Cisco 360 Has Potential For 'Big Impact' To The Channel: Partners

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins weighed in on what the fully renovated Cisco 360 partner program means for partners, who tell CRN that the “devil will be in the details.”

Cisco 360, revealed this week at Cisco Partner Summit 2024, marks the biggest overhaul to the partner program in the company's history and partners are eager to learn how the sweeping changes will impact their businesses, solution providers told CRN.

"This is something that has the potential to have a very big impact on partners," said Lane Irvine, network business solutions director for Long View Systems, a Calgary, Alberta-based MSP and Cisco Gold Partner.

Cisco 360, which won't launch until February 2026 to give partners time to adjust, will do away with separate partner programs and incentives such as VIP, Perform Plus, and the Cisco Services Partner Program (CSPP). These will be folded into a single structure called Cisco Partner Incentive (CPI), which was first discussed last year during Cisco Partner Summit.

"The replacement of VIP is the biggest piece. That program is the most important and most valuable rebate program that we as partners have today. So anytime you look to make any major changes to the most profitable program, partners are inevitably very invested in making sure that they do the right thing," Irvine said.

The legacy Cisco VIP program was "extremely valuable" in helping Cisco drive new initiatives and technologies. It's been especially useful in recent years as Cisco has been shifting away from hardware in favor of software, Irvine said.

"As they move to become a software company, they need to transform their programs because incenting primarily on hardware is not the right fit anymore. That's not where the cheese is. And so I think it's very valuable for them to pivot into, ‘How are we rewarding partners for the right behavior?’ And what I really like about this is it moves away from the transactional sale," he said.

Rather than transactions, Cisco wants its partners to focus on lifecycle, adoption services, and business value. This will either force a pivot for traditional hardware VARs that are still earning primarily on capex deals, or some partners could get left behind, solution providers said.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told CRN that given the technology transitions that have occurred and AI's impact on businesses of all sizes, now was the time for a partner program refresh.

"I have for many years been saying there's got to be something we should be thinking about doing differently, because nothing stands that test of time for 20 years," he said.

Robbins, who helped put together Cisco's first partner program in his capacity as a U.S. channel sales leader more than two decades ago, believes that Rodney Clark, Cisco's channel chief of nearly a year, came into the company with fresh eyes and has a thought-out plan for partners. Still, Robbins recognizes the new program will be an adjustment for partners.

"I've said this forever to partners: Whenever we make these kinds of changes, there'll be things we do really well, and there'll be things we miss, and we'll adapt. But I really think the most important thing is to make sure our field sales teams and our partners are chasing the same stuff, and they're compensated similarly," he said. "I think that's the number one design factor."

For many Cisco partners that are already selling software and managed services, the new program won't be a "monumental lift," Robbins said.

"I'd like to think that it's not revolutionary relative to what it's asking our partners to do. [Cisco 360] is really changing the way we structure the incentive program and the specializations, et cetera, to reflect the importance of the technology to the customers today and in alignment with what we're asking our sales teams to do."

Robbins said the program has the potential to bring in new MSSP partners and to re-energize relationships with existing partners.

"I think it has the potential to really have partners that have not focused on our security portfolio in a long time, to double down on our security portfolio, to revisit it, really recognize the innovation that the team's been building and probably recognize the value that it has and … try to represent it in the market with us more than they might have done in the past," he said.

The Devil is in the Details

Cisco partners will ultimately need more details over the next 15 months on how exactly – and how much – they will be compensated, as well as how solution providers that have made big investments in the current partner program can still stand out in the market, said Salim Gheewalla, vice president of marketing and alliances for Ottawa-based MSP giant Calian IT & Cyber Solutions.

Cisco 360 will end the sought-after Gold partner designation, which has been in place for 30 years. In its place will be two designations: Cisco Partner and Cisco Preferred Partner.

"I think it's going to take some understanding," Gheewalla said. "I think the Partner, Preferred Partner [designations] challenge is going to become, ‘How do we differentiate ourselves and our investments?’ There's some branding there [with the Gold designation]. To me, Gold sounds more elevated than Preferred does," he said. "I want to see how [Cisco 360] unfolds and the value it brings and how it helps us differentiate ourselves from other partners."

Gheewalla said the new program will also help Cisco simplify their own internal processes.

"If you start thinking about how many variations they have with Gold, [Select, Premier] and then the Master [specializations], I think it becomes really hard for them to distinguish who's doing what and how good they're doing it," he said.

For Logicalis US, the Troy, Michigan-based arm of the global solution provider, the new partner program shouldn't be a heavy lift given the work that the longtime Cisco partner has been doing in lifecycle services and the Cisco Specializations that Logicalis has earned, said Brandon Harris, vice president, hybrid data center, for Logicalis US.

Still, "the devil will be in the details" of Cisco 360, Harris said.

"I think the program will have good alignment with what Cisco is doing, which has been evident in the last couple of years with [partners] not only selling their products but offering a full managed service. We are ahead of the game with things like our [Cisco-validated] managed SASE service," he said.

Cisco will need to tap into its partner community for feedback to make adjustments to the framework of the program over the next 15 months, he said.

"I think we're in pretty good shape, but at this point, we need more details about the program and the balance of incentives on the front end and the back end," Harris said.