Dell’s ‘Creative’ New Financial Offers Help Partners Fight Coronavirus Fallout

“The new deferrals, quite honestly, are the biggest strategy to getting people back to the table to say, ‘Hey, let’s see if we can push the project forward now because we can defer payments out three to six months,” said Josh Lee, director of sales at VirtuIT Systems.

Dell Technologies is doubling down on helping channel partners and customers through the coronavirus pandemic by providing one-time cash payouts around market development funding and free training for solutions like VxRail and Unity XT, while its financial services arm is offering zero-percent interest for servers and storage as well as up to nine months of deferrals for customers.

“COVID-19 has changed the way we work, the way we interact, and the way we approach public health. But it hasn’t changed our commitment to our partners,” said Dell Technologies’ global channel chief Joyce Mullen in a blog post. “We understand that financing and cash flow liquidity play an important role in any business continuity plan. Many of our partners may need help in this area as they try to serve their customers and help their employees remain productive during this difficult time. ... We have our partners backs.”

For Platinum and Titanium channel partners, Dell will provide a one-time cash payout for up to 50 percent of current partner Market Development Fund (MDF) and Business Development Fund (BDF) balances for use towards marketing activities. Dell partners can apply for this between April 13 to June 20, 2020. Upon approval, partners will receive immediate payment up front in order to help free up cash flow and offer flexibility, said Mullen, President of Global Channel, Embedded and Edge Solutions at Dell.

[Related: Billionaire Michael Dell Takes Pay Cut ‘In Light Of’ Coronavirus]

Additionally, Dell is offering partners fee-waived Services Deployment training for its storage Unity XT, hyperconverged VxRail and data protection DP4400 infrastructure solutions from now until May 31, 2020. Mullen said this is to ensure that partners continue to build valuable capabilities with customers during this time of need.

The $92 billion Round Rock, Texas-based company is also introducing new team-based pricing options for solutions providers to make all training more affordable for partners.

Josh Lee, director of sales at VirtuIT Systems, a Nanuet, N.Y.-based Dell Technologies partner, said his company has already signed up to take advantage of the new training offerings.

“We’re taking advantage of the services deployment, $1,000 training credit and some of the cross-training discount promotions their doing with that too,” said Lee, who has many customers in the heart of the coronavirus pandemic in New York City. “So we can have several engineers get cross trained on services delivery for multiple lines of business for a very reduced rate. It’s going to help us a lot.”

Lee said VirtuIT is currently hiring engineers and was hiring before the coronavirus pandemic hit. “Our hiring of engineers hasn’t slowed down or stopped because we still need to service our managed service customers and ongoing projects,” he said. “Our business has stayed relatively steady through all of this. We’re still hiring engineering talent and we’ve got to train them. Dell is helping us with all of this.”

The company’s highly popular $8.5 billion financial arm, Dell Financial Services, is launching new offerings for partners available through May 1, 2020. Dell says each solution can be fully customized to customer needs to include deferred payment schedules and zero up-front costs to help preserve capital.

One new Dell Financial Services offering is three, six and potentially nine month deferrals for qualified credit. Lee said he is currently working with Dell and his customers to see if they quality for any of the deferrals in order to move projects forward amidst coronavirus uncertainty.

“The new deferrals, quite honestly, are the biggest strategy to getting people back to the table to say, ‘Hey, let’s see if we can push the project forward now because we can defer payments out three to six months,’” said Lee.

Other new offerings from Dell Financial Services include 24-month financing at zero-percent interest for servers and select storage products, as well as 36-month financing at 3.99-percent interest for the majority of Dell Technologies products. Dell’s financing arm is also offering as low as a six-month term and rotation lease options for select laptops, thin clients and mobile workstations.

For distributors, Dell is removing the first half fiscal year 2021 client solutions growth targets and increasing base rates to improve predictability of earnings. This is aligned with Dell’s removal of target-based programs for solution providers announced in February to simplify and improve earning predictability in the program’s rebate structure, said Mullen.

Dell also extended unspent earned MDF and BDF funding that was initially scheduled to expire between March and July, to be pushed back to July 24, 2020.

“It’s a great honor to be part of this remarkable partner community that continues to empower both large and small organizations around the world, especially in these unsettling times,” said Mullen.

VirtuIT Systems’ Lee said Dell is being creative in their new offering that will better enable partners help customers through the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’m excited that Dell is getting creative. The channel partner community is very creative in how we go-to-market, very creative in how we work with Dell and our customers. It’s great to see that coming from the other side to get creative to help us keep pushing business forward and keep moving forward during the difficult time, especially for a partner like us that’s in the middle of the New York-metro area which is the hardest hit region,” said Lee. “This is awesome to see and we’re excited about it. We’re going to start taking this out to a lot of our customers.”