Dell chalks out new strategy to boost sales

Dell has chalked out a new strategy which will see the company’s sales team work closer with its distributors and partners to sell solutions.

The company expects this strategy, laid out by founder and CEO Michael Dell a month ago in a meeting with senior executives and customers in the Asia Pacific region, to help it regain its leadership position in India.

Dell is also changing its go-to-market strategies to recapture the top position in India where competitor Lenovo has been on top for more than four quarters.

The new game plan involves assigning a Dell employee to liaise more closely with its distributors in tier II and smaller towns, to create awareness and sell its wares. Earlier, the products or solutions of any electronics company were given to a distributor who upon meeting the target would be given incentives. “Now, we can't just sit back and wait for the distributors to do that and we constantly oversee them,” said Ravi Bharadwaj, Executive Director at Dell India.

The company has made some internal changes to fasten growth. In the past, every sales unit used to report to the regional headquarters. Now, all sales units such as Dell Direct, PartnerDirect, and other customer business divisions will report directly to Alok Ohrie, the recently appointed President and Managing Director of Dell India. In line with that, the company has announced a Net Promoter Score initiative, which helps Dell's management gauge customer service within and among its distributors or partners. “It gives us an accurate, sustaining pulse on the customer and partner experience and is based on a question — how likely would they recommend Dell?; what is the primary reason for your score?”

This helps the company understand and take appropriate actions, added Swarnendu Mukherjee, Director-Sales, Commercial Channel, Dell India. There are other efficiencies that Dell is trying to bring in, such as same-day order fulfilment for majority of its products and warranty extension programmes.

This would enable partners and customers to get additional warranty on Dell PCs and workstations online, pay though credit, debit or net banking all of which were pain points in the past, said Mukherjee. The company, as per IDC Asia Pacific shipment data, pegs Dell at number two, behind Lenovo.

Dell has already sounded this out to about 100 partners all over the country, out of the 400 active partners who had a positive view of this change. K Murali Nair, Director, Big C Technologies, said: “Dell’s entry into distribution-led model could be a game changer.” However, other partners are still waiting and watching how all this pans out. “Strategy is fine, but it entirely depends on execution,” said a distributor who did not wish to be named.

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