‘This is really redefining an agentic partner experience across every stage of the engagement with our partners,’ said Millard in an interview with CRN. ‘We’re launching for the first time a modern partner platform that really integrates and connects all of the activities across the collaboration life cycle of working with Dell.’
Dell Technologies Chief Partner Officer Denise Millard said the company’s new breakthrough agentic AI partner platform is a major leap forward that transforms the partner experience with AI- driven “fully automated” deal registration and “dynamic” pricing.
“This is really redefining an agentic partner experience across every stage of the engagement with our partners,” said Millard in an interview with CRN. “We’re launching for the first time a modern partner platform that really integrates and connects all of the activities across the collaboration life cycle of working with Dell.”
The AI partner platform, which is expected to be delivered in August, may well be the first end-to-end agentic AI-driven platform delivered by one of the top channel vendors.
The AI-driven platform represents a massive investment by Dell to overhaul the partner experience, speeding up deal registration and pricing approval from hours and sometimes days to minutes.
“We want to empower our ecosystem and we’re going to be able to do that through this platform,” said Millard. “That means giving them information in real time so they don’t have to always be reaching out to Dell to get that data. It’s hard to quantify, but think about it in terms of man-hours and not having to chase information and having confidence that they’re getting the right pricing at the right time, whether that’s account-specific or deal-based pricing, whether we’re helping them get to the right solution quicker so that they can do that autonomously and engage Dell when it needs to be collaborative, or when there needs to be more of that two-way dialogue.”
The AI platform, which includes a family of AI assistants to guide partners through each stage of their partnership with Dell, is designed to eliminate the emails and other communications that have been part and parcel of the lead, deal registration and pricing process for decades.
“So before, you can think about a lot of loops that happened outside of our tools and systems through email, one-off versus everything being systematic, automated, really driving that sense of urgency around getting partners what they need in real time,” said Millard. “I think that’s going to be awesome.”
The agentic AI platform encompasses the complete Dell partner experience that starts with leads, referred to as “demand signals” aimed at predicting the likelihood and timing of customer purchases; proceeding to automated deal registration; and last but not least dynamic and transparent pricing.
Millard said the end-to-end centralized hub to interact with Dell is powered by AI at every stage of the partner experience with a focus on speeding up deal registration and pricing to give partners more time to build customer relationships and drive sales growth.
“We are really changing the deal registration experience,” said Millard. “We are moving to a fully automated response mechanism. So instead of it being maybe hours or days, we’re talking minutes. This is all about speed because we know response time needs to be faster. We know they should not have to necessarily wait for us to respond on the deal registration when they’re bringing an opportunity to Dell. That’s going to be massive.”
As for the dynamic and transparent pricing, Millard said, “It’s not a big secret that we can be quicker on pricing. So we’re going to have dynamic and transparent pricing as part of this platform. So partners will have the ability to get to the right price faster, and that will either happen through deal-based pricing that they have access to a certain thresholds, or account-specific pricing that once they’re added to the opportunity, they’ll be able to collaborate with our core sellers in real time to unlock that pricing.”
Millard also spoke with CRN about the company’s new partner incentives, a new channel program for technology advisors and systems integrators aimed at capturing a larger slice of the AI market, and Dell’s supply chain prowess, which is powering dramatic channel sales growth amid the current memory shortage. Below is more of Millard’s interview with CRN.
Dell is launching what amounts to a new modern AI-driven channel program with big investments in the partner ecosystem. What is driving those investments?
AI is really reshaping how enterprises operate, how they think about competing, and it is reshaping their business models.
We’ve always talked about our strategy and vision for being the essential infrastructure company, but never has there been a time where infrastructure is more essential to meeting and achieving customers’ business priorities.
We’re well positioned with the set of capabilities and solutions that Dell brings to the table, and we’re obviously advantaged from a supply chain [perspective]. The combination of that plus our partners’ scale and reach and capabilities is going to put us on a really strong trajectory to continue with the momentum throughout this year. [Dell partners delivered double-digit growth across every line of business in its last fiscal year ended Jan. 31].
We’re sitting on a huge opportunity that surpasses $6 trillion, and three-quarters of that is going to be delivered through partners. For us the time is now to support and enable our ecosystem around Dell’s end-to-end solutions and capabilities. That’s really the spirit of the program changes that we’re making.
It really lines up to where we see the biggest outcomes and opportunities for partners to play in the market and where we see the biggest growth. At the same time, there’s a dynamic happening with customers looking for partners who can help them navigate what’s going on in the market.
Customers are looking for fewer, more strategic partners, but I think the expectation has risen in terms of what we all bring to the table collectively. That just really sets a great stage for why we’re making the changes with the program.
For us it’s not just about making a change to the program. We’ve been on this multiyear journey to redefine the partner experience with a modern partner platform.
