Dell Rolls Out Beefed-Up Incentives, Plans To Hire 100 Dedicated To Working With Partners

Dell rolled out new rebates and incentives it said are aimed at making partners more profitable and growing the Dell brand, and the deal-sweeteners go hand-in-hand with the hiring of 100 new positions dedicated to working with partners.

Jim DeFoe, Dell vice president of global sales and programs, said the 100 new employees will work with partners specifically to help sell enterprise server, storage and networking solutions. They'll be helping partners do product demonstrations, providing training, and strengthening the sales process.

DeFoe said Dell is hiring the new employees across North America "as quickly as we can."

Dell said it isn't making the size of the rebates public and is sharing those details only with partners, but DeFoe told CRN Dell was doubling some rebates on storage and networking and increasing rebates on servers. DeFoe gave a brief rundown of the new programs in a blog earlier this week. Thursday, DeFoe told CRN the programs help keep Dell competitive as price competition heats up.

Related: Dell's DeFoe: Surface Pro Deal Creates Opportunities For Partners In Windows 10 Migration

"We're always going to make sure Dell is competitive in the market," DeFoe said, "by providing point of sale profitability and back-end rebates. We continue to monitor the market, and one of our areas of focus is the acquisition of new end users."

Dell has made Premier partners eligible for ProSupport rebates when they attach Dell SupportPlus Suite to commercial client and enterprise hardware deals. Eligibility is based on attach rate.

Dell PartnerDirect Premier and Preferred partners are now also eligible to join the Dell Performance and Analysis Collection Kit (DPACK) 2.0 ecosystem, which provides tools to help customers with their hardware investments.

Premier and Preferred partners are also now able to use Bid Builder, a proposal tool that provides automated, self-service proposal document creation based on a library of Dell-approved, proposal-ready content that allows partners to create "personalized" customer proposals.

The last of the new incentives is the Future Ready Storage Guarantee, an extended, 60-day return period on SC series storage solutions.

Paul Neyman, president of Houston-based Dell Premier partner Waypoint Business Solutions, told CRN the rebates and incentives range from things that definitely help Waypoint win deals to others that he's not as enthusiastic about.

For example, Waypoint's Neyman said the DPACK system "helps us win deals. It allows us to be factual with our clients and not guess at what they need." Also, Neyman called ProSupport "a great value-add" that Waypoint tries to attach to many deals. However, it's "never really a focus of conversation with clients."

Neyman said the Bid Builder system "looks cool" but Waypoint hasn't used it yet.

The Future Ready Storage Guarantee, however, is "one I am not fired up about," he said.

"No one has explained to me the mechanics of how this works," Neyman said. "How is the return done? Does Dell credit me, and I credit the client? Do I now need to hold onto my profit margin for 60 days in case there is a return? I'm very concerned how this impacts our cash flow and what our responsibilities are."

DeFoe said Dell would "protect" partners that are part of that program, and said the company would "make sure there's a profit pool for partners, and that it meets the needs of end users."

PUBLISHED SEPT. 17, 2015