Channel acts as Spine for Cisco

B. Raghavendran 
Vice-President & Head, Partner Organization
Cisco India & SAARC

Partner success directly correlates to ours and we are deeply committed to our partner network. Over the past few quarters, we have experienced remarkable growth in the Partner Led (small and medium) segment which is a major contributor to Cisco's revenue in the country today. There is significant headroom for market development and expansion, particularly in the upcountry markets and we are committed to accelerate our investments in channel engagement programs to help  our partners drive sales in mid-market and SMB segments.

Cisco is a partner centric company and works day in day out with the channel for the channel and by the channel. 

Evolution of Channel in India

At every stage of the market and technology evolution, Cisco responded by evolving its partner program to help partners move along that journey successfully. Today, Cisco has a very robust partner network comprising of systems integrators, distributors, value-added resellers, solution providers and others, which account for almost 95% of Cisco's revenue in this region. To help its community of channel partners realize the full benefits of network-centric architectures, Cisco has introduced several specialization and certifications programs. These programs are critical to Cisco's strategy of building a channel ecosystem with architectural selling capacity and capabilities to drive innovation, differentiation, and transformation.

Evolving with Cisco

As Cisco evolved from product-centric company to a technology to solution to architecture-led company their partners also evolved with them. There was a time when Cisco announced its move into Collaboration space, with established biggies already in the market. “IP telephony was a new concept then, plus we were talking of UC and Contact Centers too. We focused a lot on educating partners and creating awareness; we were successful in doing so and received positive feedback from our partners," informs Raghavendran. Cisco actually opened new avenues and helped its partner to offer more to their customers

Cisco's GTM 

Cisco believes that the ability to sell architectures, services and solutions will be the key differentiators and profitability drivers for its partners. Aligned with this, Cisco has introduced several programs to help partners move up the value chain which help them to differentiate in the market through certifications and specializations and guarantee them with market recognition of their technology expertise. Apart from this, Cisco also offers co-marketing support, including partner business planning and marketing curriculum

Because of the diverse nature of the country, the level of interaction with partners differ. Cisco intelligently customizes training to address their partners' needs considering that particular market. To invite participation from partners across, Cisco designs promotions with various slabs or categories. “Our philosophy is that all our partners get to participate and no partner should feel neglected,” adds Raghavendran.

Cisco's recently announced partner incentive program titled 'Spanish Conquest' celebrates the spirit of competition among its strong network of 2500 partners in India & the SAARC region. Aligned with Cisco's strategy to strengthen its position in Tier II and up-country markets, this new incentive program is designed to motivate Cisco registered partners to drive sales of Cisco products (Switches, Routers, Cisco UC Manager BE 3000, UCS C Series Servers, Express Video Products and more) in the SMB segment. The top billing partners in 7 categories would get a fully paid trip to Spain, including sightseeing tours to Barcelona, Madrid and a trip to FC Barcelona football club. During their visit to Spain, the winners will also be felicitated at a grand awards ceremony. In addition to the grand prize, partners will also have a chance to win other exciting prizes such as Apple MacBook Air, Apple iPad, Microsoft Xbox Kinect, amongst others.

"Incentivizing our partners has delivered results for us consistently; given our 100 percent partner led business model, these promotions are vital to keep our partners engaged and involved," he concludes.

Channel is an integral and critical part of Cisco's strategy. They want their partners to add value to their business and help Cisco grow its market share.