Dell EMC could extend service-based pricing like the flexible consumption model announced this week to more products as technology becomes commoditised and utility-like, according to Dell EMC president for South Asia and Korea Paul Henaghan.
“This is all being discussed so I cannot tell you too much, but I can certainly tell you that if we do not do it, someone else will,” he said in a wide-ranging interview with the media on the sidelines of Dell EMC World 2017.
He notes how the entire industry, from client devices to the data centre and software levels, are already embracing consumption-based pricing models.
Dell EMC sees the emerging markets as key partners to fulfilling their mission of being recognised as a credible competitor, and such pricing models will potentially make them more accessible to businesses in the region.
“What (Michael Dell) wants is if you walk down the streets of Vietnam and ask them what Dell is, they will tell you it is a computer company, just like IBM in America,” Henaghan said.
Mindsets impeding growth
Even as vendors like Dell EMC are prepared to help companies transform digitally and grow, he said firms must stop comparing themselves to their peers, but to focus on serving their customers in order to succeed.
He highlighted how many corporations in the Asian region make the same mistakes as their American and European counterparts – they compare where they are on their transformation journey against their peers and assume they are doing well.
“This is why at the front end we see there is increasing disintermediation between the banks, and the end-user customer through the fintechs. The fintechs are learning to focus on a lot of what the customers want and not what their peers are doing,” he said, citing the financial services industry to make his point.
Fintech refers to companies using new technologies to deliver financial services, which are often differentiated and disruptive to the business models of traditional financial institutions and intermediaries.
Young population fuel for growth
Dell EMC is confident about the growth in the Asian region, which is home to a relatively young workforce of digital natives that is increasing more quickly relative to other regions.
With the combined population of Association of Southeast Asian (Asean) nation states expected to hit 670 million by 2025 in particular, Henaghan believes the region has huge potential for digitalisation.
He said technology will be a key enabler to the growth of the Asean economies that can fuel the growth of real incomes, uplift more people into the middle class and better lives in the process.
He cited how the rise of electronic payments have lowered the barriers of entry into commerce in Indonesia, and facilitated the growth in small retailers serving local populations within the sprawling archipelago.
“As e-payments grew, it has created this whole new demographic involved in e-commerce, and I believe this is a tremendous opportunity that e-commerce presents in our part of the world,” he said.
