Cisco Overhauls Its India Partner Strategy

There is a rapid convergence of multiple market transitions taking place today– from collaboration and video, to virtualisation and cloud-based services– promising to change the way customers acquire and use technology. With this in mind, Cisco has effected several changes in its partner strategy in India and abroad to be better placed to leverage these opportunities. Since close to 100% of Cisco’s go-to-market is by way of its channel partners, this becomes an extremely critical segment for the company, and starting this fiscal year, Cisco has revamped it Partner Model to align it with the company’s renewed business objectives.

“Historically, Cisco’s global strategy has been focused on the networking domain, and the partner program was designed to cater to this approach. However, over the last four quarters, Cisco has evolved its strategies and enhanced its area of focus around the three architectures – Collaboration, Virtualisation and Borderless Networks and market adjacencies which are expected to be the growth drivers in the times ahead. In line with this, the channel organisation and strategic alliance organisation have been merged into a single, cohesive unit, rechristened Partner Organisation. We believe that this will allow us to drive our identified architecture adoption among our channel partners and increase penetration across sectors and markets alike,” said Raghavendran, Vice President and Head– Partner Organisation, Cisco India & SAARC.

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Cisco also shared changes to its commercial business strategy. At the heart of this shift is the basic need to drive coverage in an increasingly competitive landscape by effectively supporting the partner network with better, richer, and faster offerings. The new partner - led strategy has resulted in the seamless integration of Cisco’s Go-To-Market and the Cisco sales team, with the partners becoming an extension of the company’s sales force.

Going forward, Cisco, using this specialised approach, will continue to work towards building value for its partners, ensuring their profitability, investing in building their capabilities and making a more conducive business relationship possible.