>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas.
It's the Cube, covering Dell Technologies World 2018.
Brought to you by Dell EMC and its ecosystem partners.
>> Welcome back to Las Vegas, everybody.
You're watching the Cube and our continuous
coverage of Dell Technologies World.
My name is Dave Vellante and I'm
with my co-host, Stu Miniman.
Marius Hass is here, he's the President
and Chief Commercial Officer of Dell EMC.
Great to see you again.
>> Dave, great to see you and Stu, wonderful.
>> You're lookin' good.
Business is good.
The commercial business is cranking.
Particularly impressive in servers and networking
but the whole business is just really booming.
What's going on?
>> We're very pleased with the progress
that we're making and I think from,
you look at it last year and the share gain
that we'll be able to have in
all the key lines of business.
The transformation stories are real
and enabling our customers to progress
in the journeys that they're on
into a digital transformation movement
and to an IT transformation movement.
A workforce transformation security transformation.
Every one of our portfolio elements plays a role in that.
And it's resonating well.
We're doing, we're aligning our team members
to best serve our customers.
Our partner community has really stepped up
and performed really well around the globe as well.
So we see every region doing quite nicely.
>> And just to clarify for our audience,
the commercial businesses, not the top of the pyramid,
it's sort of everything else.
Maybe you could just quantify it.
>> If you think about it, take the top 3,000 accounts
around the globe, it's the top of the pyramid it's at.
So everything below that, so you take all public sector,
you take some federal, and then here in the US also,
department of defense, we've got a big customer,
NATO in Europe is an example.
All commercial accounts, and then in addition to that,
I also have the pleasure of hosting our channel program.
So we wanted to make sure we had two amazing
channel teams when we brought the company together.
We wanted to have one channel team,
one program, driving simplicity,
driving a predictable engagement model,
and obviously making it extremely profitable
for our partners.
So that was the objective and it's all
starting to come together very nicely.
>> So a channel obviously a critical component
of your business.
Maybe talk a little bit more about that.
You brought in sort of EMC's channel piece,
your channel piece.
Those things evolve, I mean, every five years
the whole channel business changes.
The Cloud changed everything.
So how have you dealt with that?
How would you describe this state of your channel business?
>> I think, let me start by, the first thing
you want to make sure that you do is
that you align every single one of your core assets,
which is inclusive of our team members
as well as our partner team members,
towards how do we best cover the total TAM.
It's a 3 1/2 billion, almost 3 1/2 trillion dollar
addressable market, large account-based,
well over 500,000 that we've got as
named accounts around the globe.
And then you can imagine all the other
small, medium businesses as well.
So first thing we did is ensure that we understood
how do we best cover those accounts
with our team members?
And then how do you best augment
with a complementary coverage model with our partners?
And then, now that you have the ability to get
more at-bats with more customers,
then how do you make sure that you present the
best possible plays or solutions
that solve their key business problems?
And being able to do all of that refining,
all of that, takes a lot of time and effort.
But once you've got those levers
and pulling them right, you just start
to see the progression and then the nice momentum
that we for example see today.
>> Marius, what are some of the key concerns
that you're hearing from the consumer clients
that you have?
Is it the digital transformation
that we heard in they keynote?
How much is that pervasive across every company these days?
>> Oh, there's no doubt, I think every customer
in every industry is going through
some transformation today.
They're choosing Dell Technologies
as a partner of choice for them.
The first question is, help me assess
where I am in that journey, and then how do I translate,
or how do I intersect that journey
with the right technology so that I can now move forward?
And many a time, it starts with the conversation
around, how do I become a digital company?
How do I transform my applications
into a native Cloud application-based model
that can reside on any OS, on any Cloud, anywhere?
You talked to Pat earlier today from VMware.
Clearly a big push for what they're doing.
That conversation is typically the first one we have.
But then very quickly it translates also into
well what other core infrastructure components
that I need in order to be able modernize it,
automate it, and then start to orchestrate
service levels so that I've got the best
optimized infrastructure to be able to deliver
those applications and those services
to my constituencies.
>> So your relationship with clients
since the integration has evolved.
I mean when you think about Dell,
the Dell brand, EMC's long-term relationships.
