CISCO PARTNER SUMMIT — Cisco has announced a new enterprise agreement (EA) to make it easier to buy, sell and manage its software and services.

Announced at the Cisco Partner Summit 2021 Tuesday, the vendor says the contract increases access to its portfolio and solutions. It claims to offer predictable costs, greater choice and flexibility for organizations looking to accelerate their digital transformation.

The agreement is available through select partners with plans to expand availability in early 2022.

The current enterprise agreement programs will remain available to customers and partners while the transition to the new agreement takes place.

Gerri Elliott is EVP, chief customer and partner officer at Cisco. She said the new enterprise agreement gives customers and partners “a powerful, simple, and extremely flexible way to buy and consume our great software products.

Cisco’s Gerri Elliott

“Our incredible partner ecosystem has already built a multibillion-dollar software business, but we’re clearly just getting started. Innovations like the ability to shift investments across the portfolio will help us better serve our customers, push further into our business transformation, and drive higher profitability for our partners.”

‘Ongoing Commitment to Partner Profitability’

Cisco says the new enterprise agreement is a cornerstone of its “ongoing transformation and commitment to supporting partner profitability, as well as streamlining the customer experience.”

It contends that as organizations adopt more innovative technologies, they face the challenge of managing various licensing agreements. It says Cisco’s new EA simplifies the experience with one set of terms and conditions across five portfolios. These are applications infrastructure, networking infrastructure, collaboration, security and services.

It also features a lower minimum spend threshold to make it easier for customers to access EA benefits. Moreover, it includes multiple partners in a single agreement with customers able to see all of their licenses.

Cisco further maintains that firms face increasingly complex IT environments and are looking for new software and services that offer predictable costs. With the enterprise agreement, Cisco networking customers can take advantage of “value shift.” This feature allows them to shift committed spend across Cisco DNA and Meraki software.

‘True Forward’

Organizations can activate licenses and deploy what is needed, when it is needed. Also, with the “true forward” feature, future billing cycles are adjusted to align with new usage levels.

Cisco Enterprise Agreement Pay, a new offer from Cisco Capital, provides extended payments at no cost to customers for select EAs and a-la-carte software. For Cisco partners, the complementary financing option mitigates credit and currency risk. It also features billing and collecting through Cisco Capital. The company pays partners at the start of a customer’s contract.

Finally, managing and updating software has traditionally been complex and time-consuming for large organizations. Cisco says the enterprise agreement increases access to technology without an enterprise-wide commitment. It additionally streamlines license procurement, offering admin with one place to view, manage, and renew licenses.