We’ve made a lot of investments in our go-to-market teams to support our partners. We think about this in terms of a three-legged stool: There’s the go-to-market activation and the team that supports our ecosystem—there is the partner program and then there is what we are doing to really redefine the partner experience with Dell.
The guiding principle is rewarding the outcomes customers are prioritizing where we’re best positioned to win with our partners. We are doubling down around AI adoption, our cyber-resilience portfolio and, of course, what’s happening with sovereign and private cloud. Never have those conversations been more relevant with the ecosystem.
What are the keys to the new base rebate paying partners a premium on focus products?
We will have a differentiated rebate on strategic solution areas. So we will have a core rebate and a focus rebate. That focused product rebate will be centered around Dell private cloud, Dell automation platform, cyber resilience, PowerStore, which is our leading enterprise storage infrastructure, our networking products and then some of our premium client products.
This all ties into this massive opportunity that we have with the ecosystem and the modernization conversation that our partners are leading with and bringing to customers.
What is the key to the new focus account incentive Dell is bringing to partners?
That’s focused on how do make it simpler for partners to engage where Dell wants them to play. So we’re launching what we’re calling the focus account incentive.
One of the things we hear from our partners all the time is that they want to be rewarded when they deepen an existing customer relationship. So with our robust portfolio, we’re in a unique position. It’s not just server, storage, networking and client. You can extend that to our cyber-resilience portfolio.
We may have opportunities in a customer where we’re getting the client business, but not the data center side, or we’re getting data center side, but we’re not getting backup and recovery and cyber solutions.
As part of the focus account program, we’re consolidating and bringing all of the account lists together. So NBI [New Business Incentive], acquisition and line-of-business expansion—we’re bringing that under one umbrella. We’ll call that the focus account incentive. We’re putting added rebates associated with them being able to open those new accounts or expand those lines of business. That has been an ask for a very long time [from partners]. Given that we have supply chain [capabilities], there’s never been a better time to put something like this in place.
I think it’s really going to help advantage us when we’re working with and through our partner ecosystem because they do have deep relationships across all of these customers. I’m really excited about that.
Is there a greater focus on partners bringing the full Dell portfolio in these named and underpenetrated accounts in the midst of a supply chain crisis?
That’s one of the reasons why now is a great time to launch the focus account incentive. We have the supply. We see the market shifting in Dell’s direction. Customers want resiliency in their outcomes, and they want to work with trusted partners who they know can deliver. We have a proven track record of being advantaged from a supply chain perspective. So what we’re doing is aggregating spend and thinking about it across all lines of business and marrying that up with the focus products incentive and then the focus accounts.
How are you seeing Dell’s supply chain advantage playing out in the field, leading to growth for partners?
At a high level we’re seeing scenarios where there were partner opportunities that for whatever reason had an incumbent competitor and the partner was sensitive in terms of timing, delivery or just wanting to make sure they had a little more control over when that outcome was going to get delivered so they are bringing those opportunities to Dell. So I think absolutely we’re seeing upside with that. I think that will play to our advantage as we continue here in Q2.
How long do you think this will be an advantage for Dell in the channel given the supply chain situation?
I can’t predict how long this will go on for, but I would say with our track record, especially if you think back to COVID, we manage these things very well.
We took the approach to communicate early and often with our partners, and then where we can we are working closely with them to understand demand requirements and making sure that’s getting filtered into the overall planning.
I think it does come down to overcommunication and then trying to be predictable to the extent that we can just given the market dynamics. It’s kind of going back to our core principles: being simple, predictable and profitable.
What is the key to the new co-sell program for technology advisors and systems integrators?
We talk about the large transformations going on in the market. There’s clearly an ecosystem that’s playing in this like never before. No one supplier or partner is typically delivering the full outcome. I think there’s a recognition that this is an ecosystem play.
We spend a lot of time with our advisory and systems integrators building solutions that pull through Dell infrastructure and software and offerings. And there are times, for whatever reason, we do all that work, it creates demand, but it doesn’t transact through one of those partners and may transact through a different partner because that’s the way the customer wants it to go down.
But there’s a recognition of who’s influencing the outcome and that there is a solution that we built with those partners. And so as part of the co-sell program, we’re really formalizing a structure to look at these large transformational pursuits with our advisory and systems integrators. And then when the transaction is decoupled from what’s actually sold to the customer, we will work with the advisory and systems integrators to give them recognition within our program both from a tier level and other benefits to help support that [sales] engine. Because having them as part of the tip of the spear, especially for these large transformational solutions, is incredibly important.
They are playing an increasing role, especially as it relates to AI. So I think that this is well-timed to have a co-sell program that really puts structure around the framework for how we’re working with our advisory and systems integrators.
Is this the first major systems integrator and advisory program you have brought to market?
It is one of the first times that I can think of that we’ve formalized this specific part of our program geared toward these types of partners.
Of course if they go down a traditional resale track or a cloud track, they get those benefits, but this just expands how we can start to drive opportunities with and through these types of partners and bring the right framework and governance to them, and then make sure that we jointly get rewarded for the business that we’re doing together. We’re pretty excited about it.
