Partners must deliver outcomes, not just infrastructure: Cisco

Enterprise technology conversations have changed dramatically over the past decade. Organisations that once focused on procuring routers, switches and connectivity infrastructure are now asking a different set of questions: how to secure AI workloads, extract value from software platforms and deliver measurable digital outcomes.

Ashok Shivashankar, Managing Director – Partner Organisation, Cisco India & South Asia, in this exclusive interaction with Voice&Data, explains why this shift has compelled Cisco to redesign its global partner ecosystem through the Cisco 360 Partner Programme. He discusses the transition from resale-driven models to outcome-led engagements, the growing role of AI across Cisco’s portfolio, and how new partner designations and incentives are reshaping capabilities, customer engagement and profitability across India and South Asia. Excerpts:

Tim Coogan, Cisco’s Senior Vice President – Global Partner Sales, recently wrote that 26 years ago customer conversations were about routers and uptime, whereas today CIOs are asking how to secure AI workloads and prove ROI on generative AI. From your perspective in South Asia, how real is this shift—and why did it require a reset like the Cisco 360 Partner Programme?

If you look at the broader evolution of the market, we have seen that shift quite clearly in South Asia, and more specifically in India. If you go back 20 years, the partnership ecosystem was largely resale-centric. Customers typically had a very clearly defined requirement. They would say, “I need connectivity,” and the conversation revolved around the product, the features, the specifications and the price. Once that product was procured, the transaction was essentially complete.

Today the environment is completely different. Customers are no longer looking to buy a product, or even a standalone service or software solution. They are looking to buy outcomes. We see this shift across industries.

Even in sectors such as public sector banking in India, which traditionally followed very specification-driven procurement models, the change is visible. Earlier they would simply define the technical specifications and quantities. Today they are saying, “We want a particular business outcome,” and that outcome is what they expect the technology ecosystem to deliver.

“The Cisco 360 programme simplifies partner engagement by aligning incentives with adoption, lifecycle value and measurable outcomes rather than isolated transactions.”

When customer behaviour changes so fundamentally, partner programmes also have to evolve. Cisco’s earlier partner programmes were actually industry-leading. Our focus was always on capability and expertise. For instance, a partner could become a Gold partner based on the strength of their technical expertise even if they were not a very large revenue partner.

However, those programmes were designed primarily for a world where the partner’s role centred on reselling products. Over time we added elements for services, adoption and customer experience, but the structure had become quite complex.

In the current environment, where customers expect integrated outcomes, we realised there was a need to simplify the programmes and ensure that partners build capabilities around adoption, lifecycle management and customer experience. These areas directly affect the outcomes that customers expect. Once that alignment is achieved, incentives and profitability structures also become simpler and more relevant for the modern technology landscape.

With IT markets projected to grow strongly and infrastructure spending accelerating, customers are no longer debating whether to invest in AI but how quickly and with whom. How does the Cisco 360 Partner Programme respond to this urgency differently from earlier partner models?

There are two important aspects to this. First, if you look at Cisco’s portfolio, AI is not confined only to the cloud or compute layers. Many people tend to associate AI primarily with infrastructure for training and inference, but in our case, AI cuts across the entire portfolio.

Take our collaboration platform Webex as an example. Even in the meeting we are having today, agentic AI capabilities are embedded into the platform. We could launch an AI assistant that automatically summarises the conversation, identifies action items and captures decisions.

Similarly, AI capabilities are integrated across networking, security, collaboration and cloud technologies. So, from a portfolio perspective, AI is pervasive across everything we do.

“AI today runs across networking, security, collaboration and cloud, and partners must build capabilities across these architectures to deliver integrated outcomes.”

The second aspect is the partner experience. Within the Cisco 360 framework, we have introduced what we call the Partner Experience Platform, or PXP. AI is embedded into this platform as well. It helps partners navigate the programme more efficiently, understand their incentives, track their progress and make faster decisions.

So, both from a portfolio perspective and from a partner engagement perspective, AI has been integrated into the system to help partners respond faster to customer demands.

Cisco has described the new model as a shift from transactions to outcomes. What were the limitations of the earlier incentive structures, and how does focusing on total contract value, software adoption and lifecycle engagement change partner behaviour?

It is not really that something in the earlier programme was not working. The challenge was that the programme no longer aligned perfectly with what customers expected, what partners needed and how Cisco itself was evolving.

Over time, the programme had become quite complex. There were separate elements for products, services, adoption and customer experience. While each of these served a purpose, they were somewhat fragmented.

At the same time, customer buying behaviour had changed. Customers were no longer buying separate products such as compute, networking or security independently. They were increasingly purchasing integrated solutions.

The Cisco 360 Partner Programme brings these elements together in a single structure, which simplifies the overall experience for partners.

Another important aspect is capability specialisation. Earlier, a Gold partner might have had strong expertise in one area, such as networking, but might not have had deep capability across other architectures like collaboration or security.

