$24 billion is what IDC quotes as the size of the Indian IT market. A considerable part of this market belongs to the Channel. To ensure that this market does not remain untapped and hoping for growth for its overall commercial business, Dell has recently announced its willingness to work together with its distribution partners. This will not only result in extending coverage across Tier-II and Tier-III cities but also drive Dell’s commercial business in an even faster way.
Distribution – a fast track to success
“Since we want to grow the business and consolidate it, one of the fastest routes to achieve it is through distribution. We want to get to a higher growth trajectory and most importantly grow with distribution. That is the core objective where we see value for both Dell and distributors,” says Swarnendu Mukherjee, Director – Sales, Commercial Channel, Dell India.
With the strategy and the mechanism in place, the objective is very clear – to look at business acceleration and growth with the help of partners, more so by building on a mutual relation with the latter. “We have recently launched a mechanism by which partners can go ahead and extend warranties. We are making it even more exciting by introducing contests and rebates very specifically for distribution. The agenda is to ensure that we reach out to the right set of partners and come to them with the commitment that we are here to help them,” Swarnendu opines.
One of the biggest tasks is, however, to create awareness and in order to reach out to maximum partners possible, Dell came up with the idea of organizing roadshows in the key cities of India and meeting with partners on a one-on-one basis. Delhi being the national capital region, Dell set out to kick-start its roadshow from here, followed by other cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune.
What was happening earlier with the Dell customers was that they were acting as partners and were coming to Dell and asking for products at special prices. Dell was fulfilling orders and they had to wait. It was then that it realized while it was catering to a large customer base, Dell was not addressing a huge amount of demand which required an immediate fulfilment. Distribution in its core concept is making products easily available for customers and partners who need that.
To address this loophole, the biggest fundamental change that came into effect at Dell is to align all of Dell’s sales force to focus on the distribution sales, which means, going forward, Dell will have a set of accounts which will be given to its distributors but managed by its sales force. “We have been working with thousands of partners. We are not here to demarcate them but are opening up with everyone. We are making it inclusive, giving accounts, putting people and investments. We have the right to partner with each one of them. It is a value for them and a value for us. Earlier, Dell products were not available in 24 hours/48 hours turnaround time, meaning there were some businesses which we could not pick it up and were lost or were getting addressed by someone else. My immediate target market would be to address that market by making our products in the commercial space available to those customers. Dell will have an equal number of people in the field and in its inside team,” explains Swarnendu.
The road ahead…
The idea is to enable Dell to take a leadership position in the commercial space. Also, this part of business is all about relationships. “Talk to partners and account managers and they will tell you that businesses happen only on relationships. At the end of all of these is to ensure that we get to the target customer who basically drives the business for everybody and address their needs,” Swarnendu sums up.
A substantial amount of resource infrastructure has been invested by Dell to set up this whole sales force that will help the distribution team. Dell has a very strong connect with partners and a strong media in place in terms of its ability to reach out. With adequate people in each of the key markets, Dell is betting big on building a “give-and-take” relationship with all its partners.
samrita@varindia.com
