News & Press Releases

Dell has big goals for 2030! As part of the newly announced “Progress Made Real” initiative the industry leader plans to make women 50% of its global workforce. A goal Davenport Group as a women-owned business and exclusive Dell Technologies partner fully supports.

Sonia St. Charles, CEO of Davenport Group, states “Certainly there are more women in IT now than ever, but there is still not enough. Michael Dell’s commitment to hiring more women is yet another example of his leadership in our industry.”

The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal dives into CRN’s annual list of the 150 fastest growing companies to feature the five local Minnesota based organizations and their accomplishments.

“Davenport Group, based out of Shoreview, finished at #71 with a growth rate of 75.99 percent.”

Since 2007, Dell EMC’s channel strategy has come a long way. As an all-in Dell partner for the last decade, Sonia St. Charles shares her thoughts on the journey and Michael Dell’s vision for the future.

“When we became an all-in Dell partner, it was a big bet. But since then, Michael’s earned our trust. The company has earned our trust,” she said. “His steady hands and his long-term vision coupled with the patience to let things evolve and take the appropriate time is important. He’s done it right rather than rushed it.”

Dell EMC has two outstanding storage lines in its Unity and SC families, said Paul Clifford, President of Davenport Group. “Continuing to work on both existing families while preparing the next generation of midrange arrays makes sense because the next generation will probably be revolutionary, not evolutionary,” he said.

Dan McCormick said the joint engineering between the two companies will not only help partners win sales in the market, but provides customers with a more consistent and seamless IT experience. He said that although both Dell and VMware will have their own individual business and build partnerships with vendors who may compete against other individual families within Dell Technologies, the assurance of a tightly coupled Dell-VMware solution can’t be matched.

“This extends our ability to talk to customers about what their business is trying to achieve, what value they’re trying to create, and then helping to assemble the underlying technology to make it all happen – this is powerful and Dell hit it right on the mark,” said Dan McCormick, Executive Vice President of Davenport Group

“We see [Dell EMC’s] leadership happening everywhere even with the most recent GSA win with VxRail, which is a very important area we play in,” said McCormick. “Anytime that Dell EMC can help simplify the complex environment within the federal buying process, it allows the channel a good opportunity to step in with their unique value.”

Davenport Group’s Dell EMC storage sales increased double digits in 2018 compared with the year prior, according to McCormick, who said Clarke has created a winning storage hand that will continue to pay big dividends for all of the company’s channel partners going forward.

Partners are pumped for the new Dell Technologies Advantage framework, telling CRN that an end-to-end cohesive story and channel delivery mechanism will undoubtedly change the customer conversation.

“It really helps to elevate the conversation into one that’s more about the enterprise stack and the overall business priority,” said Dan McCormick, Executive Vice President at St. Paul, Minn.-based Davenport Group, a Dell Technologies partner.

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