Dell celebrates five years of Partner Direct in EMEA and announces new partner tool

Dell today announced a new tool to further enhance Partner Direct; the Dell Online Solutions Configurator, which will give partners the resources to close deals more easily and quickly than in the past by allowing them to price complex enterprise solutions. The Online Solutions Configurator is currently being trialled in the UK and Ireland, and will be rolled out to the rest of the EMEA region in the coming months.

Dell today also announcedLaurent BinettiasGeneral Manager EMEA Channel Sales. Most recently he served as General Manager for the Dell Commercial Business in the Southern Europe Region. Laurent Binetti joined Dell in 1996 and has since held senior roles in Eastern Europe and the emerging markets. In these positions he set up regional offices across Eastern Europe, created a new management division for 26 countries including Russia, Turkey and Israel and developed an entirely channel-focused go-to-market strategy.

Laurent Binetti replaces Emmanuel Mouquet who will become General Manager of Dell France from 1^stFebruary 2013. EmmanuelMouquet has overseen sales in the PartnerDirect program since its creation and helped it growto the point where channel now accounts for 50% of sales in EMEA.

Dell will celebrate the fifth anniversary of PartnerDirect in EMEA in February 2013.In the lead up to this milestone, partners have had the opportunity to benefit from a $10 million fund to support an additional 5% discounton enterprise* deals, which was introduced as a further way for Dell to recognise and reward those partners who have invested in the program.The discount has proved extremely popular with partners since it was introduced in November.

“Our consistent focus in driving transformational strategy and building our solutions portfoliomeans we start 2013 with the most compelling and powerful offeringthat we have ever been able to provide to our partners,” comments Laurent Binetti, General Manager EMEA Channel Sales, Dell. “To support our growth strategy, we will continue to make consistent investment in both our PartnerDirect programand our innovative technology and solutions. Working closely with our partners, we have built the strongest capabilities to date, and we look forward to continuingthis close collaboration in future.”

“This will be the year of the Dell Online Solutions Configurator further easing business with Dell,” states Ahmed Mouldaia, EMEA Enterprise Sales Executive Director, Dell. “This online configurator will help our partners win in the datacentre, empowering them to become autonomous by easily configuring end-to-end Dell enterprise solutions, guided by validation rules, and accessed directly through the PartnerDirect portal. The new tool is another example of Dell responding to requests to further enable our partners. The Dell Online Solutions Configurator means our partners can collaborate online with colleagues and Dell channel sales representatives facilitating a greater level of accuracy and reducing quoting lead-time.”