What Happened:
Dell Technologies has evolved from a purely direct sales company pre-2007 to operating one of the world's largest channel programs, with Senior Director Chad Dowlen overseeing North America channels after 17 years in the program. The transformation required winning over internal direct sales teams by demonstrating the force multiplier effect of partners who could scale reach to multiple end users.
The company made two pivotal strategic moves: acquiring channel-only storage company Equallogic in conjunction with launching its official partner program, and later implementing "Partner First for Storage" that directed sellers to engage partners before pursuing direct sales in the data center. The storage focus stemmed from the complexity of solutions involving software-defined, hyper-converged, and traditional architectures across on-premise and cloud environments.
Dell's channel organization maintains unusually high tenure with inside sales representatives averaging 8.5 years, compared to the typical 18-month AE turnover, with some team members celebrating 20 and 30-year anniversaries. The company manages transitions by providing runway time for departures, maintaining consistent processes for deal registration and quoting, and having outgoing reps brief successors on partner preferences.
These insights were discussed during a conversation on the Partnerships Unraveled podcast by Channext.
Our Take:
Dell's channel transformation shows how enterprise vendors can rewire their go-to-market motion without breaking what already works. The "Partner First for Storage" mandate stands out as particularly bold, essentially telling quota-carrying sellers to route opportunities through partners before even considering a direct approach. That kind of top-down directive does more than any partner portal upgrade or commission adjustment could to shift seller behavior.
The longevity numbers tell the real story here. When your channel team averages 8.5 years while your direct counterparts churn at 18 months, you've created something partners can actually rely on. Those relationships become institutional memory that survives internal reorganizations and strategy shifts. It's the difference between a partner calling their Dell rep by first name versus navigating a phone tree.
For partnership professionals, Dell's approach offers a template for organizational change management. The combination of executive mandate, frontline ambassador cultivation, and process consistency creates the conditions where channel relationships can actually compound over time rather than reset with every territory realignment. The emphasis on influence without authority, especially Dowlen’s advice about practicing it early in your career, speaks to the political realities of channel leadership in matrix organizations.
The challenge, as always, is replication. Dell had Michael Dell's willingness to "fail fast" and innovate, plus the capital to acquire companies like Equallogic. Not every vendor has those advantages. But the principles translate: start where complexity demands partnership, prove the model with wins, protect relationship continuity, and make the partner path the easiest path for your sellers. Do that consistently for 17 years, and you might build something that actually lasts.
Listen to the full interview here.