Are those partners growing at a faster rate than some of the resellers?
I think that advisory and systems integrators, like all partners right now, are going through their own transformation to kind of get out in front of the opportunity.
I also see these organizations working directly with our solution providers like they haven’t before. So to me they’re both growing. The market is growing. Our channel partners are growing. Our advisory and systems integrators are growing. But because this is not easy and it really does take an ecosystem with a combination of skills to deliver on these outcomes, the key is getting these teams to work together and then trying to formalize that with these partners is going to go a long way to really getting out in front of these large opportunities. That’s a big part of it and an acknowledgement that they are playing a pretty big role in helping customers make the decisions around AI, and we want to have a seat at the table with our partners to do that.
Is this a push by Dell to build the deepest partner ecosystem in the entire channel?
We’re doubling down on our ecosystem. We’re also acknowledging that the contribution from partners is shifting and evolving, just like the market is, and we needed to evolve the program to line up to that.
What is the driving force behind the new AI-driven modern partner program?
If you look back over the past couple of years, we’ve been making kind of incremental changes to the way that we work with our partners through our tools and systems. But what is different now is that this is not just an incremental improvement. This is really redefining an agentic partner experience across every stage of the engagement with our partners.
So we’re launching for the first time a modern partner platform that really integrates and connects all of the activities across the collaboration life cycle of working with Dell. … Last year was kind of early stages, but there were more than 200,000 demand signals that went out to partners.
We’ve talked about this in the past where we would share leads, or we would share tech refresh opportunities, but we weren’t leveraging all of the data points that are out there that signal that a customer is ready to purchase or thinking of going down an alternative route.
So we are giving not just leads, but these demand signals, which gives intelligence and helps partners prioritize where their sellers should be spending time. And we’re seeing really strong early results from that. It just keeps getting better. That has been really well received.
How does the new modern platform impact deal registration?
We are really changing the deal registration experience. We are moving to a fully automated response mechanism. So instead of it being maybe hours or days, we’re talking minutes. … We know [partners] should not have to necessarily wait for us to respond on the deal registration when they’re bringing an opportunity to Dell. That’s going to be massive.
When you think about the amount of deal registrations we have through our ecosystem, it’s significant, and that’s just one more thing that we’ve been able to standardize and automate and really transform that experience for partners.
How is the new program going to impact pricing and price quotes?
It’s not a big secret that we can be quicker on pricing. So we’re going to have dynamic and transparent pricing as part of this platform.
So partners will have the ability to get to the right price faster, and that will either happen through deal-based pricing that they have access to a certain thresholds or account-specific pricing that once they’re added to the opportunity they’ll be able to collaborate with our core sellers in real time to unlock that pricing.
So before, you can think about a lot of loops that happened outside of our tools and systems through email, one-off versus everything being systematic, automated, really driving that sense of urgency around getting partners what they need in real time. I think that’s going to be awesome.
We’re also going to be building out AI-powered assistance that will start to go live with this platform, whether that is AI-enabled into the quoting process for the next best action, whether it’s making recommendations based on information that the partner puts in about the customer on what is the best solution, or whether that’s post-order support, or even how we’re going to arm our PAMs [partner account managers] with intelligence that allows them to run demand gen campaigns against those demand signals with our partners. We’re really changing the entire partner experience with a whole effort around simplifying, standardizing and automating, putting us in a position that we think is really going to accelerate our business through our partners.
What are the economic benefits of partners with new AI automated deal registration and dynamic pricing?
I think the net of it is we want to empower our ecosystem and we’re going to be able to do that through this platform. That means giving them information in real time so they don’t have to always be reaching out to Dell to get that that data.
It’s hard to quantify, but think about it in terms of man-hours and not having to chase information and having confidence that they’re getting the right pricing at the right time, whether that’s account-specific or deal-based pricing, whether we’re helping them get to the right solution quicker so that they can do that autonomously and engage Dell when it needs to be collaborative, or when there needs to be more of that two-way dialogue.
When you think about the two pieces of the channel: Transactional is all about how we unlock the growth, and then transformational is where we want our teams to be collaborating heavily, and on both fronts we’re making changes through the system that are going to enable that.
We’re really excited about what this is going to do, coupled with the other changes we have made over the past couple of years: the added investment last year on our go-to-market resources, and then what we’re launching with the program, along with what’s happening in the market we feel we’re going to be in a great position. Really, there is nobody else that brings this level of scale, portfolio, supply chain and now we continue to up the game on our program and our tools.
Sometimes we see pricing being held up in distribution in the current supply chain situation. Is this going to help with that?
Everybody’s been dealing with the price changes, but this is going to give people an ability to operate much quicker, especially for transactional business. And when you reduce that time, it allows you to get the opportunity off the street quicker and that creates a win-win for all of us.
