Our people | Steve Qian

I joined Dell in July 2006 as a brand marketing manager for software and peripherals. After a year, I moved to a role leading the Greater China software and peripherals sales team running 300 million software and peripherals businesses per year. In 2009, I extended my role to cover service for Greater China large enterprise as well.

To enhance my regional exposure, I took a role as the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) software lead for software and peripherals team in 2010. To further sharpen my leadership skill, my manager relocated me to Sydney as acting software and peripherals director leading consumer, small and medium business software and peripherals sales for Australia and New Zealand. After my assignment, I led the Greater China consumer, small and medium business direct software and peripherals sales team. Starting from Feb 2012, I accepted a mergers and acquisitions GCC Integration Strategy Director role leading the integration of a few acquisitions in APJ until July, 2012 when I moved from mergers and acquisitions to one of our acquisitions – SonicWALL as the Asia Pacific and Japan Sales Director.

I have been the Integration Director for Dell Software Group (DSG) in APJ since February of 2013.

• Coming up with DSG acquisition integration route-to-market strategy and implementing alignment globally
• Integrating DSG channel to Partner Direct Program and enabling legacy partners
• Maintaining the SKU and pricing of acquisition assets
• Facilitating the establishment and integration of backend sales infrastructure
• Acting as single point of contact for APJ DSG integration

The only thing that doesn’t change in Dell is CHANGE. Be prepared! In my dictionary, change means opportunity. When there is a change, it means we could do better if we change. For example: When there was an organizational change in 2008, I got the opportunity to manage the entire Greater China solutions and peripherals sales team. This helped us streamline the engagement with segments and made our communications more effective. When we had a segment split in 2009, I had an extended role in services, which helped me better understand solution sales on top of hardware and software sales. After Dell started rounding out its acquisitions in recent years, I got the opportunity for a role in mergers and acquisitions, which lead to another regional sales director role for SonicWALL – an entrepreneurial experience in a Fortune 500 company! Change opens a door for those prepared. Let’s embrace and thrive with changes!

Three things keep me at Dell:

1. Dell really cares about team member career development. Dell encourages cross function movement to build well-rounded skills. You can build your skill across functions and geographies without changing the company, just as you can pick any majors from the same university and graduate with different degrees.
2. The second thing is Dell’s strategy – transforming from hardware to total solutions provider by acquiring leading companies in different domains. While Dell is undergoing transformation, team members have the opportunity to diversify their skills. That’s how I landed in Software Sales leader role today in one of acquisitions under Software Group.
3. The last but not least – Change. Without change, there couldn’t be any opportunity for career development. With each change, you may develop a new skill. After several changes, you may find these new skills can be connected and integrated to qualify you for a more senior role.

• When I was running Public software and peripherals marketing in 2007, I turned around the software and peripherals attainment percentage from 47% to 127% by implementing software and peripherals champion program in the floor.
• In 2008, I consolidated 40+ software and peripherals sales from LCA/PAD/SMB/Channel as one team.
• When I was acting software and peripherals director in Australian/New Zealand, I was able to lead a new hire team delivering 130% software and peripherals attainment percentage for consumer, small and medium business software and peripherals in Australia/New Zealand – the first time we got the software and peripherals pen rate cross 20% line.
• The first project I was involved in M&A is Force 10 integration for APJ GCC.
• Before I joined the mergers and acquisitions team, the Asia Pacific and Japan Force 10 integration was several months behind. It only took us 3 months to onboard 70+% legacy partners into GCC, which was ahead of our goal.
• For the most recent role – SonicWALL Asia Pacific and Japan Sales Leader, I managed to hire and onboard 9 senior sales and marketing people across Asia Pacific and Japan within 2 months and they are up and running now.
• Within 4 months after the SonicWALL acquisition is closed, we have aligned and pretty much completed Pricing/Discount/Sales Motion/Credit Rules/SKU Setup/Sales Enablement/Hiring/Demand Gen game plan across Asia Pacific and Japan, which is one of fastest acquisitions in Asia Pacific and Japan.

CHANGE can bring you opportunity within Dell. Particularly, if the change is initiated by acquisition, it could mean you have chance to learn and work in the acquisition company and sharpen your skillset in new areas. My current APJ new team is composed of team members with enterprise skillsets. By joining my team, they have the opportunity to transition their skillset from hardware to software. This is just an example for one acquisition. Dell has acquired dozens of companies in the past few years giving team members tremendous opportunities to explore new areas!

My team talks to customers to understand their needs so we can help grow their business using our solutions. My team engages with customers with core sales in the field. As we acquire more companies, we are in a better position to address customer needs and differentiate our solutions from other vendors. By putting the customer first, we help identify process gaps to get any problem sorted out.

As Dell acquires more companies, team members have opportunities to incubate the acquired business and grow it on the Dell platform. Dell is the right spot where team members can complete a skillset transformation without changing companies and starting from scratch. Dell offers lots of internal movement opportunities--that’s why I have experience in sales, BD, marketing and mergers & acquisitions in Greater China, Australia/New Zealand and Asia Pacific and Japan in six years, which is an exciting journey!