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CRN: When did the new enterprise plan go into effect?
Scannell: We have been working on it for 12 months. We announced it internally in April.
CRN: What is the road map for handing over the accounts to channel partners?
Scannell: We are doing this right away. Partners are going to come and say, ‘I have got relationships here. I am selling here. We have registered an opportunity. Can we register the account?’
CRN: When will you move the tier two and tier one accounts to the channel?
Scannell: We’ll look at how well we do with tier three and tier four. If we can do it sooner than by the end of the year then we will.
CRN: There are also new rules of engagement. How big a deal is that?
Scannell: The ironic part is we really dusted off rules of engagement I put together over 10 years ago. The thing is: you just have to be consistent and make sure they get enforced. So what we are doing now is republishing them and saying [to our direct sales force], this is how you work with our partners. This is how you work with the channel.’ There are dos and don’ts and you need to be aware of it because if you go outside of the rules of engagement then there is going to be consequences. So it is just re-educating [the direct sales force].
We are really good at working with channel today. This is not the EMC of 15 years ago when we were a hard-charging direct [sales company]. A big chunk of our revenue in enterprise and global goes through resellers today. All of our business in the midmarket or commercial goes through partners today. If you look at the [CRN] ARC [Annual Report Card] survey, we used to be at the bottom of that ranking. Now we are at the top. We are the No. 1 company to do business with. Partners like the margins they are making on EMC. They like the EMC strategy. They like working with EMC.
We are giving partners the services. That is where they make high margins. We are just investing a lot more than any of our competitors as a result of the companies that we have acquired and the technologies that we are rolling out to the market.
This VSPEX is a huge announcement. We are basically taking the role typically the manufacturer had to do and we are saying to channel partners: ‘This is what you do best. Why don’t you guys come up with the solutions and help us roll them out.’
NEXT: Enterprise Select And VSPEX
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