For Dell's Channel Godfather Greg Davis, New Role Paves The Way To Increased Focus, 'Huge Opportunity'

In a move to separate leadership of Dell Technologies' commercial and consumer PC businesses, the company has made Greg Davis, the exec credited with building the company's channel business, president of global client solution sales.

Davis, a 15-year Dell veteran, takes the role after spending about two years as senior vice president for go-to-market integration leading up to and immediately following Dell's landmark $58 billion acquisition of EMC. In the channel, Davis is perhaps best known for his five-year stint as vice president and general manager of global commercial channels. He held that position between 2007 and 2013 and was responsible for developing and driving Dell's first channel program.

Davis' promotion to president of global client solution sales goes hand-in-hand with long-time Dell sales and marketing exec Phil Bryant's elevation to senior vice president of global consumer and small business sales.

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In their new roles, Davis and Bryant split responsibilities – between commercial and consumer – once held by David Schmoock, who was promoted earlier this year to president of North America commercial sales under President and Chief Commercial Officer Marius Haas.

Schmoock, who formerly ran Dell's end-user computing business, became North America commercial sales president in May after Bill Rodrigues, a hard-driving 18-year Dell sales veteran stepped down.

Now, Davis told CRN, he and Bryant have the ability to focus more sharply on their respective markets.

"Having my organization dedicated to commercial and enterprise speaks to the fact that over the last several years we've had consistent share growth and overall growth in our business, and continued share growth is vital to our success," Davis said. "Having the two of us really gives me the opportunity to really focus on our business customer, our large enterprise customers, public sector customers and the partners that serve them, as well as gives Phil the ability the really focus on expanding the base on the consumer side."

For partners, the result will be increased opportunities, especially as solution providers that haven't traditionally done much with PCs become more accustomed to that business.

"There's a lot of partners out there that have had a great relationship with EMC and the storage products, with VMware and others, and haven't really experienced a relationship with us on the client side," Davis said. "We see that as a huge opportunity. We think it's a great opportunity for our partners. Importantly, it speaks to our strategy. We believe customers value that single point of contact, a company that can bring end-to-end solutions to bear, and they're going to want the same thing from channel partners. We fundamentally believe that there's a great deal of customer benefit and channel partner benefit in dealing with a company like ours which can provide end-to-end solutions from the desktops all the way through the data center."

Dan Serpico, CEO of FusionStorm, a San Francisco-based solution provider that works with Dell , said making Davis head of sales for the commercial PC division bodes well for the channel, especially data center solution providers like FusionStorm that are beginning to sell PCs in response to the Round Rock, Texas, company's call to push the entire Dell Technologies portfolio.

"Greg, having been successful in building Dell's channel, I'd have to believe he recognizes partners' value as much as anybody and will drive that through his teams," Serpico said. "The success of any channel program is based on partners finding opportunities, and on the OEM recognizing the value that partners bring. Greg is the guy who drove Dell's channel at a time when Dell's model was far more direct, and their attitude about it was far more direct than today. He's a channel guy, and that's encouraging."

Until now, FusionStorm has been a data center reseller, but in recent months, the firm has broadened its portfolio to include PCs. Serpico said despite his initial skepticism, that line of business is growing.

"We've got some nice opportunities, some small, some large," Serpico said. "It's about the opportunity to add value, and we're starting to appreciate how to do that. I'm not sure I bought into it before, but I'm seeing the connection between the client and the ability to move into the data center with the same customers."