The CapEx model has capsized. With the pandemic has come uncertainty, and many businesses are walking a financial tightrope. Suddenly, pay-as-you-go seems a much smarter choice than upfront investment.

“COVID has catalyzed customer interest in flexible consumption. … It’s required a level of agility that candidly, traditional CapEx-based models simply haven’t been able to provide,” said Akanksha Mehrotra (pictured, left), vice president of marketing at Dell Technologies.

Mehrotra and Caitlin Gordon (pictured, right), vice president of product marketing at Dell Technologies, spoke with Stu Miniman, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the Dell Technologies World Digital Experience event. They discussed the Dell Technologies On Demand model and how the company is shifting to as-a-service solutions and flexible consumption. (* Disclosure below.)

Dell flips focus from product to service

Product-focused Dell first announced its Dell On Demand program in November 2019. It was what the company’s customers wanted, and a prescient move considering the demand brought about by COVID. But the switch from product to offering consumption and as-a-service delivery has meant Dell has to reverse its sales outlook.

“We’re having to change our entire business to help our customers change theirs,” Gordon said. “When you think about it, we have a lot of the DNA, we have a lot of the experience, we have the technology, but we almost have to completely flip the script on ourselves.”

As-a-service makes it easier for customers to get the simplicity and flexibility of cloud along with the performance and security of on-premises infrastructure, according to Mehrotra. Customers can choose from a variety of consumption models to apply on products from the Dell portfolio, “from end user devices to core data center infrastructure to hybrid cloud solutions,” Mehrotra added.

Customer’s report not only 23% lower storage operations costs, but also 54% fewer downtime incidents and a 92% increase in storage capacity deployment flexibility, according to Mehrotra. “Yes, it’s about the cost savings, but really it’s about the agility that the business gets,” she stated.

Storage as a service is the next step on Dell’s move toward the OpEx model. “This will be coming in the first half of next year,” Gordon said.

Dell has taken its existing storage service and “accelerated the simplicity” to a single console from which users select just four options: storage type, performance, size and duration. The customer chooses the data center, and Dell brings the equipment in, deploys it and manages it.

“It’s an exciting transition to see this really evolve into not talking about products anymore,” Gordon said. “It’s really about getting our customers out of managing infrastructure and giving them the time, energy and resources to manage their business.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Dell Technologies World Digital Experience event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dell Technologies World. Neither Dell Technologies, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE