Cisco Investing More in Security Partners' Success with Less Complexity
Cisco is focused on increasing partners' profitability in security.
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Emma Carpenter, Cisco‘s global security sales leader, says 75% of organizations out there are pursuing some level of security vendor consolidation.
“There are hundreds if not multiple hundreds actually, of security vendors that provide that niche or that point solution out there,” she said. “But who ties it all together? Who has the ability to purview from the inception point into the network, through into managing the security operations center (SOC) and out through into the network environment? That’s Cisco.”
In the coming months, partners will see Cisco more out there visibly from a security point of view, Carpenter said.
“There’s no question everybody knows we’re a networking giant, but we want to be known in the same breath from a security point of view as we move forward,” she said.
Security growth areas for Cisco and its partners include:
Secure and grow the base with Cisco Secure Firewall.
Secure the platform, network plus security, with Cisco Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) and zero trust.
Secure the SOC with XDR and Talos threat intelligence.
Critical success factors for growth include industry-recognized products, productivity tools, greater focus on partners and “everyone sells security.”
“Whenever we’re talking about what we’re going to launch going forward, we’re actually doing it with our partners as well,” Carpenter said. “So how can we take a couple of them globally to make sure that it works in market for the areas where we’re launching, and we launch with them early in a environment that they can test it in a safe environment to start with as well so we can get ahead of that. That’s really critical to us.”
Cisco is simplifying its cybersecurity offerings, reducing the number of solution suites from 27 to three, Carpenter said.
“As we move forward, we’re going to bring together those buying personas, user cases of how we know that our partners are going to take this to market, and we’re going to simplify that approach so you get more with each one of these suites,” she said. “And then the idea is that you go make sure that those software elements are adopted.”
Cisco is also reducing its sales teams from 12 to four to reduce complexity in how it engages with partners and customers, Carpenter said. And finally, Cisco is reducing its messages from multiple to one for a clear strategy on how partners position Cisco security.
Shawn Yuskaitis, Cisco‘s partner go-to-market leader for global security, said there are key areas illustrating Cisco’s commitment to partners.
“First and foremost is we are focused on our partner profitability,” he said. “We are continuing to innovate and drive programs that drive increased profitability at the front end or the back end, as well as through lifecycle incentives. Major, major changes are occurring here as we are looking at how to really drive not only that land or that sale motion, but how are we driving the life cycle, how are we investing in that activate use and adoption, ultimately making this much more relevant to our partners and delivering the outcomes that our customers need.”
Cisco is also reducing complexity, Yuskaitis said. Suites will enable streamlining of sales motion with partner-led offers and simplified pricing.
“We are continuing to make sure that our partners have the ability to meet their customers where they want to buy, whether that be through managed, through public cloud marketplaces or making sure that they have the ability to have simplified pricing and programs of support, velocity and scale,” he said. “There is a lot of stuff under works and we’ve already made significant progress since we last spoke back in November. Now we’re also simplifying the experience. We oftentimes hear how complex it can be to transact and do business. We have made major investments here to help really drive the ease of transaction. We’ve implemented white-glove support. We’ve improved our tools. We are investing in training to make sure that the latest and greatest content is out there to align to the business needs of our customers. And we’re making sure … that we have very simple and consistent messaging that is easy to convey moving on.”
Cisco’s secure access service edge (SASE) technology is very focused on a specific solution and outcome, Yuskaitis said. And it’s going to be doing something very similar with XDR at RSA.
“It’s ultimately really aligning our investments, our products towards those outcomes that our customers are looking for, and that’s the simplification agenda,” he said. “And then lastly, what we’re also doing is making sure that from a profitability standpoint that we’re making it very clear to support our partners and their customers right through that life cycle because it’s not just about selling them the solution. We want to make sure that they’re actually experiencing those outcomes that they’re purchasing, which is why we’re investing so heavily now within the life cycle component. We want to make sure that it’s not just sold, but it’s activated, it’s used and ultimately adopted within the organization, which pays massive dividends back to all of us. Because all of a sudden they’re not just coming in and saying, “Oh, I want to buy this.” Now they’re saying, “Wow, I’m getting value out of it and I want to expand; I want more capabilities and more features.” And so it becomes very powerful.”
Stephanie Hagopian, CDW‘s vice president of physical and cybersecurity solutions, said macroeconomic pressures are causing customers to scrutinize their investments a little more closely.
“They’re taking a little longer to evaluate solutions,” she said. “But as a result of really asking us to help them from a tech rationalization perspective, it’s creating a great opportunity for the platform play, which is a clear advantage for Cisco in particular. We’re seeing our clients lean more toward the familiar vendors, the solutions where they already have a footprint and where they can just … organically expand on those footprints rather than reinvent the wheel and find a best-of-breed … point solution, because that just adds to the complexity. The second piece is … there just aren’t enough people in the industry, which has been that way regardless of the economic pressures that we experienced this year. That’s been an issue of workforce shortage, and security just pervades throughout. But we have seen an uptick in staff augmentation as a result of that. We’ve seen a lot of requests to kind of fill in the gap.”
