Networking equipment major Cisco on Tuesday announced that it is consolidating 47 global services partner programmes into a single performance- based one.
It also plans to focus on introducing new partner incentive schemes for those working in the mid-market and small business segments.
Cisco, $43-billion US-based networking major, focuses on offering solutions that include switching, networking and data centre management to enterprise as well as SMBs across the globe.
According to market sources, nearly 23-25 per cent of its revenues are from partner-led businesses. While 70 per cent of its partner-led revenues are driven by the mid-market firms, the remaining is from small businesses.
Announcing the programme at its Global Partnership Summit, Mr Andrew Sage, Vice-President, Worldwide Partner-Led, said, “Partners will benefit from marketing funding, customer intelligence and training. A pre-sales engineering service is also being launched with the incentive programme.”
With focus, primarily on the mid-market and small customers (small and medium businesses), Cisco said the new partner programme – called Partner Plus – will focus on the $60-billion SMB sector globally.
The new partner initiative will see the networking major tie up with its partners in carrying out joint marketing initiatives from a region-specific fund built for the purpose. Mr Sage did not specify the corpus kept aside for such marketing. Partners will also be given incentives (in cash) for fulfilling targets.
The programme launch follows the success of its $75-million partner-led global strategy, in November 2011, where it rewarded channel partners that lead the sale with small and mid-size customers.
Unified services
While the programme will be launched in the US and Canada regions in May, in Latam (Latin American nations); the launch in EMEAR (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Asia Pacific (including India) will take place in August.
Stressing on the need to focus on services, Cisco announced that it was moving from a discount based services model to a performance based one where the performance of the partner would determine the value of services offered and subsequent rebates.
Hence the move to collapse 47 of Cisco's global services programmes into a single one.
“Five years ago, services were 20 per cent of Cisco and 20 per cent of partners' businesses. Today, services are still about 20 per cent to Cisco but, its up to 50 per cent of our partners' businesses,” Mr Nick Earle, Senior Vice-President, Worldwide Channels, Cisco, said.
He also mentioned that it will be made available globally in the next 12 to 18 months.
The company conducted a pilot rollout with 2,500 partners last year, which has now grown to accommodate more than 4,000 partners in the US, Canada, Israel and Asia-Pacific.
According to Mr Earle, under the programme, partners can either be a Cisco branded services reseller or opt for collaborative services where they integrate own value adds with Cisco products.
(The reporter is in San Diego at Cisco's invitation)