One of Dell’s UK dedicated storage partners says it’s about to surge through £20m revenues partly thanks to the vendor’s recent switch to a partner-first storage strategy.
Constor Solutions expects to break the barrier for its current year ending 31 March 2025, after this month being promoted to Dell Titanium status.
Employing 64 staff in the UK, Ireland and India, Constor marks itself out from other Dell partners by collaborating with Dell rather than selling direct.
“We’ve definitely benefited”
Constor COO Foiz Ahmed said his company has won “half a dozen good-sized opportunities” thanks to Dell’s partner-first ploy.
Dell introduced the strategy, which saw it classify 99% of customers and potential customers as partner-led for storage, in August 2023 – to the delight of partners.
Constor achieved Titanium status after boosting its Dell revenues to the required $20m (including $4m of services revenue) and attaining all the necessary certifications.
Ahmed put the feat down to a combination of the success of its new outbound SMB sales team, and big enterprise wins via Dell.
“I can definitely say we’ve benefited,” Ahmed told IT Channel Oxygen.
“We’ve got engaged with a number of high-level opportunities where they were previously a direct customer with Dell.
“Yes, we’ve had the odd occasion where the customer has pushed back and said ‘why would I want to use a channel? Is it margin on margin?’.
“It can be very difficult sometimes.
“But the majority of times the Dell guys have brought us in and we’ve spoken to the customer and convinced them that they’ve got to go through the channel.”
Recent workforce cutbacks at Dell mean its partners are often in a better position than Dell itself to give advice on services, which is where Constor’s roots lie, Ahmed claimed.
“We started off as a services company. For the first four years we didn’t actually sell any hardware. That gave us the expertise of being able to design and deliver the solutions,” he explained.
“We only became a reseller when Dell bought EMC.”
How to gel with Dell
Constor differentiates itself from market giants such as Computacenter and Softcat – as well as larger Dell specialists such as MTI – by working hand in hand with Dell rather than targeting customers direct.
The only exception to this is its new 22-employee SMB team, which is based out of India along with its finance and project management teams.
“It’s very difficult for an organisation our size to cold call enterprise customers and say ‘guess what, we’re really great at datacentre transformation, work with us’, when you’ve got a lot of mature organisations that are a lot bigger than us,” Ahmed said.
“We’ve sometimes tried engaging with direct customers and they either say ‘I’ve already got a partner – I use Softcat’, or, ‘if I want someone I’ll go to Dell’.
“It’s much easier when Dell comes to us and says ‘hey, I’ve got a customer I’d like to introduce; you guys go and showcase your wares along with another partner, and if they choose you, you can work with them’.
“We tend to do really well in those kinds of opportunities. We’ve got a huge database of satisfied customers. I don’t say that arrogantly, but our technical guys are very, very good.”
Ahmed said he expects Dell’s partner-first switch to reap more dividends in its fiscal 2026.
“The likes of [Dell UK MD] Steve Young and [Dell UK Head of Channel and Distribution] Ian Heath have really pushed the strategy to their own sellers, and we’re definitely seeing a change now,” Ahmed concluded.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
