Cisco is expanding its small and midsize business (SMB) and midmarket partner strategy with changes to competency requirements, sales tools and purchasing processes designed to make it easier for channel partners to sell and support Cisco products.
Announced at Cisco Partner Summit in Vancouver, the initiatives include reopening enrollment in the company’s SMB and Midmarket Competency program, restoring its See-Try-Buy sales approach and simplifying transactions through distributor-led purchasing tools.
The changes reflect Cisco’s emphasis on scaling its SMB and midmarket business through partners rather than relying exclusively on its own sales organization.
“We have about 1,500 sellers within my organization going after this opportunity, but we know that we have to be partner-led and scale through distribution,” Jason Pernell, Vice President of Global Virtual Sales & Engineering, Cisco, told Channel Insider. “That makes us very intentional to treat our partners like our customers as we move forward, and help them be successful because we know if they grow, we will grow as well.”
Cisco reopens SMB and midmarket competency enrollment
Cisco announced it would reopen enrollment in its SMB and Midmarket Competency program in March, as part of its strategy to grow its SMB business through a partner-led sales model.
Since launching the program six months ago, over 1,200 partners have signed up and become active, Pernell said.
Cisco’s SMB and Midmarket Competency program is designed to make it easier for partners focused on smaller customers to sell Cisco products without completing the full certification process required to achieve higher Partner Value Index (PVI) scores.
Partners complete 10 hours of Black Belt training before applying for the competency. Once approved, they can access automated pricing discounts, additional support, and other partner programs.
“When a partner decides that they want to focus on the SMB-Midmarket space, we want to make it easier for them to sell Cisco, and this is a new competency that we launched so that they can get to that registration process faster and sell it to the midmarket and SMB space,” Pernell said.
See-Try-Buy returns to support partner-led sales
Cisco also announced it would bring back the See-Try-Buy sales approach, which allows partners to demonstrate products, conduct customer trials, and convert those trials into purchases.
Pernell says Cisco is making this process available to partners again after making it more difficult for them to use over the past two years.
According to Pernell, Cisco has seen one out of every four customer demonstrations turn into a trial, and one out of every three trials convert into a purchase agreement.
“[Partners] were really excited that we were bringing that back. That we’re bringing the process that we had in the past back for them as well, so that they could do that on their own,” said Pernell.
Further, Cisco is working to make its internal sales resources and tools available to partners so they can operate more independently and scale their businesses.
These resources are particularly important in the SMB and midmarket segments, where Cisco sales representatives may manage hundreds of accounts and cannot always provide direct, high-touch support.
Pernell notes that partners are using the information available through PXP and Cisco IQ alongside their own third-party data to develop tools that improve seller productivity.
“From a tooling perspective, when we offer something to our sellers, we also want to offer it to our partners as well,” Pernell explains. “We’re trying to make it self-service for our partners, so they’re less dependent on us, and that can scale through the partners in order to be more successful.”
Cisco and Ingram Micro simplify SMB purchasing
Distributor Ingram Micro recently announced a collaboration with Cisco to simplify the buying process for SMBs.
SMB Quick Buy is an AI-powered, click-to-purchase experience that helps partners quickly grow their SMB businesses through automating manual processes and simplifying transactions.
Pernell said the goal of Quick Buy is to make purchasing faster and reduce operational complexity for partners serving SMB and midmarket customers.
Pernell told us that Cisco plans to introduce additional initiatives to simplify partner operations.
“When you buy a switch from Cisco, because of all our different capabilities, you can configure it 50 different ways. With Quick Buy, we give you the suggested configuration, so that makes the operations a lot simpler so they can buy faster from Cisco,” said Pernell.
“You’re going to see more of these things come out where we try to simplify operations for our partners because in this space of SMB and midmarket, customers want things fast, and our partners want partners that they have from a manufacturing perspective to be simple to work with,” Pernell added.
Cisco IQ creates opportunities for partner-developed services
Cisco IQ, the AI-powered digital experience and support platform designed to unify Cisco’s customer support and professional services in a single interface, is generating interest among midmarket partners with some already building services on top of the platform to provide additional customer value.
Pernell describes Cisco IQ as an important tool for Cisco’s midmarket strategy, particularly because the company operates through a partner-led sales model in this segment.
Cisco IQ gives partners greater visibility into customer infrastructure, allowing them to identify potential risks, have more proactive conversations, and develop services around the platform.
Pernell says partners have already begun building services on top of Cisco IQ to deliver additional value to customers.
“We’re really excited for Cisco IQ mostly in our midmarket space, because we are partner-led, and this gives our partners another tool to have visibility into their customers and be proactive around conversations that customers can reduce risk across their infrastructure with,” Pernell said.
“Over the conference in the last few days, I already have many of our partners talking to me about how they have created services on top of IQ in order to provide more value to their customers,” Pernell added.
READ MORE: We have more coverage from Cisco’s Partner Summit, including an interview with Tim Coogan, the company’s SVP of global partner sales, about how Cisco’s partner program is incentivizing partner growth.