Kicking off its 2011 Partner Summit in New Orleans, Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) channel chief Edison Peres outlined the networking giant’s channel strategy for the coming year.
The big announcement yesterday, as widely expected, was around the cloud. Cisco unveiled a new cloud partner programme. The Cisco Cloud Partner Programme (CPP) has three tracks that enable partners to choose where they want to sit in the cloud: Cloud Builder, Cloud Provider and Cloud Services Reseller.
The Cloud Builder and Cloud Provider tracks include branding, as well as reference architecture support, financing, MDF and access to channel partners as a route to market. CPP also builds on partners’ existing certifications in Cisco and its technology partners like Citrix or VMware.
The vendor also introduced Collaborative Professional Services (CPS), a library of resources to help its channel partners improve their professional services capabilities and accelerate their evolution from selling products to ‘architectures’.
Missing the mark
Cisco also revealed it was making a number of changes to its Teaming Incentive Programme (TIP). Historically Cisco rewarded new opportunities through its Opportunity Incentive Programme (OIP). Then last year, Cisco unveiled the TIP, which was aimed to encourage early sales engagement with partners and reward them for their investment in consulting and professional services capabilities.
However, Peres has now admitted that feedback from partners has not been good, and that the TIP’s rewards structure was “missing the mark”: “We listened. We are changing the TIP to bring the rewards up to those of the OIP to give the clear message that teaming and finding new customers are equally important to us.”
Cisco is currently piloting the new rewards structure with general availability of the new programme in August this year.
Elsewhere, Peres said the vendor would continue its VIP programme, with a number of changes. It has added an advanced Borderless Networks track with more SKUs and rebates available to encourage partners to sell the architectural value.
It has also added a small business track, meaning that partners don’t have to participate in both the VIP and its dedicated small business programme, PDF.
Another popular announcement among partners was is that Cisco is set to offer its WebEx Meeting Center to partners at the event at a 92 percent discount as part of a NFR package. Cisco’s aim is to get partners seeing the benefits of collaborative working, thus encouraging sales among their SMB customers.
Embracing partnerships
Senior VP of Cisco’s Worldwide partner organisation, Keith Goodwin, told partners that the firm realised it needed to “take a more holistic view of partnering” and “embrace a broader set of partnerships” including those with ISVs and other technology vendors, especially in the area of datacentre virtualisation – however he didn’t go into details as to how this would be achieved.
As well as these “transformational partnerships” Goodwin also listed accelerating its presence in the small to mid-market as a priority.
“This is a huge opportunity for us. It’s a large market, it’s growing very quickly and quite frankly, we are not getting our fair share. So we are going to ked partner-led initiatives support our growth in SMB.”
He also said Cisco needs to simplify how it works with its channel so it’s easier to do business with. He went on to promise to “invest and innovate” in its reseller programme.
Partner reassurance
Meanwhile, Cisco chairman CEO John Chambers seemed to use his keynote speech to reassure the assembled partners of the firms’ track record in new markets, such as the datacentre. Cisco’s fairly recent stock price wobble may have caused concerns among investors, but Chambers seemed keen to ride out the storm, based on its past success.
Says Chambers: “We see market transitions way ahead of our competition.
“You haven’t seen anything yet in the datacentre and the cloud. Cisco doesn’t do anything halfway… We almost always become number one [in the market].”
