5 Things Dell Technologies Is Focusing On In The Coming Year

Growth And Change

Dell Technologies intends to ride the recent launch of new products and consumption models through the coming year, checking off a list of specific goals. CFO Tom Sweet laid out those goals during a conference call to discuss the company's first-quarter earnings, saying Dell Technologies intends to make the most of its position as the largest privately held firm in the IT industry.

As a starting point, Dell Technologies' first-quarter earnings show the company and its broad portfolio of products and services is "uniquely positioned" to be the dominant vendor in a rapidly changing IT market, Sweet said. The company is seeing strong demand growth for all-flash technology, its Virtustream cloud service, servers, as well as high-end PCs and workstations, Sweet said.

Sweet has distilled the opportunities he says the company has in front of it into five focus areas for Dell Technologies in its 2018 fiscal year. Click through to check them out.

Accelerate Faster In Areas Where Dell Technologies Is Getting Traction

Those areas include all-flash, converged and hyper-converged infrastructure, high-end notebooks and gaming systems, Sweet said. The keys to acceleration, he said, are improved go-to-market execution, and kicked-up investments in premium products and form factors. Keeping in line with channel chief John Byrne's push to get partners to dive into selling more services, Sweet said the company is pushing higher services attach rates for commercial PCs.

The 'Compute Model Of The Future'

Dell Technologies sees great opportunities in hybrid- and multi-cloud environments, Sweet said, calling it "the compute model of the future." The company can make the most of those opportunities by closely integrating its infrastructure, management and orchestration capabilities, Sweet said, while continuing to offer flexible payment options to both customers and solution providers. "We expect customers will continue to look for flexible solutions and as-a-service models as they enable digital transformation, as well as new and more flexible consumption models to balance expenditures," Sweet said.

Become A 'One-Stop Shop'

By stitching together Dell Technologies hardware, software and services offerings, Sweet says it can become a "one-stop shop" for customers' IT needs, especially when it's being asked to help customers navigate their way through a rapidly changing IT environment. In the coming year, the company intends to "strengthen our position as the essential infrastructure provider for our customers," Sweet said.

Grow At A Premium To Market

Servers, storage and commercial PCs are especially important for Dell Technologies' growth recipe, Sweet said. Already, the server business is gaining ground, posting revenue and shipment gains in the first quarter. "We have to expand through profitable share gains, across product and solution categories," Sweet said. "We'll grow top line, but it needs to be profitable growth and make sense for the overall business."

Cost And Revenue Synergies, Integration

"We've started to see revenue synergies materialize as our integration activities continue," Sweet said, and the company intends to drive those efforts deeper as it spends the coming year refining the alignment of its sales teams and go-to-market strategies. The result will be improved velocity in the market, he said.