Cisco Services Partner Program and Partner Plus: Surefire winners?

You must be 'in it' to 'win it'. Sounds arrogant? Especially when this was the tagline under which Cisco kicked off the 2012 edition of its global Partner Summit in San Diego. Even the announcements and quips by chairman John Chambers and other senior Cisco executives seemingly smacked of arrogance, as they reiterated that competition hardly exists for Cisco nowadays. Or was it arrogance? One would rather call it confidence boosted by the fact that the company enjoys more than 70% market share in almost every category they have been operating in. And they are recording the fastest growth in newer categories like data centers and videos they are now getting into.

A far cry from a year back when talks of declining profits and job losses were plaguing the tech vendor who comes closest to being a
monopoly in the tech domain. Not one to mince words, Chambers said, "A year ago the company got fat, added too many layers and was frustrated at not being able to move fast enough." So, how was it that Cisco reinvented itself? “It just not became leaner, but the minute you give up on thinking you have to be the best, you are already in trouble. We are in it to win it," said Chambers.

"We accepted competition; competition took advantage of that. Never again," he reasserts. Cisco plans to stay ahead by simplifying how it does business with its partners and focusing on a partner-centric model. In line with this thinking, Cisco consolidated its 47 services partners programs worldwide into a single one, Cisco Services Partner Program.

Closely aligned with the Cisco Channel Partner Program, the new services program rewards the quality and value of the partner-to-customer relationship and provides greater rewards for partners' investment with Cisco. The compensation model is evolving to a discount plus pay-for-performance rebate program to deliver predictable rebates that strengthen partners' bottom line.

Through the initial pilot with 2,500 partners across the US and Canada, results show partners experiencing 15% increase in the portion of their bookings eligible for rebates. Three fold increase in the number of partners earning rebates compared to the previous programs The new program is expected to be available to all partners in all geographies within the next 12-18 months. Currently, more than 4,000 partners are participating across the United States, Canada, Israel and Asia Pacific.

Partner Plus is another key pillar of Cisco's Partner Led strategy, which is designed to empower and reward channel partners to lead the sale with small and mid-sized customers. This approach combines the power of the partner sales force and Cisco's sales force in an innovative way to go after these market segments.

This is part of the $75 mn investment that Cisco announced in 2011 for enablement, systems, and support capabilities. The five main benefits this partner-led program offers include incentives/rebates, virtual access to Cisco engineers, customer sales intelligence and premium marketing and enablement.

The author was hosted by Cisco in San Diego.