Cisco Systems’ new partner program brings in a lot of innovations that would further rejuvenate the partner ecosystem
Yes, this is all about simplification and digital agility when it comes to partners and how they want to work with Cisco. At the recently held Cisco’s annual partner conference, Partner Summit Digital, the company has announced the biggest changes to the partner program in over a decade by creating a new single, unified partner program that recognizes and rewards the roles that partners play with customers. Additionally, Cisco has launched a new digital partner platform that will be a one-stop shop for anything a partner needs when working with Cisco.
Oliver Tuszik, SVP, Global Partner Organization, Cisco, said, “Transformation is accelerating now more than ever before and we need our programs and platforms to reflect how Cisco and our partners can best succeed together”. “These changes will deliver simplicity and allow Cisco and our partners to be more agile, relevant, and profitable. It’s about being ‘Future Ready’ for anything that comes our way”, added Tuszik.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, Cisco will simplify its partner program structure. It will consolidate nearly a dozen of the separate partner programs into one single program. The new Cisco partner program will offer partners more opportunity to differentiate across the various aspects of their business from resell to managed services to developer and advisor practices with Cisco.
Transformation is accelerating now more than ever before and we need our programs and platforms to reflect how Cisco and our partners can best succeed together. These changes will deliver simplicity and allow Cisco and our partners to be more agile, relevant, and profitable. It’s about being future-ready for anything that comes our way.
Oliver Tuszik
SVP, Global Partner Organization
Cisco Systems
“2020 and the pandemic greatly accelerated the need for our partners to transform to deliver managed services and SaaS to lines of business, to develop applications and automation on top of Cisco platforms and to generate full customer value across the lifecycle, “said Marc Suplus, Vice President, Strategy, Planning & Programs. “We’re taking a bold step to break down the siloes partners feel between our various partner programs that will give our partners more freedom to differentiate and transform across the dimensions of their Cisco business”, added Suplus.
The new Cisco partner program is based on four key roles that Cisco sees partners playing – integrator, provider, developer, and advisor. Partners can choose to focus on one role, or all four—whatever makes the most sense for their business. Cisco’s Gold brand remains the cornerstone of the new program while also enhancing the Premier and Select tiers to ensure partners have the degrees of freedom needed to differentiate with their customers. The current Cisco partners will not be asked to start over with this new program as it was designed to reflect and recognize their deep Cisco expertise and long-time partnership.
New Partner Experience Platform (PXP)
In addition to the partner program changes, Cisco is also launching the first digital partner platform that provides a single gateway to everything a partner needs when it comes to working with Cisco across the lifecycle. The Partner Experience Platform (PXP) delivers an improved experience and further enforces Cisco’s partner first culture. Partners will be able to collaborate across a connected ecosystem, co-innovate and co-sell together with Cisco on one digital platform.
“We co-innovated and co-developed PXP with our partners, to deliver a future ready platform” said Jose van Dijk, Vice President, Operations and Partner Performance, Cisco. “Our focus is to reimagine the digital channel and to empower partners with digital agility across the entire partner lifecycle”, explained Dijk.
The PXP will bring together 100-plus tools, applications and portals to a single digital platform making it easier for partners to navigate and be a one-stop shop for everything. The new platform would also deliver efficiencies for partners, such as faster enrollment on programs and better ability to co-sell with Cisco. This will render actionable insights for partners to drive new growth opportunities, optimize incentives better and monitor partner performance.
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