Press release
BRACKNELL, UK, June 16, 2008 – Dell continues to expand PartnerDirect, its global channel program, announcing today the addition of its top tier Certified Partner Program in Europe. The new program provides partners that want to develop a deeper working relationship with Dell, with a comprehensive industry-standards based training and certification programme and higher levels of sales and marketing support.
The certification framework is designed to help Dell partners gain knowledge in Dell solutions, build on their existing expertise and ultimately maximise their business growth. It will provide tangible and practical benefits including beneficial pricing, incentive-based co-marketing funds, partner events and forums. Certified Partners also have access to Dell channel marketing managers for assistance in developing marketing plans, ensuring that messaging and positioning are aligned with Dell’s corporate campaigns and product strategies.
“Since day one of PartnerDirect’s launch in Europe, we have been speaking to our partners about the tools they need to be successful in delivering Dell solutions – training and certification emerged as an important issue,” said Josh Claman, Vice President and General Manager, Dell Channels – EMEA. “Specifically, our partners asked us for a program that would help them easily and flexibly acquire the skills to better address their customers’ needs.
“Based on their feedback, we have developed a simple, flexible and scalable certification framework that offers e-learning and online support, recognises and builds on our partners’ existing industry certifications and extends their business capability,” added Claman.
The key elements to becoming a Dell Certified Channel Partner (DCCP):
1. COMPTIA certification – certification by COMPTIA in printers, workstations, servers, enterprise technology, storage and solutions will be recognised by Dell PartnerDirect
2. Dell Sales Foundation course – previously available only to Dell employees, this course will be offered to partners
“The Dell PartnerDirect program fits in with our business plan at CCS Media and enables us to spend more time talking to our customers by reducing administration. It makes sense for CCS Media to work directly with Dell,” said Terry Betts, Managing Director, CCS Media. “We’ve already seen the benefits since joining PartnerDirect as a Registered Partner, and look forward to the Certification program.”
“Growing our community of partners in Europe is vital to our global growth. Empowering our partners with the skills to help their customers simplify IT is key to enabling this growth. We will continue to listen to our partners and strengthen PartnerDirect’s training and certification program,” concluded Claman.
Certification paths for partners interested in developing in-depth enterprise architecture (EA) and SME expertise are now available, with managed services (MSP) solutions expertise available later in the year. Dell PartnerDirect’s certification program is now available in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, UK. For more information about PartnerDirect and the certification program, please go to www.dell.co.uk/partner.
PartnerDirect continues its global expansion with the program launching in Latin America this week.
