Celebrating Connections and Launching the New Cisco 360 Associate Program

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What an unimaginable week we had in Los Angeles at Cisco Associate Summit 2024! It was improbable 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 individual or nearly. Your dedication introduced us right here, and your continued assist will hold us transferring ahead on this thrilling journey.

Ahead as One was our theme this yr, 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 all the ecosystem, we’re empowered to create distinctive buyer experiences—collectively.

Chuck Robbins, our Chair and CEO, mentioned it properly: “We’re at a main inflection level as our clients are feeling relentless strain to deploy AI infrastructure. They want our experience and know-how greater than ever, and powerful partnerships are vital 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 trade analysts.

It builds on our wealthy {hardware} and networking legacy whereas evolving with at the moment’s shift to software program, subscriptions, and providers. This system helps all sorts of companion fashions, specializing in what issues most—driving worth by way of go-to-market methods, constructing capabilities, and fascinating deeply with clients. Its portfolio-based framework ensures companions develop with us as we innovate.

The Cisco 360 Associate Program displays world affect, 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 assets 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 possibly can transfer at your personal tempo with confidence.

Most significantly, this program is constructed with you on the middle, aligning along with your wants and supporting your development for years to come back.

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 providers practices.
Capabilities: Your funding in technical and different expertise.
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, Providers 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 well-liked 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. In the course of the transition interval, should you obtain a brand new function, degree, 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 can assist you to differentiate your technical experience both extra deeply into one particular portfolio or throughout portfolios; going ahead, these specializations will probably be out there to our Cisco Most well-liked Companions.

Get began at the moment

We have now some thrilling instant steps out there 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 professional Cisco companions. This new specialization positions you to ship enterprise outcomes that matter most at the moment.

For Managed Service Suppliers (MSPs), we’ve additionally added two new Cisco Powered Providers Specializations:

Safe Entry / Safety Service Edge (SSE)
Industrial OT Safety

These will provide help to meet rising market demand for security-focused managed providers, whereas driving development with differentiated options.

Lastly, we encourage you to get skilled within the newest Safety & Observability options out there within the present Cisco Associate Program and Splunk Partnerverse. To assist your investments, we’re excited to announce cross-program companion specializations. These specializations, out there on November 20, 2024, will defend Splunk companions’ investments and permit Cisco companions to develop their experience and attain extra clients.

Evolving incentives

To boost 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 Providers Associate Program (CSPP)—will roll into the brand new Cisco Associate Incentive, providing the identical rewards with a extra streamlined strategy.

We have now expanded the Buyer Evaluation Incentive to cowl Networking and Collaboration, along with Safety. These proactive assessments not solely determine new alternatives but additionally enhance buyer loyalty and speed up deal approvals.

The Carry out Plus program now gives much more methods to earn, with elevated payout ranges and rewards for development throughout architectures and midmarket clients.

Lifecycle Incentives additionally continues to evolve, including new incentives for Enterprise Networking, Safety, and Knowledge Middle, plus new Buyer Expertise use instances like Duo. We have now 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 concentrate on the Safety portfolio and offering deeper insights into your group’s worth index. Then we’ll roll out further indices for Collaboration, Networking, Cloud & AI, Providers, and Observability —all accessible on Associate Expertise Platform (PXP).

The Cisco 360 Associate Program displays all the things we’ve heard from you—your insights, challenges, and ambitions. We all know that predictable development fuels your capability to innovate, make investments, and create significant outcomes for purchasers. And we’re dedicated to your profitability, offering the instruments and assets you have to unlock new alternatives.

Let’s join

I sit up for connecting with a lot of you within the coming months by way of 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 assets and registration hyperlinks for upcoming webinars on the Cisco 360 Associate Program. You may also e mail askpartnerprogram@cisco.com with suggestions and questions.

And, should 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?