Sweet on Dell Technologies: Conglomerate? Not Really. Here’s Why.

This is the fourth installment of an ongoing series “Sweet on Dell Technologies.”

We’re a technology company with software, services, security, cloud, PC and enterprise infrastructure businesses. We’re aligned and interconnected to drive synergy and joint engineering across our businesses. We’re about pooling our resources, cross-selling together and, ultimately, creating value for all stakeholders. Compare this with your typical conglomerate, and it’s apples and oranges.

Conglomerates are combinations of businesses operating in typically unrelated industries under one corporate roof. More and more, I hear Dell Technologies referred to as a conglomerate, which misses the mark. It’s an easy shorthand, which I get. But it’s misused in our case and sidesteps the bigger picture of why we created Dell Technologies in the first place.

In my role, I meet with industry analysts, investors, and customers every week, where I emphasize the advantages of working with Dell Technologies and all the variables in our equation, including:

  • A shared vision and a laser-focus on developing technologies for digital transformation
  • Commitment to R&D across our vast portfolio, totaling $20B in investments in R&D in the last five years alone
  • Ability to collaborate to bring a differentiated portfolio to market with products that deliver end-to-end IT and data solutions
  • Giving customers a seamless, comprehensive Dell Technologies experience across sales, services and support
  • Helping our customers simplify and manage their technology environment in a multi-cloud world
  • A simplified channel of engagement for partners to cross-sell and procure products and solutions across Dell Technologies

Take UnderArmour. They recognized these advantages and chose to work with Dell Technologies to manage and protect their data company-wide. As they’ll tell you, data is the fuel to their organization. With our help, we’ve been able to de-centralize their data in a way that supports the global nature of their business, with zero downtime – and still gives them a holistic view. And, our innovative products have allowed their team members to work smarter. Ultimately, our solution set gives them visibility, reliability and scalability, allowing them to continue to design and innovate while knowing their data is in the right hands.

Our tightly woven fabric lets us strip complexity out of the IT procurement, installation, maintenance process. And like with UnderArmour, provides a better overall customer experience. We’re removing friction and operational barriers, simplifying terms and conditions and strengthening end-to-end support. To be sure, we know we need to continue to build our capabilities, but we are uniquely positioned to help our customers on their transformation journey. The fact that Dell Technologies is not a conglomerate spread across diverse industries makes this possible.

To become the essential infrastructure company – from the edge to the core to the cloud – not only for today’s applications, but for the cloud-native world we’re entering—we must think bigger and be bolder. And that’s the greatest strength of a comprehensive, integrated family of products under the interconnected Dell Technologies umbrella.

About the Author: Tom Sweet

Tom Sweet was previously Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Dell Technologies.