While Cisco Partner Summit 2019 has passed, and partners have had time to reflect on what they’ve learned through the various educational sessions and networking meetings, the real work begins. The focus on the partner community for Cisco is critical, as it accounts for three quarters of all Cisco bookings, in over 80 countries. As Cisco invests in this community, they have provided ways to help partners embark on their journey and excel at peak performance in 2020.
José van Dijk, Vice President of Perform with Cisco’s Global Partner Organization recently shared five ways Cisco is evaluating and updating the partner process to make it easier for the community:
- Consolidate and digitize: Cisco is a large organization and with that size comes complexities. The company is seeking to eliminate the complexities for partners and simplify the process. Van Dijk told CRN, that “Cisco plans on slowly combining or even killing tools that aren’t being utilized by partners.”
- Simplification: Van Dijk’s group is working hand-in-hand with the customer experience organization to combine useful information for the partner, all in one tool. “Everyone needs to have the same single sources of truth,” she said, “And everyone (customers and partners) should be looking at the same content,” she concluded.
- Efficiencies: With a manufacturer the size of Cisco, it is critical to have efficiencies in place for the channel community – from vendor to partner to customer. Not only is Cisco working on developing these efficiencies internally, but they are looking to extend it to the partner community, as well.
- Personalization: One size does not fit all in the partner community. With partners of all sizes, there needs to be a level of personalization to ensure success. By delving into analytics and automation, Cisco can push out personalized reminders and helpful tools to partners, such as a timely reminder of upcoming customer renewals.
- Automation: The future of automation for the partner community holds much potential. Van Dijk highlights a pilot program that currently matches partners to work on specific deals.
These steps will go a long way to helping partners get the information they need to provide more value for their end customers and ultimately, a stronger customer experience.
