Cisco’s “Shift to Software” has become pervasive among its portfolio and programs. TD SYNNEX has been helping channel partners make the transition along with Cisco for almost a decade now, and looking ahead, it’s time to make the next big jump! To expand on this jump, EDGE360 recently sat down with Joe Vlajcic, Director of Cisco Customer Experience at TD SYNNEX. He shared some insight into the coming changes and explained how Cisco channel partners can best take advantage.
Note: This post is part of a several-part series on “Next Generation VAR,” provided by the TD SYNNEX Cisco CX Team.
Cisco’s Enterprise Agreement 3.0 program, after a pilot and selective release, is now a Generally Available (GA) offering for channel partners. Vlajcic explains why this is big news: “Cisco has had ‘Enterprise Agreement’ (EA) offerings for over a decade now, but 3.0 is different. I’d say this is the first ‘true’ EA. Previously, you saw a lot of single-architecture agreements for, say, Security or Collaboration. Now you’re going to see a lot of customers put their Cisco spend on one piece of paper.”
Cisco EA 3.0 went live on February 5, 2023, and is already starting to gain traction. “The early pilot partners were very successful – customers were able to consolidate a lot of spending and take advantage of features like True Forward and Services Enrollment to simplify their Cisco experiences,” Vlajcic said. True Forward allows for overconsumption to be rolled into future invoices, and Services Enrollment allows customers to wrap maintenance contracts into their EA.
“ELA 1.0 offered the first real, flexible consumption mode, which went mainstream with 2.0, especially with Security. The Collaboration Flex agreement has really taken off, too,” Vlajcic continues. “TD SYNNEX has been helping partners keep pace with the new buying programs with our robust programs. Partners can build their own EA practices with our Cisco EA team or leverage TD SYNNEX EA-as-a-Service. And, as always, our EDGE Program helps partners go as deep or wide as they want in learning Cisco subject matter expertise.”
With new opportunities, however, come new challenges. “What’s really different about 3.0, though, is the amount of consolidation we expect to see,” Vlajcic cautions. “Most customers are multi-sourcing their procurement for one reason or another. It’s not uncommon that you see a switch/router partner in one part of the environment, a data center partner in another and maybe a security-specialist partner in a third. We expect to see customers look at that situation and say they’d to reduce the number of stakeholders.
Enterprise Agreement 3.0 does allow for multiple partners to exist on an agreement, but it is expected that most consolidation that happens will happen into a single reseller. Vlajcic concludes, “It’s a very interesting topic: we’re hearing that Cisco expects up to 70 percent of upcoming EAs to be of the 3.0 variety. A lot of those deals are going to be ‘brownfield,’ which means they’ll be wrapping up existing, already deployed subscriptions into new buying agreements. And bidding partners should be expected to be asked why they should be the ones with whom to consolidate the spend. That might require new partner services and value-adds.”
Partners may need to create a talk-track about why they should be the consolidating-partner of choice among these new opportunities. As you consider whether your organization is EA 3.0 ready, check out the next part in our Next Generation VAR series here to learn more about creating a partner brand in a software-driven world.
Want to learn more? Contact TD SYNNEX at CiscoCX@tdsynnex.com to learn more about how we help partners align with Cisco’s shift to software!
