Dell is continuing to ramp up its channel business, with the vendor set to deliver ‘sweeping new programs and investments' to accelerate the channel partner business in 2016.

Geoff Wright, Dell ANZ general manager for channel and alliances, says the vendor – once known for its direct model – is working with its local channel partners ‘more closely than ever'.

He says the vendor's Australian and New Zealand channel business is growing on a monthly basis and the company is rewarding partners for new customer acquisitions across the enterprise and introducing new ‘future ready channel' programs, incentives and investments to enable partners to meet their customers' needs.

Those programs were outlined at the recent Dell World 2015, where attendees heard how the company had kicked off 2015 by putting to use $125 million in investments for new and enhanced PartnerDirect programs and incentives to drive partner and customer value.

Cheryl Cook, Dell vice president of global channels and alliances, says 2016 will see a raft of new offerings for partners, aimed at helping them be ‘future ready' by helping partners identify the right solutions for customers, enable teams to sell and deliver those solutions and by providing ‘innovative' business models to maximise their value to customers.

“To close new acquisition and retention deal with customers, we are delivering key incentives, financing options and IT investments to help our partners grow and thrive with Dell,” Cook says.

Among the announced incentives are rebates and growth accelerators for preferred partners selling storage, networking, server, client and software to new customers, which will in some cases double the existing incentives.

Scalable cloud payments for service providers will also be introduced.

However, the ANZ Dell channel won't be seeing all of the announced options locally, with a number – including service attachment rebates and data protection incentives – focused exclusively on North American partners.

The vendor will also launch new PartnerDirect competencies and training and says selected distributors will be authorised to offer Dell training in 2016.

“We will partner with these distributors to authorise their trainers, share our courses and build a partnership to enable reseller to grow revenue via our distributor network,” Cook says.

Says Wright: “Dell is strengthening its position as a strategic vendor for the mid-market and enterprise customers, and the channel and technology partners that serve them.

“Dell is the only vendor that can offer partners end to end offerings from client products through the data center, including software, services and financing.

“Our announcements at Dell World demonstrate that we are making it easier for customers to consume and manage IT with new services, support and financing and that we are executing this partnership with a stronger global channel as the core of our overall go-to-market strategy.