The new programme recognises partners based on their expertise in specific portfolios. Partners are now designated as portfolio partners or preferred partners for particular architectures. This allows customers to clearly identify which partners have deep specialisation in which technology areas.

At the same time, Cisco itself has been transitioning from a hardware-centric company to a software-centric organisation over the past decade. In that environment, adoption becomes critical. Delivering an outcome is not just about selling the technology but ensuring that it is deployed, adopted and delivering value.

For example, in a traditional hardware environment, customer engagement often revolved around break-fix services. If something failed, a support request was logged and the issue was resolved.

“Customers today are not buying products or services separately; they are buying outcomes, which means partners must focus on adoption, lifecycle management and experience.”

In a software-driven environment, the focus shifts to ensuring that customers are actively using the capabilities they purchased and achieving the outcomes they expected. That means partners must focus much more on deployment, adoption, lifecycle management and customer experience.

Even renewals work differently in this model. In the past, you might remind a customer 90 days before a support contract expired. But in a software-led model, if the customer has not successfully adopted the technology in the first few months, renewal becomes difficult. So, the real work starts much earlier in the lifecycle.

The new Cisco Partner Incentive promises predictable earnings from the first dollar. In a price-sensitive market like India, how important is this shift for partner confidence and long-term investment in AI capabilities?

One of the key principles behind the programme was protecting existing partner investments. Many of our long-standing partners had already built strong technical capabilities. Those capabilities transition into the new programme. Partners were not expected to start from scratch.

Another important element is predictability. At the beginning of every cycle, partners know exactly what returns they can expect from the investments they make. The incentives apply across multiple dimensions—services, architecture portfolios and lifecycle incentives related to adoption and customer experience.

We have also introduced clear measurement mechanisms based on telemetry data. This means that partners always know where they stand in terms of performance, both in terms of the partner value index and the rebates they can earn. This transparency gives partners the confidence to make long-term investments in new capabilities. They know what milestones they need to achieve and what the financial returns will be.

We also ensured that partners received advance notice about new buying models and capability requirements, so they have sufficient time to prepare and align their business strategies.

Cisco has introduced new partner designations along with tools such as partner locator and the partner value index. How will customers experience this change, and how does Cisco ensure genuine expertise stands out?

A key concept here is hyper-specialisation. For each portfolio, we have defined a value index that measures partner capability on a scale of one to ten. The score reflects several factors, including technical certifications, sales expertise, market performance and adoption of enterprise buying programmes.

When a partner reaches a score of five out of ten in a portfolio, they qualify as a Cisco portfolio partner for that architecture. When they reach a score of seven-and-a-half or higher, they become a preferred partner for that portfolio, which represents the highest level of specialisation.

This helps customers clearly identify which partners have the strongest expertise in specific architectures such as networking, security or cloud.

“Hyper-specialisation ensures customers identify the right partners for each architecture, while collaboration between specialised partners strengthens solution delivery.”

The model also recognises partners that build capabilities across multiple portfolios. For example, if a partner is preferred in both networking and security, they can pursue additional specialisations such as next-generation secure networking.

The partner locator tool allows customers to see these designations and identify the most capable partners for their requirements.

At the same time, the model allows partners to collaborate. If a customer requires a secure networking solution, one partner might lead the engagement while working with another partner that has specialised security capabilities. This creates an ecosystem approach where partners collaborate to deliver the best outcome for the customer.

Cisco spent more than 15 months co-designing the programme with partners. What were the toughest debates during that process?

One of the biggest challenges for any global company is balancing standardisation with local market realities. Initially we had designed a highly standardised programme that could work across the globe. However, partners in Asia-Pacific—and particularly in India—provided feedback that certain aspects needed localisation.

One example was what we call “T-shirt sizing”. The expectations for a partner generating USD 50 million in networking revenue cannot be the same as those for a USD 2-million partner.

Based on partner feedback, we introduced different tiers that adjust expectations for partner size and scale.

Another example relates to buying behaviour in public sector markets. Public sector procurement processes in Asia-Pacific differ significantly from corporate purchasing models. Partners highlighted that enterprise agreement models may not always apply in these environments.

We incorporated those insights into the final design. These adjustments demonstrated that we were genuinely listening to our partners while still maintaining a globally consistent framework.

Looking ahead to 2026–27, what indicators will tell you that Cisco 360 is working in South Asia? What are the key metrics?

There are several metrics we monitor. The first is partner capability capacity. We want to ensure that we have the right number of capable partners across each technology portfolio in India and across South Asia.

This includes markets such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well. Each market has different dynamics, so the scale of partner capacity required will naturally differ.

The second metric is partner profitability. One of our key commitments is that partners should earn at least as much as they did under the earlier programme, and ideally more.

Finally, we will track how effectively partners build capabilities in emerging areas such as AI infrastructure, next-generation networking and secure networking. If we see strong partner capacity and specialisation in these areas, it will indicate that the programme is delivering the intended outcomes.

The interview was transcribed using AI tool.