What an unimaginable week we had in Los Angeles at Cisco Associate Summit 2024! It was incredible to attach with so many companions and colleagues, sharing concepts and constructing relationships that drive our collective success.
Thanks to everybody who participated—whether or not in particular person or nearly. Your dedication introduced us right here, and your continued assist will hold us shifting ahead on this thrilling journey.
Ahead as One was our theme this 12 months, centered on how we ship buyer worth collectively and the way we join and defend clients within the AI period. The resounding message all through the week was that by leveraging the whole ecosystem, we’re empowered to create distinctive buyer experiences—collectively.
Chuck Robbins, our Chair and CEO, stated it effectively: “We’re at a main inflection level as our clients are feeling relentless strain to deploy AI infrastructure. They want our experience and expertise greater than ever, and powerful partnerships are important to their success.”
Introducing the New Cisco 360 Associate Program
At Associate Summit, we unveiled the brand new Cisco 360 Associate Program—one ecosystem, shared success. This program was constructed with enter from over 1,000 hours of suggestions from companions, clients, and business analysts.
It builds on our wealthy {hardware} and networking legacy whereas evolving with right this moment’s shift to software program, subscriptions, and companies. This system helps all sorts of companion fashions, specializing in what issues most—driving worth via go-to-market methods, constructing capabilities, and interesting deeply with clients. Its portfolio-based framework ensures companions develop with us as we innovate.
The Cisco 360 Associate Program displays world influence, agility, and ease—and most significantly, it represents our dedication to working collectively and successful as one ecosystem.
What this implies for you
Let me break it down into the three issues that matter most:
Cash. Time. And relationships.
For these of you who’ve constructed relationships with Cisco, your funding is protected. We are going to give you instruments and sources to realize predictable profitability, offering stability and long-term success.
Additionally, you will have loads of time to transition. With 15 months to regulate—earlier than the brand new program takes impact on February 1, 2026—you may transfer at your personal tempo with confidence.
Most significantly, this program is constructed with you on the heart, aligning together with your wants and supporting your progress for years to return.
A brand new strategy to measure companion worth
The Cisco 360 Associate Program introduces the Associate Worth Index, a brand new framework for measuring your contribution throughout 4 dimensions:
- Foundational: The maturity of your lifecycle or managed companies practices.
- Capabilities: Your funding in technical and different abilities.
- Efficiency: The way you land, retain, and renew buyer worth.
- Engagement: The way you join with clients all through their journey.
This strategy ensures that your distinctive strengths—whether or not in Safety, Networking, Collaboration, Cloud & AI, Companies and Observability, and/or throughout a number of portfolios—are acknowledged and rewarded.
Amplifying your worth to clients
We need to spotlight the investments and capabilities that set you aside. That’s the reason we’re introducing two new designations: Cisco Associate and Cisco Most popular Associate; and will probably be sunsetting the present Gold, Premier and Choose ranges.
These new designations mirror your strengths and dedication to excellence. We’re additionally investing in them to make sure clients acknowledge their worth—making it clear why they need to select you as their companion.
All companion anniversary dates for present roles, ranges, and the Buyer Expertise Specializations will probably be prolonged to February 1, 2026. Through the transition interval, when you obtain a brand new position, stage, or Buyer Expertise Specialization, your anniversary date will probably be set to February 1, 2026, no matter when that credential is earned.
Subsequent-gen Specializations and boosting advantages
The shift from conventional Structure Specializations to Resolution-based Specializations will proceed as we transition to the Cisco 360 Associate Program. We are going to develop subsequent gen Specializations that may can help you differentiate your technical experience both extra deeply into one particular portfolio or throughout portfolios; going ahead, these specializations will probably be obtainable to our Cisco Most popular Companions.
Get began right this moment
We’ve got some thrilling rapid steps obtainable to you:
We’re excited to announce the primary AI centered specialization. The Cisco AI-Prepared Infrastructure Resolution Specialization was designed to satisfy demand for superior Cisco AI infrastructure options, delivered by knowledgeable Cisco companions. This new specialization positions you to ship enterprise outcomes that matter most right this moment.
For Managed Service Suppliers (MSPs), we have now additionally added two new Cisco Powered Companies Specializations:
- Safe Entry / Safety Service Edge (SSE)
- Industrial OT Safety
These will enable you meet rising market demand for security-focused managed companies, whereas driving progress with differentiated options.
Lastly, we encourage you to get skilled within the newest Safety & Observability options obtainable within the present Cisco Associate Program and Splunk Partnerverse. To assist your investments, we’re excited to announce cross-program companion specializations. These specializations, obtainable on November 20, 2024, will defend Splunk companions’ investments and permit Cisco companions to increase their experience and attain extra clients.
Evolving incentives
To reinforce your profitability and competitiveness, we’re boosting our vary of advantages supplied. You’ll profit from a mixture of upfront reductions and back-end rebates aligned to the worth you deliver to clients.
As we already introduced at Associate Summit ‘23, our flagship rebates—VIP, Lifecycle Incentives, and Cisco Companies Associate Program (CSPP)—will roll into the brand new Cisco Associate Incentive, providing the identical rewards with a extra streamlined strategy.
We’ve got expanded the Buyer Evaluation Incentive to cowl Networking and Collaboration, along with Safety. These proactive assessments not solely determine new alternatives but in addition enhance buyer loyalty and speed up deal approvals.
The Carry out Plus program now provides much more methods to earn, with elevated payout ranges and rewards for progress throughout architectures and midmarket clients.
Lifecycle Incentives additionally continues to evolve, including new incentives for Enterprise Networking, Safety, and Knowledge Heart, plus new Buyer Expertise use instances like Duo. We’ve got simplified monitoring with a brand new single-step view in Funds Supervisor, making it simpler to foretell earnings.
Trying forward
Over the following 15 months, we’ll roll out this system in a phased strategy beginning with a give attention to the Safety portfolio and offering deeper insights into your group’s worth index. Then we’ll roll out extra indices for Collaboration, Networking, Cloud & AI, Companies, and Observability —all accessible on Associate Expertise Platform (PXP).
The Cisco 360 Associate Program displays every thing we have now heard from you—your insights, challenges, and ambitions. We all know that predictable progress fuels your means to innovate, make investments, and create significant outcomes for purchasers. And we’re dedicated to your profitability, offering the instruments and sources it’s essential unlock new alternatives.
Let’s join
I stay up for connecting with a lot of you within the coming months via advisory boards, occasions, and one-on-one conversations. For extra particulars, go to the brand new 360 Associate Program web page to discover a wealth of sources and registration hyperlinks for upcoming webinars on the Cisco 360 Associate Program. You can even e-mail askpartnerprogram@cisco.com with suggestions and questions.
And, when you missed my breakout session BIS 05 at Associate Summit—or need to watch it once more—test it out on November 12 when it goes reside on the Associate Launch Expertise platform.
Collectively, we’ll transcend assembly buyer expectations—we’ll exceed them!
Unsure we need to assure this profitability forecast, esp in writing?
Watch breakout session BIS 05 at Associate Summit on Associate Launch Expertise
We’d love to listen to what you suppose. Ask a Query, Remark Beneath, and Keep Related with #CiscoPartners on social!
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