Partners Bullish On Dell’s New Sales Org Led By ‘Proven Leader’ Scannell

‘We’ve been in many large enterprise joint sales opportunities where Billy has strongly encouraged the customer that a tight partner relationship increases the value of the Dell solution,’ says Data Blue CEO Stephen Ayoub.

Dell Technologies partners are bullish on Michael Dell’s strategy to unify the company’s enterprise and commercial sales organization that will be helmed by longtime Dell EMC veteran Bill Scannell.

“Billy has been a proven leader that the channel has always respected who supports customer and channel growth,” said Stephen Ayoub, CEO of Data Blue, an Atlanta, Ga.-based Dell partner, ranked No. 96 on CRN’s 2019 Solution Provider 500 list. “We’ve been in many large enterprise joint sales opportunities where Billy has strongly encouraged the customer that a tight partner relationship increases the value of the Dell solution. … He can be trusted and has always done the right thing by us.”

Ayoub has known Scannell for a decade and is hopeful the 33-year Dell executive will elevate channel sales through the new consolidated enterprise and commercial as well as channel sales organization. “Wherever the channel can increase the value to customers, he’s always been beyond supportive,” he said. “Billy’s just a proven leader that has a track record of building strong customer and partner relationships.”

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Scannell currently leads Dell’s global go-to-market organization serving enterprise customers and is responsible for driving enterprise growth globally. Effective Feb. 3, 2020, he will lead Dell Technologies’ new combined enterprise and commercial sales organization worldwide, as Chief Commercial Officer Marius Haas is set to leave the company.

Channel partners say the move to combine both the enterprise and commercial sales organization comes at a time when both markets are dealing with similar types of IT challenges.

“In this day and age, the problems are getting more and more the same between commercial and enterprise companies,” said Craig Manahan, senior practice manager for RoundTower Technologies, a Cincinnati-based top Dell and VMware partner. “There’s different scale to them obviously, but a lot of the problems are the same. In the commercial business, they typically have similar problems and less resources and staff to deal with them, so that makes it tough, but the IT problems are really similar.”

Manahan, whose solution provider ranks No. 74 on CRN’s 2019 SP500 list, said combining the enterprise and commercial sales teams will create synergies in processes.

“There’s things there that maybe you wouldn’t get with separate leadership,” Manahan said. “Obviously, the commercial business and enterprise business are different, but there’s a lot of similarities. I think it’s a good thing, I really do. Having one leader that all sales role up to allows you to drive efficiencies and processes down through the organization probably the most effective way.”

Data Blue’s Ayoub said the unified sales organization allows the $91 billion infrastructure giant the ability to simplify messaging and the product set “to make doing business with them easier.”

“It allows us to be better aligned with Dell’s go-to-market strategy. So it gives us a clear path across all customers sizes,” said Ayoub. “We can align with one Dell sales team and executive team to understand what their go-to-market strategy is so we can invest in the right resources and training to ensure we’re providing our customers with Dell’s overall strategy.”

Dell’s new combined sales organization, which has yet to have an official name, is slated to take effect Feb. 3, 2020, the end of the company’s fiscal year.

Scannell began his career as an EMC sales representative in 1986, then moved to London in 1999 to oversee EMC’s business across all of EMEA. He later managed worldwide sales for two years before being appointed executive vice president in 2007 for EMC. Under his leadership, EMC became the most successful storage organization in the world.

He was appointed president of global sales and customer operations at EMC in 2012, focusing on driving coordination and teamwork among EMC's business unit sales forces, as well as building and maintaining relationships with EMC's largest global accounts, global alliance partners and global channel partners. After Dell acquired EMC for $67 billion in 2016, he led enterprise sales for the combined entity now known as Dell Technologies.

“We have the perfect opportunity to consolidate our sales organizations under the leadership of Bill Scannell,” said Michael Dell in a statement. “Bill is an outstanding leader, known for his customer-first mindset, who will ensure the best experience for our customers and team as we make this transition."