AUSTIN, TEX. – Some times Dell account reps had to drive more than 150 miles to see a customer. Starting Feb. 1, 2016 those long drives will come to an end. Dell President of North America Bill Rodriques announced a new go-to-market model for the company in three geographic areas: West, Central and East. In the past, Dell account reps were responsible for Preferred Accounts (5,000 users to 100, public and commercial), Large Institutions (also based on customer size with public, commercial and healthcare). The Federal Government segment will remain untouched.
One thing Rodriques made clear is that account reps will not be losing any of their current customers.
“People spent a majority of the time driving to the customer than seeing the customers. In some case these drives were more than 150 miles. We are going to change that starting Nov. 1,” Rodriques said.
In the new scenario a Dell account rep in healthcare would only service customers in the specific region assigned (East, Central or West).
Dell is also centering this strategy around competencies that are either state or local in education and healthcare. “We want to create industry experts in these areas,” he said.
This new model also does not involve Dell channel reps, but Rodriques added that it was more about placing the account reps in the right geographic area to work with channel partners. The Dell channel reps will be more focused on areas where Dell does not have adequate coverage.
“We backed into this and what happens is the geography is aligned to add resources for partners to get the right coverage and to serve those teams,” he said.
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For Canada, Rodriques said that 98 per cent of this new model is in place today. “We learned a lot of lessons implementing this model in Canada and applying it to the U.S., which is our largest market,” he said.
Rodriques told CDN that he plans to re-visit the model in Canada after its launched in the U.S. to see if there are any tweaks to make to it.
Dell has also created a new account team dedicated to acquiring new customers Dell currently does not do business with.
“This creates a much better opportunity with alignment of internal specialist and partners who are more local with better access to resources,” Rodriques said.
Dell has added approximately 650 new people to support this new model.
“We are planning for the long term. Clearly the strategy is partners because they will play a bigger role in what we do. We need to bake that in our investment and focus to enable the channel to grow,” he said.