictable and Profitable. The erstwhile Dell program was profitable in terms of backend rebates which have now been included as a part of the new program, hence making the program profitable. The legacy EMC system was based on a half yearly target system as compared to a quarterly audit on the Dell side, which has now been incorporated into the program. This makes the program predictable. The earlier EMC program also had a strong training program which has again become a key aspect of this program. There is now a single deal registration system for all partners, thereby ensuring simplicity. The partners now get access to the world’s best portfolio - end to end. All the way from desktops, notebooks, servers and all of EMC’s storage portfolio.
