Dell Channel Chief Millard On Reorganization, New Global Channel Roles, And How AI Is Shaping Strategy

“In this case we are recognizing that GenAI is making some substantial changes to the world and to the way that we all operate … We’re making some changes to really capitalize on this over $2 trillion market opportunity,” Dell Technologies Chief Partner Officer Denise Millard told CRN on Monday.

Dell Technologies Chief Partner Officer Denise Millard has been leading the company’s partners through massive changes in how they go to market together, including around major announcements in storage, servers, GenAI – and now layoffs built around reorganizing the company for AI.

“In this case we are recognizing that GenAI is making some substantial changes to the world and to the way that we all operate,” Millard told CRN in a phone interview Monday. “I think its pretty well known that the way that people buy is changing, and this new generation of buyers are much more informed. They’re looking to do business with partners who can help them unlock the value to modern IT and AI.”

Dell Technologies announced job cuts Monday, but did not specify how many. The cuts hit sales roles as the company adjusts how it takes its leading server and storage products to market, focusing more on the channel to deliver those results.

The move also underscores founder Michael Dell’s comments at Dell Technologies World in May that organizations must re-imagine their operations around the capabilities introduced by AI.

Millard said that as part of Dell’s own restructuring announced Monday, it has created a new AI Select Team, a group of reps dedicated to enabling AI for customers around the world.

“This team is going to be global. It’s going to be focused on the largest AI organizations across the world, specific to the GPU business,” Millard said.

Additionally, the company will introduce resources aimed at helping partners who have specific strengths, deepen their competencies. Dell also hopes to drive a stickier relationship with the SMB market through the creation of a global team that delivers marketing and business management insights.

“This is about how do we become best in class with the amount of time our teams are focusing externally, versus internally on tools, systems and processes,” Millard said.

Dell cut 13,000 jobs last year, dropping its employee headcount from 133,000 to 120,000, a decline of 9.7 percent, according to the company’s annual reports. About half of those came as the company introduced a new go-to-market initiative called Partner First For Storage, in which Dell’s internal sellers are compensated more to close deals through channel partners.

The company did not disclose the number of jobs cut in this most recent round, but partners told CRN they believe this is evidence that Dell is leaning more on partners for revenue generation.

Here is what Millard had to say in the interview:

What can you tell us about what’s happening inside Dell today?

We continuously look at ways that we can improve, internally, the ways we work with partners and customers. In this case we are recognizing that GenAI is making some substantial changes to the world and to the way that we all operate.

I think it’s pretty well known that the way that people buy is changing and this new generation of buyers are much more informed. They’re looking to do business with partners who can help them unlock the value to modern IT and AI.

In order for us to do that we’re making some changes to really capitalize on this over $2 trillion market opportunity. As part of that we are, and have been, on a path to really reimagine the go-to-market teams.

We have been very focused on looking for ways to simplify our processes and streamline both the engagement for customers and partners, [as well as] for our internal organizations.

We are realigning our structure to make sure that we better serve partners and customers in the spirit of driving growth and putting us on a path to continue to propel growth for many years to come.

Can you talk broadly about how Dell is approaching this, what is guiding it?

First is that we have been on the journey to modernize the go-to-market teams.

As we have grown over the years, we have had various organizations that needed to be brought together to promote better and faster collaboration. We have different selling organizations sitting in different areas, or pockets of marketing, or pockets of services.

What we have done as part of what’s happening, starting today, is we are streamlining all of that. We are putting like-functions together. This is all in the spirit of simplifying the way we are operating internally.

The other objective as part of this is we want to free up time for Dell’s sales teams to spend more time with customers and partners, so they can have a bigger impact. This is about how do we become best in class with the amount of time our teams are focusing externally, versus internally on tools, systems and processes.

You also have upcoming announcements coming around SMB enablement and partner alignment. Can you talk about that?

You’ll see a number of announcements in terms of really thinking through our partner ecosystem and being more inclusive with the partner types.

You’re going to see us update our partner program to drive, specifically, incentives aligned to partner capabilities and their investments in competencies with Dell. So stay tuned for more on that.

We’re also going to be adding additional account executives and inside sales reps. We see a massive opportunity for us to work with our partner ecosystem to drive demand generation, to promote cross-sell and, of course, win new business in the market.

We are also creating a new AI select team. This team is going to be global. It’s going to be focused on the largest AI organizations across the world, specific to GPU business.

Then, we are also introducing a new global SMB organization where we are bringing together our marketing and intelligence teams to help drive insights around management as well as broadening our inside sales motion there.

Those are the big company changes and motions.

You mentioned there would be some partner-facing changes as well?

From a partner perspective, the one thing we are doing is we are establishing a new role called the regional partner ecosystem leader. We’re bringing the channel and alliance leaders together under one leader in each of the regions. For EMEA, Latin America, and APJ markets.

For Americas, it remains unchanged. Gregg [Senior Vice President for North American Channel Sales Gregg Ambulos] will continue to lead channels and Billy McCarthy will have responsibility for alliances. So that regional partner ecosystem leader is in all of the markets outside the US. No change in the US.

This is all in the spirit of streamlining organizational structures to really bring and drive growth. You and I have talked about the various partner types...They’re resellers. They’re integrators. They’re service providers. They’re hosters. We acknowledge that. By bringing this under one person, a Regional Partner Ecosystem leader, they will have responsibilities to see across this entire ecosystem.

So think of it as my role now, cascading across regions.

We are preserving the model inside the Americas. Outside the Americas we’ll have this new regional partner ecosystem leader. There’s a number of internal steps we’re taking to simplify the overall go to market.

With the creation of this role, it seems like Dell is focusing on more and richer channel engagement, someone who is really focused on making sure partners are getting what they can from the programs.

That’s exactly what we’re trying to do. Especially outside the US. The markets are complex. We’re taking the channel country leaders and we’re mapping them to the country managers, so the country sales leaders and the channel ecosystem leaders feel joint accountability to driving growth through and with our partner ecosystem.

What’s been the feedback from the partner panel at Dell Technologies World? You had some big news there during your session with the opening partner of record for client devices.

We heard a few different things from Dell Tech World.

First was they walked away really understanding how Dell is participating, from an AI standpoint. That we are positioned as a market leader, ahead of many organizations both in strategy and execution. I think that was demonstrated with the level of industry leaders that we had on stage, like Jensen [Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, pictured with CEO Michael Dell].

In terms of my session at Dell Tech World. I think partners felt – and will continue to feel – that we are hyper-committed to growing our business through our partners and with our partners. And we listen.

We made the changes to the program for partner of record with client devices. We have Partner First For Storage. We take feedback from our partners very seriously and I think we demonstrated that.

Then, the third part that we heard from partners is that they liked that we’re not standing still. We continue to hear great things about our partner program and the way in which we are engaging with partners. We also recognize that we’re going to need to continue to evolve our program and how we are investing and developing solutions with our partners, and we talked a lot about that through my segment.

There was general excitement for the possibilities. Now it is all about how do we make it real with our partner community the rest of this year.