Dell Continues Distribution Blitz, Extending Perks To Top Ingram, Synnex Partners

Dell is offering a taste of its higher-level rebates and services to all members of Ingram Micro's and Synnex's partner loyalty programs.

Solution providers involved with Synnex's Varnex or Ingram Micro's Trust X Alliance (formerly VTN) will receive a six-month trial of Dell's preferred-level partner benefits (the second of three tiers in Dell's partner loyalty program) in hopes of getting them to increase the amount of business they're doing with the Round Rock, Texas-based vendor.

At preferred Dell partners, Varnex and Trust X Alliance members will be eligible for technology and sales support, as well as a 4 percent rebate on storage and networking products, a 2 percent rebate on servers and workstations and a 1 percent rebate on optimization products.

[RELATED: Ingram Micro's Electronic Payment Bundle Anticipates Shift Of Fraud Liability]

"Partners who spend more time with us learning our solutions, understanding our suite of offerings and taking our competencies end up becoming significantly more profitable with us, and selling a lot more," said Frank Vitagliano, Dell's vice president of global partner strategy and programs.

By the end of the six-month period, partners would need to qualify for preferred status on their own to continue to receive the benefits, said Vitagliano. He has launched a full-court distribution press, delivering keynote addresses over the past three weeks at the conferences for Ingram Micro's, Synnex's and Tech Data's top partners.

The perks being offered to Tech Data's TechSelect partners also include 4 percent on select enterprise products.

"We are now partnering a lot more with distribution than we ever had," Vitagliano told hundreds of Varnex partners in Atlanta on April 28. "It's a major strategic initiative for us, and we have a lot of focus on it."

Dell has grown its distribution business by more than 50 percent over the past year, Vitagliano said, with revenue from Trust X Alliance partners up 55 percent over that year. Synnex -- which added PCs, servers, storage, networking, converged infrastructure, software and Wyse virtual desktop to its Dell portfolio in November -- is actually Dell's fastest-growing distributor by a large margin, Vitagliano said.

"This is a sign that Dell views Varnex as an entity, not just a few hundred independent resellers," Synnex CEO Kevin Murai told CRN. "There's really power in the community itself."

Synnex has a dedicated product management organization for Dell, Murai said, and also has invested heavily in training and educating its sales organization around what the vendor has to offer. In addition, Synnex has invested in up-front Dell inventory to ensure product availability, Murai said, and hopes to leverage its investment in the public sector and other key verticals to strengthen its ties with Dell.

Distribution is vital in Dell's transformation from a publicly traded company that sells directly through its own sales force to a private, channel-focused vendor, Vitagliano said. The vendor has increased the percent of its business going through the channel from 30 percent to 40 percent over the past two years, representing a $6 billion increase in revenue.

"We've got a strategy that includes partners as a major part of it, and we're committed to it," Vitagliano told the 310 members of Trust X Alliance in Orlando, Fla., on Monday.

But penetration among Ingram Micro's and Synnex's top partners remains limited. Eighty percent of Varnex members and most Trust X Alliance members either don't have a relationship with Dell or are at the bottom reseller tier of their partner program (Preferred is the middle tier and Premier is the top tier).

"This is a great opportunity for channel partners that maybe haven't had the opportunity to sell and understand all that Dell has to offer to partner at a very local level," said David Miketinac, Dell's executive director for North American distribution and strategic VARs. "I believe distribution is the future of Dell."

More than half of the Trust X Alliance members carry some Dell products today, Vitagliano said. Dell and Ingram Micro each have a team dedicated to supporting this line of business, Vitagliano said, with the 33-person unit led by Bill Waters, Ingram Micro's senior manager for field technical operations.

"There's opportunity to continue to accelerate when you have channel DNA within a company like Dell that maybe hasn't had it previously," Paul Bay, Ingram Micro's president of North American technology solutions, told CRN. "We're seeing good success with that over the last 18 months."

Ingram Micro is better situated than other distributors to incorporate Dell products into a complete multivendor business solution, Bay said. That's thanks to the distributor's capabilities across technology areas such as cloud, data center and professional services, Bay said, as well as its expertise around verticals such as public sector, health care, retail and finance.

Trust X Alliance members that grow their Dell data center business the fastest will get to join Dell at the 2016 Masters Golf Tournament, Vitagliano said. As for Synnex, Dell intends to demonstrate its commitment to that relationship by bringing in company founder and CEO Michael Dell to a keynote address at the distributor's National Conference in Greenville, S.C., in October.

Varnex partners also receive support from the vendor's dedicated field staff. The program has more than 400 members, who do a combined $1.2 billion of business each year.

Overall, Vitagliano said Dell has increased its investment in partner awards and incentives by 35 percent, which includes a program for sales representatives at solution providers to enroll and get paid for selling Dell products. Partners investing in Dell solutions and training are growing four times as fast as those who do not, Vitagliano said.

Varnex member Open Road Technologies did quite a bit of business with Dell at one time, said company president Gary Bellanti, but that dropped off since it was not as channel-friendly as other vendors.

Bellanti said he's happy to see Dell's change in demeanor, and said re-establishing a relationship with Dell at the Preferred level would be a major advantage for a small company such as Open Road. The Memphis, Tenn.-based solution provider would likely be interested in selling Dell servers, laptops and desktops, as well as its SonicWall network security products.

Trust X Alliance member Metis Corp. also is pleased to see how Dell has changed how it engages with partners, said company CEO Chris Clements. The Atlanta-based solution provider works extensively with school systems, and Clements said he believes there's a need among his customer base for additional security services.

PUBLISHED MAY 6, 2015