Even though the Covid-19 pandemic is hitting business across the globe, Dell Technologies is laser-focused on its four key priority areas like PowerStore, remote & hybrid workforce, partners and Project APEX.
In an interaction with VARINDIA, Dell Technologies stated that in the APJ market the company’s renewed thrust on four key things is after taking into account the growth of MSMEs and startups and migration activities happening across the board.
First, PowerStore, the platform which addresses a lot of Cloud challenges and is targeted towards the mid-range market. Another priority of the company is remote and the hybrid workforce. It will be a huge opportunity for partners and they will play a crucial role to support the customers.
Third, Power for Partners. Power is a campaign on which Dell is working with its partners. The company has a set of programmes that allow Partners to go out and acquire and to cross-sell to their respective customers.
Project APEX
So it is an exciting programme where Dell is working for partners, called Power. Finally, the last priority in Project APEX, it is a new as-a-service initiative and the company is quite excited about it.
Dell Technologies Asia, Pacific and Japan (APJ) Senior Vice President and General Manager Tian Beng NG said 2020 has been a very good year for the tech industry.
In a chat with VARINDIA, Tian Beng, Tian Beng Ng, Senior Vice President & General Manager – Channels, APJ, Dell Technologies and Anil Sethi, Vice President & General Manager, Channels, Dell Technologies, India discussed at length about the financial year, trends, channel vision, Project APEX and much more.
“I am happy to say that we had very strong FY-21 results at Dell. The year’s revenue was actually $94.2 billion, which is up by 2% YoY. The Q4 revenue was $26.1 billion, up by 9% YoY. We really had record performance in many areas,” said Tian Beng NG.
He also pointed out that operating income was a new record effort by $1 billion.
“Cash flow was very strong at $11.4 billion for the full year. We delivered $52 billion through our partners globally in orders. So, you can imagine just by the business by itself, $52 billion is very significant,” said Tian Beng NG.
Tian Beng NG said Operating income was a new record effort by $1 billion. Cash flow was very strong at $11.4 billion for the full year. We delivered $52 billion through our partners globally in orders. So, you can imagine just by the business by itself, $52 billion is very significant.
Key Trends
Especially in Channel, Tian Beng NG said the company will continue to specialise around specific industries.
“The pandemic actually has brought a lot of challenges and opportunities. We have seen the growth of data and it is continuous. In fact by 2025 we estimate there will be about 163 Zettabytes of data,” said Tian Beng NG.
He also pointed out that Dell Technologies has identified six key technologies that will be key to the future and they are Cloud, Edge, AI, Machine Learning, 5G, Data Management and Security. “So these six technologies are really important for digital transformation,” said Tian Beng Ng.
Tian Beng NG said with regarding partner landscape and the trend Dell Technologies is observing is multi-cloud.
Multi-cloud strategies
“In fact, we estimate that by 2023, 70% of all enterprises will actually be deploying multi-cloud strategies. Multi-cloud means that it will be both on-premise and across different public clouds. With multi-cloud, obviously, the complexity will increase,” said Tian Beng Ng.
With this, Tian Beng Ng said the channel partners will have a huge opportunity to play here to support customers as they adopt a multi-cloud strategy.
“Secondly, Edge computing is very important, because now it is important to bring computing closer to edge to process the data faster. Now, there is not enough time to wait to move the data all the way from the edge back to the data centre,” said Tian Beng Ng.
He also pointed out that 5G will increase the bandwidth and so the industry across the board will see a lot of trends of shifting to edge.
Edge computing
“We believe that nearly 80-100% of edge computing will happen through our channel partners because to do edge computing you really need very specific types of solutions. I think our partners are in the best position to actually do that. Over the next 3-4 years we believe that edge computing has the potential to have a market growth of $120 billion,” said Tian Beng Ng.
He also highlighted the third is as-a-service and the consumption model which pave the way for the big increase in demand for business-specific outcomes.
“I think because the partners are able to understand their customers’ business better, are able to actually do that. As-a service or consumption model is not new to Dell. In fact, we have over 2,000 customers already who are currently on the as-a-service or the consumption model,” said Tian Beng Ng.
Flex on Demand
In India, Tian Beng NG said the company has recently launched Flex on Demand. “So we do have a consumption offering in the Indian market and we work through our partners,” he said.
The other big interesting thing is project APEX. “We announced it last year. Project APEX is our focus and that will be driving a lot of our offerings to as-a-service,” said Tian Beng Ng.
During the pandemic last year, he observed that there happened massive workforce transformation and everyone got to know that PC is the first choice of people now.
“The PC demand is just really surging and I think we are seeing that trend to continue. In fact, many folks are calling it the Renaissance of the PC,” he said.
Channel vision
Dell Technologies is also has come up with a channel vision of the future and is focused on it with channel partners along with three tenets of channel vision.
“No. 1 is Trust – we will ensure that we are building trust with our partners. In fact, when we designed our new partner programme, a lot of it was based on consultation with our partners, getting feedback from them,” said Tian Beng Ng.
So, the programme was on trust and Dell Technologies definitely want to continue to deepen that trust.
Next is Growth
When we think about growth, Tian Beng Ng wants to think about acquisition, acquiring new customers, cross-selling, data centre opportunities. “We do have a lot of programs in place to encourage our partners,” said Tian Beng Ng.
Finally, the next one is Change – it is something that is way more long term. “But we want to ensure that we want to work with our partners to really work on things that are more transformational. For example Digital transformation, project APEX, these are some examples of change,” said Tian Beng Ng.
PowerStore
Dell Technologies announced the launch of PowerStore because the mid-range market is really the largest opportunity.
“In fact, in APJ, mid-range market accounts for 62% of the storage market and it is about $2.2 billion, just this year,” he said.
PowerStore, the platform, addresses a lot of the cloud challenges and Dell Technologies are really excited because it is a revolutionary architecture.
“It really combines the best of the hardware with Apps-on capability. So, with this platform you can actually run your apps directly on your clients, which is really unique,” said Tian Beng Ng.
Mid-range solution
There are actually three big advantages of PowerStore, one is data-centric. So it can really pick on any workload. It is up to seven times faster, in fact it is three times more responsive than our previous mid-range solution.
Secondly, it is actually more intelligent and one can program it and easily integrate with the VMware kubernetes. It is very flexible because of the Apps-on feature.
“So with PowerStore, customers can really deploy it to meet their cloud strategy and their business needs very well. We believe that the Dell PowerStore solution will really revolutionise the cloud era and really elevate cloud strategies for companies. Partners selling PowerStore, they can earn now up to 20% of upfront margins,” said Tian Beng Ng.
(The story is based on inputs from VARINDIA)
