"Dell is betting big on distribution in commercial space", says Bharadwaj, executive director, Dell

Dell revamped its distribution policy in commercial space to provide customers the latest and most relevant technology solutions. The distribution led business will be a significant growth driver for Dell in its commercial business. Dell partners will now be able to meet customer demands for the best-of-breed enterprise products and solutions without any wait period. This will result in extending coverage across Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities. Ravi Bharadwaj, Executive Director-Marketing, Dell India and Swarnendu Mukherjee, Director Sales, Commercial Channel, Dell India spoke to The DQ Channels about the new changes Dell underwent to focus on the commercial space

What is the new distribution policy that Dell has charted?
Ravi Bharadwaj: Eighty percent of consumer business is done through distribution. For the last six years we have been pioneer in the consumer space and it's through our distribution policy that we achieved this. And now when we intent to be the leader in the commercial space the best and the most efficient way of reaching out to customers is distribution. And now Dell is embarking into distribution in commercial space. We will have our distributors and typically it would be the partners of these distributors who would be selling to end customers.

How is the new distribution policy different than what you already had?
Swarnendu Mukherjee: On the consumer space the sales motion typically have distributors and they sell it to retailers. In a commercial business where different companies get catered to by different partners who are again solution providers. We are saying to these partners that they already have ongoing business with Dell but whenever you had a requirement you had to wait. Because they used to bill products and we used to ship them. The essence of distribution is to ensure to bridge the gap between supply and demand and crush the times of availability. So the partner today in this new form of Dell's commercial distribution would have capability to get products in no time.

What products and services will be available through your new distribution policy?
Ravi Bharadwaj: From commercial perspective we are introducing products which we have never done before. What we are doing is we are ensuring that those products are now readily available with our tier 1 distributors. Today if a customer come and say that they need a product in two days and we fail to do that then we won't be able to cater to those demands. There are multiple customers whom we have not catered to before because of our lag in distribution policy. So now we are inclined to target them. The whole point of this new policy is to get back to customers and have our policy in place so that we meet each and every customer demand in commercial space. The core of all this transition is to be at the center of how you can serve your customers.

Which customers or markets are you catering to here?
Ravi Bharadwaj: When we look at from a customer point of view there are multiple layers. One is SOHO customer who has got a small business who needs 5 to 10 systems and few servers and sometime a storage. In SMB or mid-market space the requirement will be larger. Here the SMB may decide to go with the partner on certain conveniences. And the third is the large enterprise where the requirement is very unique. Here there are certain elements which needs to be fulfilled by the partners. This is where the partner community comes into play. When the service requires networking, storage, servers then it is either the partner or the company.
While we were focused on doing most of the business directly and to some extent we were doing it through partners. First of all globally, including India the whole sales organization has been streamlined into one organization. Alok Ohrie drives the entire business including Dell, partners and distribution. All sales are now under one entity. That is one big change happened to Dell. Secondly, our accessibility to customer is much larger now than what it was before. We are opening our set of customers to these partners. So we are literally introducing our partners to our customers and asking them to service them. So it is opening new markets for partners. Thirdly, we also expect partners to bring in their customers to Dell. We are looking at more coverage from partners too.

Are you incorporating all markets and cities under this policy?
Swarnendu Mukherjee: The focus will be of course the top five cities in India and then spreading across the tier 2 and 3 cities. While we have been working very closely with customers for last couple of years and what we trying to do now is enabling partners to come and work with us. We are moving a large setup of traditional Dell customers and enabling partners to work in those account. We are investing in training to ensure that partners and the sales force learn about our products. We are also revamping our rebate program so that when partners do business with Dell they have profitable growth along with us.

Why this change in your distribution policy?
Ravi Bharadwaj: The objective of why we are doing all this is we are not only looking at growth but we are looking at faster growth by working together with the partner community. We are betting big on distribution. Grow fast and get to the level of the position of leadership in commercial space.