Ryan Sheehan, SHI International‘s senior vice president of advanced solutions, said in every customer engagement and conversation, there’s a security component.
“Regardless of what the conversation is, it points back to what’s the cyber plan to protect this,” he said. “And I think regardless of segment, regardless of vertical, there’s common challenges that we see.”
Cisco is in a unique and prime position to be a top partner via enterprise agreements, Sheehan said.
“The way that you can acquire that technology and bundle it into a platform play, that becomes a very compelling value proposition for our customers,” he said. “We just had our kickoff with about 3,000 people in Austin, Texas. And one of our cultural fun things that do is what we call smackdown. So all of our practitioners compete. We give them a real-world scenario. This was a health care scenario about how do we leverage a platform type, or an alliance or ecosystem. Multiple vendors were represented and the audience, a bunch of practitioners and salespeople, pick the winner based on overall presenting skills, salespersonship, and [if they] are technically accurate. And Cisco came out the winner of that one. Our partnership shows when the story is told in the right way, when the use case is understood and you have the right technical expertise to be able to communicate that value to a customer, it creates a win for everybody involved. And that’s where we’re starting to really see that accelerate inside of our organization.”
Ryan Sheehan, SHI International‘s senior vice president of advanced solutions, said in every customer engagement and conversation, there’s a security component.
“Regardless of what the conversation is, it points back to what’s the cyber plan to protect this,” he said. “And I think regardless of segment, regardless of vertical, there’s common challenges that we see.”
Cisco is in a unique and prime position to be a top partner via enterprise agreements, Sheehan said.
“The way that you can acquire that technology and bundle it into a platform play, that becomes a very compelling value proposition for our customers,” he said. “We just had our kickoff with about 3,000 people in Austin, Texas. And one of our cultural fun things that do is what we call smackdown. So all of our practitioners compete. We give them a real-world scenario. This was a health care scenario about how do we leverage a platform type, or an alliance or ecosystem. Multiple vendors were represented and the audience, a bunch of practitioners and salespeople, pick the winner based on overall presenting skills, salespersonship, and [if they] are technically accurate. And Cisco came out the winner of that one. Our partnership shows when the story is told in the right way, when the use case is understood and you have the right technical expertise to be able to communicate that value to a customer, it creates a win for everybody involved. And that’s where we’re starting to really see that accelerate inside of our organization.”
Cisco is investing in its partners’ success with security with new tools, incentives and enablement, with less complexity and a simplified experience.
That was among information shared Tuesday during the latest Cisco security roundtable featuring company leaders and partners. Cisco also disclosed it will be making a major announcement about its extended detection and response (XDR) later this month at RSA Conference USA.
Oliver Tuszik, Cisco‘s senior vice president of partner sales and general manager of routes to market, said his company is very focused on its partners, “which is not a surprise because they are 90% of our route to market.”
Cisco’s Oliver Tuszik
“So we do everything more or less with our partners,” he said. “So when you look at the top three partner feedbacks that we got over the last two years, I would say it’s first of all, simplify the portfolio … create an end-to-end solution instead of point solution. Second, not a surprise, make it easier to transact, reduce complexity. That’s what we’re doing, not only on the sales side, but also systems tools. And then also not a surprise, something partners always ask us for is make it more profitable. So we’re not only adding more profitable to the back end, we’re also adding more profitable into the deals. So our entire structure is shaped on customer and partner feedback.”
Cisco, Partners Can Help with Organizations’ Security Maturity
When it comes to cybersecurity, only 15% of organizations globally are at a mature level of preparedness, Tuszik said. That leaves 85% of all organizations unprepared.
In addition, less than one-half have started to take steps to ramp up their security capabilities, he said.
“And this comes in a situation where executives say that their biggest priority is to protect their company from all these kinds of threats that they’re seeing,” Tuszik said. “They are afraid of these attacks like they never had been before. So to sum it up, it is a difficult situation right now for all of our customers. Our customers are experiencing one of the biggest challenges when it comes to security.”
That is why Cisco‘s partner ecosystem, together with Cisco, is in such an important role right now, he said. What customers are looking for is less about the best security solutions. It’s about bringing an end-to-end coverage model that helps them to manage the complexity.
“In this age of the partner, it’s less about only delivering a technology innovation,” Tuszik said. “It’s about delivering the innovation in a way that it delivers a value while reducing complexity.”
See our slideshow above for more highlights from Cisco’s security roundtable.
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