6. Cisco’s Andrew Sage

This week we featured 12 key partner trends from Cisco channel leaders.

Andrew Sage, vice president of global distribution sales, spoke about Cisco’s growth in the SMB segment, where partners are playing a critical role. He also shared Cisco’s recent initiatives to reward partners and their customers for sustainable practices.

But maybe more importantly, Sage made waves for his direct answer regarding marketplaces.

“We’re trying every new way that our customers are asking us to buy, and then we’re going to double down on the ones that are working right now,” he said. “The idea that we would get to millions of these customers somehow by putting up a clever website and selling direct to them is absolutely never going to happen. And everybody at Cisco knows that,” he said.

Read more to find out the other partner trends highlighted by Cisco channel leaders. They made many of their comments to us at this month’s Channel Partners Conference & Expo.