Dell EMC Channel Chief Byrne: Partners Pushing Server Growth By Doubling Down On Cross-Selling Opportunities

Dell EMC partners have heard channel chief John Byrne's call to sell more of the massive IT conglomerate's broad portfolio loud and clear, notching growth in key business lines.

Partners were selling about 1.55 lines of business on average before Byrne rolled out the integrated Dell EMC partner program in February. "Right now, they're selling 2.4 lines of business. It's about cross-sell and revenue synergies. Our partners have the ability to be certified, trained and sell more of our portfolio."

Legacy EMC partners have been especially successful selling Dell EMC servers, and that's a direct threat to Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Byrne said.

Related: Dell EMC Channel Chief John Byrne On Cross Selling, Pushing Services And Breathing Life Into The Storage Portfolio

"If you are a heritage EMC partner who has sold a lot of servers, you may not have been selling Dell servers," Byrne said. "Our partner ecosystem now is selling more ISG [Infrastructure Solutions Group]. If you look at our channel server business and look at HPE, their Q2 number was down 7 points. Our server channel business was up 22 percent year over year."

The partner program Byrne put together shortly after Dell completed its $58 billion acquisition of data storage giant EMC about a year ago is aimed at capitalizing on the company's massive investment in R&D, and emphasizes cross-selling its portfolio of products and services with stackable rebates that could in some cases provide 20 percent payouts to solution providers.

Byrne said the plan has spurred sales in key areas, including four-socket and blade servers. "We rolled out some programs around four-sockets and blades, where our share has been less," Byrne said. "We saw our four-socket and blade partner business up by double digits also. It's nice to see a wider and richer portfolio being sold."

Dan Serpico, CEO of FusionStorm, a San Francisco-based Titanium Black Dell EMC partner, said cross-selling the Dell EMC portfolio is a natural strategy for solution providers looking to offer all-inclusive, "collaborative" solutions.

"As a Titanium Black partner, we already had big success selling the EMC and Dell lines, but we're seeing even more success with the combination because we're selling server, storage, client, networking all compatibly with one another," Serpico said. "It's a fully collaborative solution rather than just an integrated solution."

Success has come in unexpected places for FusionStorm, too, Serpico said.

"We've seen some success in client, and I hadn't really expected that," Serpico said. "I hadn't made the connection between client and data center, but we've had a couple of really sizable transactions where we're providing some real value there."

Tempe, Ariz.-based solution provider MicroAge is a longtime Dell partner, and Principal Mark McKeever said the company has gained significant traction with EMC.

"Our relationship with Dell dates back prior to the launch of their channel program a decade ago, so we’re already selling across the portfolio," McKeever said. "EMC storage is what’s relatively new to us, and we’ve had a banner year with it. There is still a lot of work ahead of us to go deeper with the opportunity."