Dell's five big new partner incentives for 2022

Dell Technologies has officially launched its partner program for fiscal year 2023 with several new channel incentives around midrange storage, technology refreshes and client systems.

“Let me begin by saying it’s going to be a year to remember on so many levels,” said Rola Dagher, Dell’s global channel chief, in an interview with CRN US.

“With these updates, we’re helping partners grow and transform right alongside with us. Our focus and passion is to continue to unlock these massive opportunities in the US$1.3 trillion addressable market.”

Today the infrastructure and PC giant rolled out its new partner program for fiscal year 2023, which runs from February 2022 to February 2023.

“We think there’s tremendous confidence and reasons for our partners to continue to believe, to team and to bet on Dell Technologies going forward,” Cheryl Cook, Dell’s senior vice president of global partner marketing, told CRN US.

“We’re investing in areas that are mutually beneficial to our customers and partners. Our strategy is working. We keep our promises.”

Here are the five biggest new channel incentives for Dell’s fiscal year 2023 Partner Program that solution providers can take advantage of now.

5X tier accelerator for midrange storage

Dell will focus on driving midrange storage share gain in 2022 with the launch of a new five-times tier accelerator for channel partners who sell midrange storage solutions.

“When it comes to the rebates we have, the big one is the doubling down on storage—offering a five-times tier accelerator for midrange, which is awesome because that is going to help our partners,” said Dagher.

She said Dell was pushing partners to “double down” on selling Dell EMC’s PowerStore storage portfolio.

Launched in 2020, Dell’s PowerStore family of all-flash data storage appliances looks to transform traditional and modern workloads with a data-centric, intelligent and adaptable infrastructure that delivers new capabilities such as AppsOn.

“We’re making sure we continue to empower, inspire and impact our partners because we believe we have the industry’s best-practice ecosystem by our side,” said Dell’s global channel chief.

New two percent incremental rebate for acquisition and tech refresh for midrange storage

In another move to drive new midrange storage deals, Dell is giving partners a new two percent incremental rebate for customer acquisition and technology refresh opportunities.

“Tech Refresh is a program that we’ve had for some time. But with our leadership position in our install base, we’re automating our Tech Refresh management with our partners. And we’re adding the two percent potential rebate to tech refresh—that’s incremental,” said Dell’s Cook.

The two percent additional rebate kicker is for midrange storage when the transaction qualifies for the New Business Incentive, Competitive Swap or Tech Refresh incentives.

Through the first three quarters of Dell’s fiscal year 2022, storage order revenue growth via channel partners was up 6 percent year over year. Dell’s Tech Refresh partner program incentivises partners to help customers replace older infrastructure and products with the latest innovation.

Dell is the worldwide market-share leader in enterprise storage, owning 27 percent share of the global enterprise storage market in second-quarter 2021, according to data from research firm IDC.

CSG new business incentive for displays and peripherals

In a move to continue its historic client sales growth in fiscal year 2022, Dell client display and peripheral deals are now eligible for Dell’s New Business Incentive (NBI) program.

“For the client side, we’re also including displays and peripherals for NBI, which wasn’t there before. Our partners asked for that,” said Dagher.

Dell’s channel chief said the move to expand the NBI to include displays and peripherals is to support engagement across Dell’s entire portfolio and encourage cross-sell motions.

For its recent third fiscal quarter 2022, Dell’s Client Solutions Group (CSG) business generated record revenue of $16.5 billion, representing an increase of 35 percent year over year.

For Dell’s fiscal year 2023 partner program, Dagher said the company will also add better partner visibility to its NBI list on Dell’s partner portal so “partners can more clearly see the accounts that are available for them in NBI.”

Extending tech refresh to include server leads

Dell said it is simplifying its Competitive Swap and Tech Refresh processes while also extending Tech Refresh to include server leads.

“Now including server leads is huge for partners,” said Dagher.

Total server order revenue through the channel in the first three quarters of the fiscal year 2022 climbed 31 percent year over year.

“We’re going to continue to listen, adapt and be agile and innovate our programs to ensure that we can meet the velocity of their business to maintain this kind of growth that partners are experiencing while simplifying the overall experience,” said Dell’s Cook. “We keep our promises.”

In October, Dell launched five new PowerEdge servers with Intel targeting SMBs and edge computing use cases. All of the new Dell EMC PowerEdge servers are built with Intel’s Xeon or Pentium processors along with Dell’s OpenManage offerings that deliver automation and intelligent infrastructure management.

Access to VMware license resell and rebates

Dell channel partners, regardless of whether they are Gold, Platinum or Titanium partners, will now be able to resell VMware licenses and achieve rebates.

“Our Access for VMware, which provide license reseller rebates, is now available to all medal-tier solution providers,” said Dagher. “It doesn’t matter which tier you are from a medal perspective, you will have access to resell, which before wasn’t the case.”

The news comes just a few months after Dell spun off its majority stake in VMware to Dell Technologies shareholders, making VMware an independent company for the first time since 2004. Dell and VMware have signed a five-year commercial agreement that aims to keep the two companies’ joint technology innovation and go-to-market strategy intact.

“We will continue to invest heavily in our partnerships because that is what we strive to do every day—to raise the bar on our partners’ experience,” said Dagher.

“Because when customers win, our partners win, and we all win because it’s Dell and partners together.”