India is among Dell Technologies’ top five countries globally, from a business and investment perspective,” says Aongus Hegarty, the company’s president for international markets. According to him, while most companies across sectors have been significantly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, sectors such as healthcare, technology and education have seen significant growth and investments. “Companies need to work with the current situation and plan, navigating it in the short term as well as investing in new business models through technology for the future,” he tells Sudhir Chowdhary in an interview. Excerpts:

Tell us about your company’s performance in recent months.

Dell’s second quarter performance was strong, we saw revenue of $22.7 billion as we continue to effectively navigate the current environment. Increased adoption of our portfolio delivered as-a-service through flexible consumption solutions, with deferred revenue at approximately $6 billion for the quarter, up 15% year-over-year. Combining these results with the demand we saw from large enterprises, healthcare and the financial sector in Q1—our first half of the year was strong. We delivered $44.7 billion of revenue, $4.8 billion of operating income and $5.7 billion of adjusted EBITDA.

What are your views on the role of technology in accelerating digital transformation and aiding economic recovery?

Digital transformation is a multi-year journey with technology impacting almost all the industries, services and sectors. Companies are also realising the importance of workforce transformation considering employees are working remotely, but still connected, productive and secure. We have been championing a flexible work environment for over a decade. Our Connected Workplace programme is a strategic business initiative that allows team members to choose the work style that best suits them. At the moment, this will be our approach, as it will be the future of working.

Organisations will implement a hybrid model and technology will play a key role to deliver that capability and services for employees and teams. The current scenario brings forth an opportunity for companies to transform business models using technology. The digital index indicates that many companies have already been on this journey and have been investing in the transformation of their business, through technology.

Most sectors are now switching to on-demand as-a-service type model. The uniqueness of Dell Technologies’ product portfolio allows us to offer complete solution packages with options to customise it. Through our Dell Financial Services, we have put in place financial mechanisms for our customers and partners, as an on-demand service model. This enables customers to opt for the digital and workforce transformation investment, consume it and pay back over time.

How will Dell Technologies’ remote workforce look like after returning to site?

The health and safety of our customers, partners, teams and our communities is our top priority. With our Connected Workplace 2.0 programme in effect, it was a very seamless transition from working in offices to working remotely. The robustness of our supply chain, manufacturing and operations has enabled us to serve our customers throughout this period. As we move forward, we are using data to determine how and where we should allow local travel and open up our offices. We have created a real-time data driven dashboard known as the ‘Inversed Risk Matrix’ that helps us assess the situation and make appropriate decisions on returning to office or site.

As customers and partners continue to work with us remotely, we are focused on finding solutions to enable face-to-face discussions. We will be adopting a phased approach for ‘Returning to Site’. However, Dell Technologies will expand its Connected Workplace to accommodate 50% of the workforce in flexible work environments.

Dell Technologies has a strong partnership with the Indian government on multiple accounts. How do you plan to expand this in 2020?

India is a key market for us and we continue to work closely with the government on how we can grow, develop and support the use of technology in all aspects of the Indian market, economy and services. We have recently launched ‘SheCodes Innovation Challenge’ in collaboration with Atal Innovation Mission, Niti Aayog; a countrywide challenge that will cut across all lingual, geographical and cultural divides. The challenge aims to encourage girls to tinker, create, sustain and innovate. We are working very closely with the government to enable education via online learning and we are also very keen to support the initiatives and programmes to promote girls’ education in STEM subjects.

Given the unpredictable times, what technology trends do you see globally?

Technology will play a key part in how we live with the current circumstances. We are seeing a lot of initiatives around digital cities; how to create safe cities and safe buildings. Technology has advanced to a point where collaborative platforms such as MS Teams, Zoom and others are allowing us to work within this environment. Technology will further use data, analytics and information to help drive the best outcomes in the decisions linked to keeping ourselves and our citizens safe.