VMware, and then the other business,
RSA, Pivotal, Dell Financial Services.
You bring a lot to the table.
Maybe talk about how you use that as a competitive weapon.
>> I think it's the ability that we have now
to transform the business problem conversation
into here's how you solve it with technology
and here are all the components and solutions
that we have.
And we bring that together in a business
problem solving manner.
That's where, it's what we call the art of the possible.
It's truly transformed the way we have a
conversation with our customers.
And truly puts us in a position of being a
strategic partner of choice.
>> And how about the cross selling, the cohort selling.
How has that transpired?
How much of a lift is that to your business?
Maybe you could give us some color there.
>> I'll give you a little bit of a sense.
One of the things obviously we did
during the integration planning when we still had
to operate as two separate companies was,
how can we dissect all the accounts that we have?
How much of our, in every one of these accounts,
how many of our lines of business have we sold
into those accounts?
So from a planning perspective,
we were able to get ready for the cross sell enablement
as soon as we became one company.
That truly put us in a position
where once the clock started ticking
the teams went off and running.
They knew exactly which accounts to go pursue.
They knew exactly what solutions to be offering
to the customers.
And our team members came together very nicely.
We compensated them to go bring together a
single architecture strategy.
So all of those pieces were all part
of the planning cycle that once we were able
to execute, people were running
at it at a fast, fast pace.
>> So that requires some leadership.
We were sort of talking off camera
about some of the complexities
of bringing two large organizations together.
EMC for years, belly-to-belly,
those guys love account control.
You've had your organization, and you were hit
in a groove swing before the merger,
so how did you address that cultural mix?
>> Well I think what, the cultures were a
lot more similar than people expected.
I think, we've talked about this before
where we put all of our cultural traits
and asked every single one of our team members,
I think it went out to 75,000 of our team members
and said, rank these 27 cultural traits in order.
And the top five were exactly the same
and in exact same order.
From both cultures, which was impressive.
And the first thing was always about embrace the customer.
So then when we then go through and said
to our team members, okay, we're going
to align by our customers.
And then make sure that we've got an account exec,
we've got a pre-sales team, we've got a
specialty organization, that is all aligned
towards how do we best serve this customer?
And then make it a very scalable model.
All of a sudden you see that engine started clicking.
You start the team members starting to realize
that we're going to win together,
as long as we win the hearts and minds of our customers.
And that was a truly a differentiator in the process.
>> Marius, one of the themes in the keynote
this morning Michael talked about the pace of change.
I want you to address how the channel is dealing
with this pace of change.
Because I think about when conversion infrastructure
first rolled out, as Cloud over the
last 10 years has come out.
It's been challenging for some of the channel
to work their way through.
Where they add value, where they make dollars.
What are you seeing out there,
and how are you helping the channel
through their own transformation?
>> So we're kicking off our global channel summit
today, this afternoon.
Joyce Mullen is our channel chief.
She's going to have Michael on stage.
Willie Scannell and myself will be there
with her as well.
You see over 60% of what we call our metal partners,
so these are titanium and so forth,
grew well into the double-digits with us.
So these are the majority of our partners
that have understood how to embrace a
solution orientation with our full portfolio.
They're selling more lines of business,
we added and re-activated 54,000 customers
just this past year alone.
That's a big number.
And so, what they're finding is, again,
embracing the transformations,
embracing the portfolio, and becoming a lot
more relevant to the customer journey.
And we've seen nothing but success so far.
So we've been very, very happy.
>> So you have to position yourself
with a channel obviously as relevant,
and then of course at the end of the day,
they care about margin, they care
about things like deal registration.
How complicated was it to bring
those two different systems together?
And it seems like you've done it pretty quickly but.
>> We've done a good job, and we had
plenty of time to get ready for it too.
>> Dave: Yeah.
>> Now as systems go, you know that it's never perfect.
Right, so there was still opportunities
for us to improve the deal registration process.
We got well over 70% of the inquiries coming
in are getting approved right away.
And then you've still got to work long tail of the 30%.
And how do you try to do that in a frictionless manner
as quickly as possible?
We've got SLAs that we've deployed
for every one of our partners,
so they know exactly how long it'll take
to get a deal reg done, and some instances
it's automatic where they've got lined-up
business encompassing for example.
