Dell A/NZ channels and alliances general manager, Geoff Wright
As part of its new go-to-market strategy, Dell has “reactivated” its agreement with Avnet Australia. As per the deal, Avnet Australia will distribute Dell’s entire enterprise portfolio range.
As a result of the partnership, Dell and Avnet have already signed a number of contracts with customers, of which one is a “large, multimillion-dollar” opportunity with a partner.
“If it wasn’t for Avnet, we would have not got that business and we’ve now jointly created a strong build around it,” Dell A/NZ channel and alliance manager, Geoff Wright, said.
The move follows its recent resign of Hills as a distributor.
This partnership does not affect its relationship with its three other distributors in Australia – Hills, Ingram Micro, and Dicker Data.
“Dell is growing its channel focus with speed. What has been the situation is, within those distributors we have had different levels of focus in different product portfolios. As an end-to-end vendor, Dell has a number of business units and portfolios going through each of these distributors,” Wright, said.
“With the growth that we’ve been facing over the last 12 months, we need to expand within those four distributors their coverage of those portfolios to better deal with the demand that we have. And that’s what we’ve been doing in terms of improving our routes to market.”
Wright told ARN the company will remain very focused on its go-to-market strategy with all four distributors even though it is changing the way it does business.
He mentioned that the relationship between both companies was enhanced as a result of Avnet’s service-level model around enterprise products that contributes to where Dell’s going. It also provides its partners with a much deeper enterprise experience in expanding their focus into a wider range of the company’s products.
“We’re not reducing any of our focus with our distributor partners – with each of them, we’re enhancing how we work and we’re only looking to strengthen our distribution focus as we move forward. We will be reviewing our product lines with the purpose of expanding our product line with each of our distributors.”
According to Wright, this will give channel partners more choice and lets distributors provide more services to partners.
Wright also said Dell’s acquisition of EMC will not put Avnet and Ingram Micro head-to-head in their go-to-market offerings.
“We’re strengthening our go-to-market for partners. Both Avnet and Ingram Micro have got very solid strategies – they both have key benefits to where they’re focusing their sales people and efforts. I actually think they complement each other.
“The portfolios aren’t head-to-head because Avnet is focused on the enterprise side while Ingram Micro has a focus on the clients’ side of products, so it’s a complementary nature of the two distributors together. It really works well,” he added.
