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Cisco educates partners on the right up scaling model

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DQW Bureau
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Cisco helps partners decide for themselves which genres their companies can
fit in and then equips them with the requisite skillsets

Realizing the evolution of its channel from mere box pushing to solution
providing, Cisco is helping its partners to position them-selves correctly in
the current scenario. The company is hav-ing an ongoing series of enga-gement
meets where it educa-tes partners on how they can develop their company to fit
into the right channel category.

At these meets, Cisco helps partners decide for themselves which genres their
companies can fit in and then equips them with the requisite skill sets. The
first step is to find out the nature of solutions provided by partners.
"This is where our Gold partners like Datacraft, Wipro and CMC would fit
in, as it involves core or advanced technology deployments," says Shirish
Joshi, VP-Channels, In-dia and SAARC, Cisco Systems.

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The next level is under-standing the partner's business models and slotting
them accordingly. The dominant business defines the company's core competency
and once the vendor maps its partner's core business skills, it they comes up
with go-to-market strate-gies which will suit the latter best.

Cisco helps these partners chart an annual business plan and then has
quarterly reviews of the performance.

The reason Cisco is under-taking this education initiative is to move the top
tier of its partners into solution-based business. "Here the margins are
high, but the investment is relatively higher too. Partners need to be
well-certified and have the technical skillsets to cater to their customers.
This calls for investment both from the channel's and vendor's end,"
Shirish explains.

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Talking about certifications, it is quite surprising that only 50-odd partner
of Cisco's 1,500 channel network have gotten themselves certified on the
vendor's technologies. The company has eight Gold and Silver partners and 10
Premier partners. It recently introduced a new tier in the certification grid-the
Cisco Premier Select partners. Explains Shirish, "There were 25 certified
part-ners who did not meet the qua-lifications of a Silver player, but had
capabilities better than a Premier partner. So we institu-ted this new category
for these partners."

The vendor is also streng-thening its focus beyond the 100 cities where it
has representation through channel. The company has also started a web-based
channel help line for in non-metro cities who would like to partner with it and
sell its solutions.

Vinita Bhatia

Mumbai

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