Serving OEMs Through the Channel

As someone who has spent the great majority of my career working for and with the channel, I get very excited discussing how Dell Technologies Design Solutions channel partners can add value to the unique needs of our OEM customers.

We all know that no one person – however talented – can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to perform it. In the same way, irrespective of company size, I believe that we all need an ecosystem of partners to bring additional intelligence and skills to the table.

Solving challenges

Our channel partners serve as a great extension to our team, helping us design and deliver the best possible solution for you. While each partner brings different expertise, there is one commonality across the board – we always work with experts we trust, who can help us to solve challenges, speed time to market, and acquire new business for OEMs.

As a tier one infrastructure provider, we have, of course, deep knowledge of over 40 vertical industries coupled with massive supply chain and engineering expertise. However, our partners go even deeper in their vertical expertise, especially when it comes to integration. They can help us get into the nitty gritty to solve your customer challenges.

Differentiating your solution

This is particularly true today. We are seeing a major increase in complexity with the introduction and expansion of 5G, AI, remote working, the build-out of smart cities, and the sheer tsunami of connected, intelligent things. There are also new demands at a vertical level. The end result? The final mile – the last part of customization and solution development – has become increasingly important.

This is both a challenge and an opportunity. Research shows that the more complex that last 20 percent of the solution is, the greater the differentiation you as an OEM enjoy in the market. In that last critical phase, we can help get you to market faster and differentiate your solution from the competition.

Helping you grow

Working with our channel partners, we can blend our processes to help you maximize your total addressable market, meeting your needs on both a regional and global level. For example, we understand it can be difficult to juggle everything simultaneously, managing materials and throughput lead times alongside deployment.

As case in point, one of our OEM customers, who held just five percent of its total addressable market, was struggling to grow due to challenges with a recent acquisition. A channel partner was introduced to help consolidate processes and materials management globally. As a result, the customer became more competitive and agile, quickly doubling its business.

Getting your solution to market faster

In another example, one of our Fortune 500 customers needed help with custom software development as well as a simplified go-to-market and deployment process. Our channel partner not only created the custom software code, but also ensured it was optimized, tested and validated on our Dell Technologies platform.

Importantly, our partner also worked with us to help the customer scale globally and get to market quickly. This included creating an end customer procurement portal plus providing finished goods inventory, global logistics, global support and technical support. In fact, the customer was so impressed with the combined power of Dell Technologies Design Solutions and our channel partner, that the full solution was never put out to bid.

We’ve got you covered

Our channel partners work hand-in-hand with us to address unusual customer requests, streamline recertifications, build and test new proof of concepts, integrate third party components customize testing and manage shipping. In some cases, they carry the cost of inventory and serve as expert boots on the ground, supporting installation and deployment roll outs as well as providing special financing options.