Dell organizes First India Partner Summit

Dell organized its first Partner Summit in Bangalore, a two-day programme (9th & 10th April, 2013) which was attended by partners pan India.

At the Summit, Dell decided to set up a Partner Advisory Council. The body consisting of key partners in Dell's network will act as an advisory committee for Dell on matters relating to business priorities, sales and India strategy. The Summit is being organized for the first time in India to boost up the morale of the partners by bringing the vendor and the partners under a one roof. This was also an attempt to interact face-to-face with the partners and garner feedback, share ideas, and discuss strategies and programmes to bolster sales and further address the enterprise customer needs. "Global Commercial Channel’s Journey in India" being the theme of the Partner Summit this year, top performers of the year were also rewarded at the summit.

Richard Lee, Global VP, GM, APAC, Global Commercial Channels, Dell, opined, "One of the key areas we focus on is partner training and we invest a lot of time and resources on partner training programmes. We are building a portfolio of trainings which would allow the partners to learn more. Another focus area is that we are strengthening the local resources for providing more direct support and would encourage channel partners to leverage on the Engineers Club, where partners can get in touch with the Dell engineers and avail immediate support."

Ajay Kaul, Director & GM, Global Commercial Channel, Dell India, said, "The channel partners is one media through whom our reach is extended. So we are looking at collaboration from the partners to bring back the value. Our focus now is the mid-market, which has a huge potential and Dell now offers the entire portfolio of products and solutions which greatly help the partners to take it to their customers."

Neelkamal Mohanty, Director, S. Kumar Computers Pvt. Ltd, shared his views, "The services and logistics offered by Dell are very good. We are buying directly from Dell and not through any distributor and this helps us earn a good margin. One the biggest advantages of being a Dell partner is that we are getting the entire bouquet of solutions from a single point of contact, whereas in other cases we have to coordinate with different vendors for different products  and solution to build a complete  whole, as per the requirement of the customers."

Nilesh Desai, Director - Key Accounts, Accutech, said, "This is the second year of GCC operations. This kind of an initiative taken up by Dell tells us that the company really cares for the partner community.  Our expectation from Dell is that it should understand our problems and what I see is that they have already anticipated our problems and has built solutions upon it. The Engineers Club is very useful and they have also announced the Advisory Council which is further going to boost up our support."

Romil Sheth, Director, Eden Infosol, asserted, "We started working with Dell since they started working with the partner community. We have ideally grown up with Dell. Today, 60 per cent of the turnover comes from Dell. They really help us in generating leads and locking customers. Dell, is, indeed a great support."

Dell is aggressively looking towards garnering efficient partners and explore newer markets. Dell’s GCC currently retains over 2000 commercial relationships in India and looks into programs and policies related to its channel covering public, large and medium-sized enterprises.