The story of Yamila De La Fuentethe new one Channel Sales Manager for the Southern Cone of Dell Technologies (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia), he has been in the company for thirteen years and more than a decade in other vendors (such as Oracle and Red Hat) and value-added channel partners. A little over a month ago, he took on a new challenge as Channel Sales Manager for the Southern Cone at Dell.
”There has been a reconfiguration of the structure led by Alvaro Camarena, Senior Vice President of Channel Sales for Latin America, who seeks a closer and more present presence in the countries, taking into account that they are very different in their idiosyncrasies and in the way they do things. business,” he said in the interview with ITseller.
If something stands out from his experience, it is that, within this commercial career, he has had to go through many more years and geographies of indirect approach than direct. “Although it was in the commercial areas, the approach was always indirect through channels,” says the person who today has responsibility for the “metallic” partners (that is, with Gold, Platinum and Titanium accreditations) in the Southern Cone.
–What are your expectations, challenges and objectives in this new position?
–The main objective is to take advantage of all the potential that Dell Technologies’ channel program has today, which shows an enormous differential in the market and through which the company is making a very large investment to grow the channel ecosystem. We want to give closeness and depth to the Southern Cone region, taking advantage of my deep knowledge of the territory. And we want to continue driving the growth of Dell Technologies’ business across channels. On a global scale, today the percentage of indirect sales is approximately 50%, and in Latin America we are even above that percentage, which means that the relevance of indirect business is enormous. And this increases abysmally in these latitudes: in Argentina the largest number of accounts are worked through the indirect route, while in countries where we do not have offices the business is entirely indirect.
For the executive, one of the main reasons why channels choose Dell is the breadth of the offer, which allows them to address numerous businesses of different types (from accessories to servers and storage), passing, of course, through the traditional offer. of desktop PCs and notebooks. “It is our differential and our greatest strength. Today our partners find a supplier in Dell end to end and is where they can maximize their investment. It is the only provider that can offer a comprehensive end-to-end business solution. This is precisely where the channel program also invests: in continuing to strengthen those long-term relationships with our channels.”
Three objectives of the channel program for 2024
Broadly speaking, this year Dell’s channel program aims to meet three objectives. “The first is continue to strengthen, evolve and grow with the core business, both from our channels and from Dell. From this, Dell is giving more rebuttals to certain product lines, and in acquisition programs such as NBI rewarding new logos, such as Tech Refresh and Competitive Swap. Putting greater discounts on the sale of Storage, or when services are attached ProSupport Plusor when added to the product of client the supply of peripherals. Thus, the program is strengthening the business core of products and services,” clarifies the regional executive.
“NBI: New Business Incentive is an incentive program through which Dell rewards and pays greater incentives if our channels manage to sell any of our solutions in a new account for us.”
The second objective is to generate new opportunities in emerging technologies or trends. “This year the program will focus on training on new technologies, such as GenAI, AI, data science, Edge solutions, multi-cloud and 5G, among others. The idea is that our channels identify which part of the portfolio applies to each technology in which they choose to specialize. These are new certifications that will be available for our channels this year, and in addition Dell will work on making use cases available to exploit these new technologies,” explains the executive.
The third leg has to do with improving the collaboration and the experience user of the channels, in addition to bringing the commercial teams of its ecosystem closer to the company’s own.
This collaboration relates to two very important strategies within Dell’s channel program: the first is Partner First for Storage, through which the company globally made more than 90% of its clients and potential clients eligible for Storage sales to be worked through channels. “This initiative has a lot of actions associated with it, not only within the channel program, but also within the commercial teams core to refer those opportunities to our specialist channels,” he noted.
The second initiative is Partner of Record, which seeks to protect the investment of the channels. “If a partner sells storage in a new account, and this year also extends it to servers, that account is marked as its indirect exclusive route,” explains De La Fuente. Dell cannot go directly to compete. And it is also identified as a preferred partner for that client. It goes beyond just booking a business opportunity,” he explained.
The company will also be promoting the improvement of experience user of the channels, particularly in promoting their autonomy and the self service. These improvements will occur at the platform level, so that these partners can be self-sufficient from the configuration of a solution to its purchase, and then the monitoring of accounts. “We are working on this at a global level and in each of the countries in the region,” details the Regional Channel Sales Manager.
Positioning in the region
De la Fuente assures that in Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay the distribution business is quite incipient, and they have great historical partners, as is the case of Arnaldo Castro in Uruguay,” he explained.
“If we look at the latest IDC reports, we maintain leadership in storage in all markets in my region. In relation to Servers, we have more opportunity in Argentina than in the rest of the countries,” he said. Likewise, he assured that “the PC business in all countries represents a great opportunity for our channels, and in this segment the company has launched various updates and new products with artificial intelligence solutions and applications in recent months. This aspect offers a unique positioning to partners, who can enter companies with an updated and differentiating offer for those who want to innovate and position themselves in accordance with current standards. On the other hand, he said that particularly in Chili They are committed to growing in medium-sized companies: “We know that with the coverage that partners guarantee and our portfolio with solutions and services for all types of companies, we are going to achieve it,” he emphasized.
In terms of advertisements, and on a more general level, the executive urged the channels to be aware of the DELL TECHNOLOGIES WORLD 2024which will take place from May 20 to 23, 2024 in Las Vegas.
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