So trying to put as many rules into the process
to make sure that we have a very
efficient, effective engine.
Now we're still in the process of consolidating
all our quoting and config engines site.
I think you're familiarized with the EMC engine
was an SAP-based model, the Dell core engine is an
Oracle-based model.
Well, bringing those configurations engines
together isn't something that you do overnight.
So what can we do to mask some of
that complexity to our partners?
By giving them an SLA that truly enables them
to compete effectively across the globe.
And we get better, and better, and better at it.
To the point that our partners are feeling,
obviously able to grow, obviously be
in a position to be extremely competitive with us.
>> So I'm guessing you masked that
with people in process, right?
>> Some of that, yes, and we continue
to invest significantly in our IT infrastructure
to continue to improve that.
>> Right, right, okay so, what's going on this show?
You talked about the partner summit.
What else should we know about?
>> Well, obviously you heard Michael's keynote.
He was signaling some of the new technology
announcements that will be made tomorrow.
Jeff Clarke is going to have an amazing keynote
and he's going to launch a number of new products,
new solutions, new updates.
Basically across the whole portfolio.
Pay close attention.
>> Well, I'm glad you brought up Jeff Clarke
because he's not been shy about talking
about simplifying, I mean you've done very well
despite the fact that storage business is not
held up to expectations.
So you got some upside there.
Jeff has come in and said we're going to simplify this.
And so that could potentially add fuel to the fire
in the next 12 months.
>> And he'll certainly help for sure.
And it's all about how do we simplify?
How do we streamline?
How do we accelerate the pace of innovation?
How do we create a more consistent management
orchestration layer across all of our storage assets
is an example.
And he is marching down that path at a feverous pace.
So we're extremely excited about all of the things
that are going to really enable us in sales
and make us to present an even better portfolio
to our customers.
But, look, in the fourth quarter we grew storage.
We've seen that same momentum continuing
in the first quarter.
So we're feeling pretty bullish about where we're heading.
And we're pretty bold in our communications
to our channel partners.
Say hey, this ought to be a refuse to lose it approach.
We're number one in storage today.
Our customers have voted to have us
as part of their solution.
So, let's make sure that we embrace 'em.
Let's make sure we bring 'em the best technology possible.
>> Marius, one of the things people on the outside
often don't notice some of the big changes
that happen inside a company.
We remember back when you joined Dell,
gone through the whole privatization,
we've had this huge merger.
How is Dell different today than it was
when you joined just a few years back?
>> Can you believe it?
It's been six years ago.
I think that's when we probably first met, right?
And it's again the, the magnitude shift,
and what this portfolio can now do for our customers.
It's mind-boggling.
It's just unimaginable six years ago.
Yes, we had great technology on the client side.
We were making great strides on the compute side.
We were starting to make hay in the networking side.
Starting to progress on the storage side.
And we've just now completely changed the
industry landscape.
Where I don't have a conversation today
with a customer where there isn't an opportunity
that they want to engage with.
Not a single customer says I'm not interested
in working with Dell Technologies.
It just doesn't exist.
So I think the stat is 99% of our Fortune 500 customers
are Dell customers.
Dell Technologies' customers.
>> Well, it's hard not to bump into Dell
when you walk into an account.
I mean it's virtually impossible in
some way, shape, or form.
>> Marius: That's a good thing right?
>> That's true.
>> Yes.
>> When your customers, particularly in
the commercial area, go home, and they write up
their trip report, what are their takeaways?
What do you want them to take away from this event?
>> I'd say it's a place your bets on Dell Technologies.
That's the right partner for you.
It's going to move you and your company
into being future-ready all the time.
Michael's got the right vision of where this is going.
He's got the right technology to do it.
And we've got great team members to help you get there.
>> Marius, you look great, you got a winning spring
in your steps.
>> Love it. >> So congratulations.
I know there's a lot more to go.
You're not done yet, and we'll be watching.
So thanks so much coming--
>> There's always more to do.
Dave, Stu, awesome. >> Great to see you again.
All right, you're watching the Cube,
the leader in live tech coverage,
and we will be back, right after this short break.
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