He has only been in the job six months but Greg Davis, the new president of Dell Canada, is exhilarated about the future.
Davis spoke about his goals for Dell Canada during the company’s fall media event in Round Rock, Tex. earlier this week. “Six months is a lifetime in our business, and is a very short period of time,” he said. “We’ve been in Canada for 18 years and have a very mature business.”
The new Dell Canada chief, who relocated from Austin, Tex. to Toronto, said there were great opportunities for the company around Toronto. But he emphasized that Dell Canada’s business had grown across the country. “Our presence now in Edmonton is giving us a great base in Alberta, and [opportunities] to grow our business across the West coast.”
Dell’s customer contact centre in Edmonton had 500 employees when in opened last year; that number has since nearly doubled. Davis hopes to have the same success with the company’s Ottawa customer contact centre, which takes its first call next February.
He said the Ottawa centre would allow Dell to better serve its French speaking customers in Canada, as well as federal government customers in the capital.
Davis said “enterprise services” would be a key future growth area for Dell Canada, as would be the server and storage space. “[Services] are a very important part of our strategy…to create [a] great experience for our customers in Canada.”
Since moving to Toronto in May, Davis said the biggest challenge for him has been learning the business differences between Canada and the rest of the world.
“My responsibilities [extend] from our consumer [space] all the way to our large global accounts based out of Canada. Most of our other businesses around the world are in pieces and in Canada it’s all pulled together. For me [the challenge] is getting my arms around and learning all of that.” And Davis credits his team in Canada for helping him overcome those challenges.
Prior to his posting to Canada, Davis led the worldwide marketing and sales effort for Dell’s printing business for the past three years. He believes this experience prepared him for his new role.
Davis says his new position as head of Dell Canada offers great opportunities to learn a new part of Dell’s business, gather broader experience and understand the challenge of working outside the U.S.
