CRN Exclusive: Dell EMC President Haas On The 'Massive' Impact From New Storage Rebates And The Best Partner Program In The Industry 'Bar None'

Haas On The New Dell EMC Partner Program

Dell EMC President and Chief Commercial Officer Marius Haas, one of the driving forces behind the growth in the enterprise giant's channel business, spoke with CRN about the company's new incentive packed partner program, including the big opportunity in storage and hyper-converged servers.

The new channel program, which launched today, more than doubles the storage incentive rebates compared with the legacy EMC program. Dell EMC, in fact, has said it is pumping $150 million into incentives during its upcoming fiscal year with an emphasis on boosting back-end rebates for legacy EMC partners.

"Partners were complaining about – the erosion of the (EMC) program – both front end and back end," said Haas. "We have addressed those. We have got significant incremental funding that we have put into that equation. I have no doubt that is going to have a massive impact. "

The new program was created with an eye towards creating the most profitable channel program in the industry, said Haas. "We had an opportunity here to really look at not just what was best practices from our program of the individual entities – both EMC and Dell – but also took a step back in making sure we that we understood what were best practices overall in the industry. Obviously we had the luxury and the opportunity to relaunch our program and are excited about where we are and what we are doing and truly believe that we are creating the industry leading channel partner program – bar none."

Where do you think you are going to see the biggest channel share gains based on the new program - storage, hyperconverged, rack servers?

There is an extremely compelling reason to go pursue every one of these lines of business. I think there is going to be a massive ramp in storage. (Dell EMC Global Channel Chief) John (Byrne) has gone and fought tooth and nail to make sure that every element of the storage program is extremely competitive and exciting for our partners.

Partners were complaining about – the erosion of the (EMC) program – both front end and back end. We have addressed those. We have got significant incremental funding that we have put into that equation. I have no doubt that is going to have a massive impact.

How much money can partners make selling hyper-converged and servers, storage and networking together?

The broader focus is for the partner community to go drive more hyper-converged solutions – selling server, storage, networking combinations- all with the intent to be able to provide a more holistic architecture to customers. There is tier envy (with this new unified channel program). The more business you do the more lucrative the program is. And we have not really touched or talked about Titanium Black and purposefully so. You can only imagine that if you sell a broad set of portfolio at scale that might be one of the criteria that would put you in that category which is a very, very small select group.

What kind of reaction have you seen from partners with regard to the program?

We have seen the responsiveness of partners at every tier. They are saying: 'This is more than we expected. Thanks for the predictability.' They are motivated. They are excited. They are thinking creatively about how do they quickly expand their footprint of the Dell EMC ecosystem and that includes inorganic investments (in mergers and acquisitions) to get to the highest tiers as quickly as possible.

The feedback we have received is: this is exactly and more that what we have hoped for. I am very bullish about where we are going and very bullish about what John Byrne and the team have done. We will continue to listen and we will continue to evolve.

How does it feel to finally launch the new program after more than a year of planning?

This is an exciting time for all of us. Clearly this is the next chapter in what we hope to be the best channel program in the industry. We had an opportunity here to really look at not just what was best practices from our program of the individual entities – both EMC and Dell – but also took a step back in making sure we that we understood what were best practices overall in the industry. Obviously we had the luxury and the opportunity to relaunch our program and are excited about where we are and what we are doing and truly believe that we are creating the industry leading channel partner program – bar none.

What does this mean for Dell EMC channel partners?

This is a giant leap forward in what is an extremely compelling opportunity for all of us together.

I am pretty certain that this will establish Dell EMC as the premier partner for the channel. The opportunity is clearly there for us. As John communicates every time he is on stage, this is an extraordinary opportunity. We want to make sure all of us are motivated together to go drive it.

How are you getting partners to sell the full portfolio?

When you have the portfolio we have and the leadership position that we have across all of the areas of the business and you have a partner community that would like the opportunity to sell the full solution we wanted to make sure that we had a predictable engagement model cuts across that full solution especially around the data center side of the house.

It enables them to make investments across the board not just in certain lines of business. It enables them to focus on an aggregate solutions selling model which is what a customer is expecting and it really enables then to have a very, very strong alignment with how we go to market – protecting their investments when they do build those solutions.

When you start to align all of the interests and the engagement model that is the best way to serve our collective customers so that we can come together as one collective team. We think that it is a win win combination.

What is the compensation on the hyper-converged opportunity?

The hyper-converged ecosystem fits within the storage rebate program. So there are clear incentives to go drive that aggressively.

Will there be an incentive to drive more VxRail versus Nutanix?

We are seeing both offerings grow at multiples of the market with us today. We are very far ahead of any kind of revenue synergy plan that we had with VxRail. We are very excited about how both those solutions are positioned in the market. If you think about it VxRail today is number one, Nutanix is number two- our XC Series. So if you have got solutions for your customers that are number one and number two in the market I think we are very, very well positioned. And again growing at multiples of the market.

So for both VX Rail and Dell EMC Nutanix you get the same high growth rebates?

Yes.