Edison Peres, one of the creators of the progressive partner profitability strategy at Cisco Systems,(Nasdaq: CSCO) no longer has to share the title of company channel chief with Keith Goodwin.
Under Goodwin’s direction, the partner organization at Cisco made some major changes to address new market transitions and new end user consumption models such as cloud computing.
One of those moves what to install Peres as the full-time channel chief. Peres will now be responsible for developing Cisco’s go-to-market cloud routes for channel partners. Peres’s team will look at the new consumption models to pinpoint where the benefits are to the partners. With that, Peres has come up with five key strategies for Cisco partner network. They are:
1. Build the channel’s capabilities for these new architectures and vertical markets. Peres believes this will help partners move away from products and devise solutions around borderless networking and collaboration. “It’s a competitive advantage and these verticals are becoming more relevant today than in the past,” Peres said. According to Peres, solution providers with vertical practice areas have more than doubled from 2009 with the top areas being healthcare and education.
2. To earn loyalty rewards you have to optimize value. “In 2001 Cisco moved to value based channel model over volume with partners and we have evolved this model, while our competitors have just paid for it,” he said. Cisco will continue to incent partner who bring incremental value to the market place with more emphasis on collaboration.
3. Improve the ease and speed of business with Cisco. Peres believes the IT business has become more complex as vendors continue to focus on more customer segments. “This has added to the complexity and we want to bring more simplicity to the partners,” he said. The key initiative here for Cisco is MyCisco and Web portal that the company hopes will be easier to navigate and provide the right kind of information for partners that will help them customize their business with the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.
4. Cisco aims to enhance partner services. “Services are the key to profits and differentiation and will be one of the more important drivers for verticals and cloud,” Peres said. According to Peres, in almost every survey done by Cisco services is listed as one of the top profit centres for solution providers. Peres believes that services improves hardware margins for partners and in the past five years he has seen services become 20 per cent of a partner’s profits to more than 50 per cent. He also said that professional services and consulting adds more value to the customer and drives more profitability. “We want to continue this trend and you will not see Cisco as a competitor in services, but as a complementary one,” he added.
5. Develop new channel business models on the cloud.
Peres said that Cisco has to enable partners to driver cloud offerings and resell cloud offerings combine with the many as-a-service plays. “The whole world is moving in that direction (cloud). As we look at this, the partner plays a critical role and I have broken it out into three areas: cloud reseller, which is the same as regular VARs; cloud builder such as system integrators who build Cisco cloud centric offerings; and the cloud provider like the MSPs in the market place.”
Peres said that with his new role he has a renewed spirit for the task at hand. In a personal way he wants to really drive the simplicity message. He also talked about his passion for the partner community. Peres said that he wants solution providers to see Cisco as a path to success. The future is also something that Peres is focusing on. “I want to reshape channel models and routes to market and be the driver of the new consumption models so that partners can win in that process,” he said.
