Every partner conversation I’ve had this past year comes back to the same reality. Our market is moving fast, and customers are drowning in noise.

AI has collapsed the gap between idea and execution. Anyone can produce content now, in endless amounts. So customers are using every tool they have to cut through it. AI is quickly becoming their go-to tool early in the buying journey. But when it comes to verifying, designing and building the final solution, customers rely heavily on partners. In fact, partners matter more than ever, because the market is changing so quickly.

Customers are navigating complex challenges across networking, security, observability and collaboration, and they want a trusted guide to solve those problems with them. More than ever, they buy based on trust, proven expertise and real business outcomes.

That’s where the ecosystem makes the difference.

Our job at Cisco is to position partners as the difference makers they are, and to complement their effort without ever getting in the way. Partner marketers feel the pressure most. They’re asked to stand out in a market flooded with content, often with fewer people and less budget. That’s why we built our partner marketing strategy around one goal: shorten the path from partner effort to won business.

Three commitments

Awareness: Cisco moves first. Before a partner steps into a customer meeting, Cisco is already opening the door. Our global brand campaigns, sponsorships and events like Cisco Live build demand for Cisco and partner solutions, so the customer is already warm when the partner arrives.

Speed: Partners go fast. The Demand Generation Incentive (DGI) gives partners simpler, more predictable funding, so they spend less time proving their work and more time launching campaigns. Our partner field marketing managers and distributor specialists help turn that funding into a plan for each local market.

Differentiation: we stand out together. Partner expertise wins deals. We help customers see it, through verified Cisco credentials, priority placement on Partner Locator, and our new Partner Stories program, which puts real partner customer wins on Cisco.com, our blogs and our social channels.

AI that takes the routine work

We’re putting AI and better tools directly into partners’ daily work, so their teams can spend more time on strategy and customers.

• One Cisco Content Agent: approved messaging tailored to customer outcomes in, outcome decks and industry talking points, on demand.
• One communications hub: partner news, resources and updates in one place in SalesConnect, connected to the Partner Experience Platform (PXP). No more digging through inboxes.

The bottom line

Partners are brilliant at what they do. They know their customers, they design the solutions, and they earn the trust that closes the deal. The job of our partner marketing teams at Cisco is to clear everything else out of the way.

When we do that well, partners spend less time hunting for content, waiting on funding and building demand from scratch. They spend more time doing what they do best. And when partners win, we all win.

That’s how we measure our work: by how much shorter the distance gets between partner effort and pipeline. Partners should hold us to it.

“When we do our jobs well, partners spend more time on what they’re brilliant at. That’s the win we’re after.”

Visit Cisco 360 Marketing to learn more.

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