Cisco CEO: Network Refreshes Offer ‘Huge’ Partner Opportunity, With Security, AI Top Of Mind For Customers

‘They have vulnerabilities that have been announced with security notices and patches that have been released, but customers haven’t updated. And the adversaries around the world are taking advantage of it—whether it’s critical infrastructure or the carrier networks or whatever,’ says Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins.

Cisco Systems Chair and CEO Chuck Robbins says there is a “huge” partner opportunity around networking refreshes right now as many customers’ infrastructure is in dire need of a network upgrade.

“We have customers that sweat their assets and they have technology in their infrastructure that’s beyond the last day of support from different vendors,” said Robbins at the 2024 XChange Best of Breed Conference, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company. “They have vulnerabilities that have been announced with security notices and patches that have been released, but customers haven’t updated. And the adversaries around the world are taking advantage of it—whether it’s critical infrastructure or the carrier networks or whatever.”

Robbins said Cisco customers are increasingly needing help from channel partners to refresh their networks to combat cyberthreats and prepare themselves for the AI era.

“Our customers are going to really need us to come in and, candidly, help them prioritize—and we’re building some capabilities that we’re going to share with our partners around, ‘How do we help our customers prioritize what to tackle first?’ Because it’s going to become a real issue for our customers if we don’t get this resolved,” said Robbins. “And [also] with modernization to be ready for AI. Those are two areas that I think are going to drive our customers to continue this upgrade cycle.”

Partner Expects ‘Big’ Cisco Refreshes

Tom Colleary, president of F3 Technology Partners, a Hartford, Conn.-based Cisco partner, said more and more customers are seeking network upgrades in 2024 and beyond.

“We’re seeing natural refreshes of things we’ve been putting in for the last five years, Cisco being the main one of them. We have a lot of Cisco’s install base that’s going to be up for refresh,” said Colleary. “So we’re expecting big refreshes there.”

Colleary said Cisco’s data center and compute technology are “amazing” with price/ performance as good as “anything on the market.”

“Their commitment to the channel is as good, if not better, than anyone,” said Colleary. “We have zero channel conflict when it comes to Cisco. We really work together in developing solutions.”

Cisco Customers’ Top IT Spending Areas In 2025

In terms of where Cisco customers’ top IT spending priories are next year, Robbins said they’re around cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and resilience.

“Most of our customers today will tell you, ‘I’m not sure what my ultimate AI portfolio is going to look like, but I know for a fact that I need to be ready for it,’” Robbins said.

“If you remember the last time they got caught flat-footed was the pandemic. Most of our customers were ill-prepared from a technology infrastructure because they had old tech. No one was prepared for everybody to go home and work,” he said. “Now they’re just super cautious about ensuring that they’re ready for this [AI] wave.”

Robbins said customers have been focused on cybersecurity for years, “but they’re even more keenly aware of the cyber situation today because of all of the attacks, the sophistication of the attacks and the concern over what risk is associated with AI.”

Customers are also concerned about their overall resilience, Robbins said, “which is another thing that leads us to being super pleased with the acquisition of Splunk and what we’re going to be able to deliver.”

F3 Technology’s Colleary, for his part, has complete faith in Cisco’s cybersecurity future.

“People don’t necessarily think of Cisco security right away, right? They think of all the enabling ones, and then they think of the Palo Alto [Networks] or something like that,” he said.

“I do think they’re going to lead it. I remember 10 years ago when Cisco said, ‘We lead every industry. Why aren’t we going to lead this one [security]?’ So I’m pretty confident they’ll get there,” said Colleary. “There are 300 or 400 different providers of cybersecurity, but I think Cisco is all-encompassing. They’ve got the wherewithal, the money and the foresight.”