New Dell Technologies Partner Program: 7 Things You Need To Know

Here are seven things all Dell EMC channel partners need to know about now becoming a member of the groundbreaking Dell Technologies Partner Program.

Welcome To The New Dell Technologies Partner Program

It’s a new day for Dell EMC channel partners as the company launches its bullish Dell Technologies Partner Program, ending the two-year-old Dell EMC Partner Program effective immediately. After more than a year of strategically building a program to allow partners to truly leverage the full breadth of the Dell Technologies family of businesses, the channel can now more seamlessly sell, get certified and trained, and procure solutions across Boomi, Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware.

“It’s really just an expression of the maturity, evolution and the journey we’ve been on as a company,” said Cheryl Cook, senior vice president of Global Partner Marketing for Dell EMC in an interview with CRN. “Now is the time for partners to really lean in and embrace Dell Technologies.”

Dell’s $67 billion acquisition of EMC and majority stake in VMware in 2016 changed the IT landscape forever. The Round Rock, Texas-based infrastructure giant is now striving to change its channel go-to-market strategy with the launch of the Dell Technologies Partner Program. Here are seven things Dell EMC partners need to know about the new program launched at Dell’s Global Partner Summit on Monday.

Cross Selling Tiering, Availability Benefits

A significant benefit for partners in the new program is the ability to purchase and sell any product throughout the Dell Technologies family of business while at the same time having it count toward their tier status and tier revenue requirements inside the Dell Technologies Partner Program.

“Partners will be able to have access to our strategically aligned businesses solutions and offerings through the Dell Technologies Partner Program. Any of those solutions purchased through the Dell Technologies program, that revenue will count toward their tier status and tier revenue requirements,” said Cook (pictured). “A lot of VMware is sourced and purchased through Dell Technologies today, for example. So that will expand to Pivotal solutions, SecureWorks, [etc.] and other new solutions will be available. It’s really just simplifying the whole opportunity for partners to embrace and participate in the breadth of portfolio and solutions.”

Individual Partner Programs Remain

In order to not disrupt business for all partners across Dell Technologies, each individual company will keep and maintain its existing partner program. “VMware will still have their partner program. So will Pivotal and Boomi and other strategically aligned companies,” said Cook. “This right now is really evolving the Dell EMC partner program to Dell Technologies.” The Dell EMC Partner Program is officially over, with enrolled Dell EMC partners automatically becoming part of the Dell Technologies Partner Program.

No Change To Dell EMC Partner Tiering

Cook said current Dell EMC partners will retain their same tiering level inside the new Dell Technologies Partner Program. “All of the requirements and benefits of the program remain the same,” she said.

New Dell Technologies Cloud Platform Badge

As part of the new program and revamped cloud push displayed at Dell Technologies Word 2019 this week, Dell launched a new Dell Technologies Cloud solution badge. The badge is based around the company’s new Dell Technologies Cloud Platforms and Cloud Data Center-as-a-Service offerings. A new competency will be composed of the Dell Technologies Cloud Platform Badge and a few other certifications, including Service Delivery Competency on VxRail. Full cloud competency certification requirements will be announced later this year.

Dell’s new on-premise cloud platforms are built on the company’s flagship hyper-converged infrastructure, VXRail, as well as VMware Cloud Foundation, which is VMware’s hybrid cloud solution that provides integrated cloud infrastructure and cloud management services to run applications in both private and public environments. The new consumption-based Cloud Data Center-as-a-Service offering is for VMware Cloud on Dell EMC infrastructure fully managed by Dell Technologies.

Training And Enablement Protection

In a move to cut technical training redundancy and save the channel money and time, partners who achieve training and certifications in a certain technology will not need to repeat it in the Dell Technologies Partner Program. For example, if a Pivotal partner is certified on Pivotal Ready Architecture or Kubernetes, they do not need to spend the time and money to get recertified around the technology inside the new Dell Technologies program.

“We’re go to enable and allow partners that take training and certifications in other solutions like VMware, we’ll recognize that within our program such that as it protects their investment in training. There’s no duplicate or redundant training required,” said Cook. “It’s all aimed to enable them across the breadth of the portfolio and breadth of solutions.”

Simplified Engagement

One of the biggest missions in the Dell Technologies Partner Program is to provide simplified engagement for partners to cross-sell and procure products across the different business. New joint account planning and team agreements are now available for partners to leverage. Cook said Dell is also helping to bring simplified engagement to life through new joint solutions such as the new Dell Technologies Cloud.

“So the Dell Technologies Cloud is VxRail technology which will come to market with VMware and Pivotal PSK (Pivotal Container Service) that alone simplifies through all the work and collaborative engineering that these strategically businesses are doing, but also the way which we’re bringing integrative offerings to market. That’s going to give partners access to the breadth of the technologies,” said Cook. “So we are better together in the solutions that are being brought to market as well as from a partnering perspective. They can now team and align with our sales force through teaming agreements and joint account planning on really realizing the maximum opportunity.”

Evolving The Dell Technologies Advantage Framework

The new partner program is the outcome from the company’s Dell Technologies Advantage framework vision, first unveiled at Dell Technologies World in 2018. Cook said over the past few months working on the framework alongside partners, the company decided to evolve the strategy for several reasons.

“A lot has changed in the last year. The company went public as Dell Technologies. This is really simplifying that [framework]. So bringing the vision of the advantage of the strategically aligned businesses together but in a far simpler manner,” said Cook. “Having our [Dell EMC] partner program be in the Dell Technologies Partner Program, they get the best of both. You get the benefits of the independent strategically aligned programs, which we’ll continue to persist, but also all of the offers and solutions from the strategically aligned businesses through Dell Technologies as well. So we find it’s a much simpler way of realizing the vision we outlined before.”