Two years since it put its digital transformation stake in the ground, Cisco is giving its partners a program that is unified and transformed to a role-based model. Simplicity and an improved partner experience sit at the core of the biggest changes in a decade.

Cisco’s strategy is about agility and growth. The new Cisco Partner Program, which will unfold over the next 12-18 months, is based on four roles – integrator, provider, developer and advisor. Additionally, Cisco is launching “The Partner Experience Platform.” It’s a digital partner platform and single repository for working with Cisco across the life cycle.

Cisco’s Oliver Tuszik

“Most of have customers who’ve changed what they buy, and how they buy and prioritize. Of course, the market is always changing. This isn’t completely new, but today it’s more disruptive than ever. And changes are coming faster,” said Oliver Tuszik, senior vice president, global partner organization at Cisco, at Cisco Partner Summit Digital. “Being ready for an unknown future and being able to adapt fast — that is all about being future-ready.”

The global channel chief noted three takeaways that partner can expect to hear more about from Cisco. They are commitment, more ways to reach customers and meet their needs, and a focus on agility and relevance.

One Cisco Partner Program

Partners will see a new simplified partner program structure. Going forward, Cisco will consolidate about a dozen separate partner programs into a single one. The new Cisco Partner Program will offer partners more opportunity to differentiate across the various aspects of their business, from resell to managed services to developer and advisor practices with Cisco.

The role-based focus aims to help partners differentiate across their business, simplify, be more agile and profitable.

Cisco’s Mark Suplus

“2020 and the pandemic greatly accelerated the need for our partners to transform to deliver managed services and SaaS to lines of business, to develop applications and automation on top of Cisco platforms and to generate full customer value across the life cycle,“ said Marc Suplus, vice president, strategy, planning and programs at Cisco. “We are taking a bold step to break down the silos partners feel between our various partner programs that will give our partners more freedom to differentiate and transform across the dimensions of their Cisco business.”

While the partners can select and identify certain roes within their business – integrator, provider, developer and advisor – they’re not limited to selecting just one. The role selection process is to help partners make sense of their businesses.

Cisco hopes that this will better position partners for new opportunities, shifting focus from the product life cycle to recurring customer value. The customer experience specialization is key due to the demand on recurring value throughout the customer life cycle. It will count toward both an integrator and provider role and will also become a requirement for …

… gold Integrator status in late 2021.

Select and premier are the other tiers in the Cisco Partner Program. The tiers apply across all partner role types.

The Four Roles

Partner Experience Platform (PXP)

The new PXP helps partners collaborate across a connected ecosystem, co-innovate and co-sell together with Cisco on one digital platform.

“We co-innovated and co-developed PXP with our partners, to deliver a future ready platform,” said Jose van Dijk, vice president, operations and partner performance at Cisco. “Our focus is to reimagine the digital channel and to empower partners with digital agility across the entire partner life cycle.”

Here’s what PXP delivers:

The new Cisco Partner Program changes won’t come in like a tsunami; rather, the changes are designed to protect partner investments. Incremental changes will appear over the coming months, giving partners lead time to absorb them.