Dell is looking to make a name for itself as a solutions company, so it would only make sense for it to invest a significant portion of its marketing tactics into solutions. Russ Fujioko, Global VP of Solutions Marketing for Dell, explained what solutions marketing actually means: “Dell World is the actual incarnation of solutions marketing.” Dell started out as a device company, then it became centered in systems and eventually solutions. As SiliconANGLE founder John Furrier explains, Dell is a “full portfolio of a solution.”

Fujioko explained solutions is an “outside/in look” or the “customer view” and Dell is the customer’s trusted advisor to help change his business (see the full video below). It is also the company’s responsibility to help its customers with the challenges in BYOD and security. Basically, the company helps its customers empower their workforce by assisting them to better understand how to future-proof their IT infrastructures on both the data side and the end-user compute side.

During another interview with Roger Kay, President of EndPoint Technologies, however, he touched on the fact that although Dell is committed to keeping its clientele, it needs to change its story because right now it’s proud of its solutions business, which says nothing about the clients. While the consumer side is trying to come up with better products, it isn’t getting the needed support from the marketing budget.

Furrier touched on the fact that we are now living in an era of a financial cliff just days away as the new year approaches. He also pointed out how data centers are being transformed and reconstructed, so Dell’s legacy is no longer viewed as good enough.  The question is: how is the company marketing to that world?

As CEO Michael Dell pointed out in his keynote speech, his company is not really tagged to heritage infrastructures, but it is augmenting the manufacturers, which have to be modernized and made more efficient.

Heritage apps and BPO’s, for example, are how the company is creating more efficient IT models and more scalable on a platform that is more open and takes half the energy.

So what it sounds like is Dell is in fact proud to be a solutions company, so it is going to remain in that realm and build on the business by improving what it already has. The company is catering to its clients, but only to those interested in solutions.