Future-ready Providers – the NEW Cisco Partner Program

At Partner Summit Digital 2020, Cisco announced the NEW Cisco Partner Program – a unified program framework constructed around the roles partners play with customers, instead of how they transact with Cisco.

The Cisco Partner Program is anchored to four roles: Integrator, Provider, Developer, and Advisor. As we continue to invest in partner-led, managed and as-a-service offers, the Provider role will be the pivotal channel for delivering managed business outcomes to customers of all sizes.

What makes a partner a Cisco Provider? 

Partners playing the Provider role offer as-a-service and managed solutions to their customers. They are experts in designing and building managed service offers across Cisco technologies and delivering business outcomes leveraging their Managed Service practices.

In Q3 FY21, Cisco will be retiring the Cloud and Managed Services Program (CMSP) brand and migrating existing partners to the new Provider role. If you are a current CMSP partner, you will be moved over to either the Gold, Premier, or Select tier. If you are a gold provider, you are given 12-18 months to meet any new program requirements. The new requirements are based on your existing investments, and for the first year, no partner will lose access to any program benefits. We are taking all the best components of CMSP and delivering an even better experience.

Future-ready: Rise of the trusted advisor

Customer expectations are steadily shifting as they focus their resources on delivering strategic business outcomes versus tactically managing their network environment. They are looking for third parties to build and operate the underlying network and applications to run their businesses, all managed by a committed SLA and proactive monitoring.

Future-ready: Expanding provider benefits

Enabling partners to deliver outstanding managed service outcomes profitably is a goal of the Provider role. To accelerate Cisco provider success, we are focusing on five foundational benefits.

• Differentiated Branding.  Under the new Provider role, the Provider Gold will be available for partners that meet the eligibility requirements — bringing parity and recognition to providers who exemplify best-in-class managed service practice capabilities and investment.
• A growing Cisco Powered Service Portfolio. Provider partners have access to and deliver managed services that adhere to rich standards with an ever-increasing Cisco Powered Services portfolio, including SD-WAN, Secure Access, Meraki Access, Meraki Security, and Webex Contact Center.
• Financial Incentives. Provider partners receive various financial incentives to help execute demand generation and sales of their MS offers, reinvest in Cisco-focused MS practice heads and drive performance across the Managed Services lifecycle, including Market Development Funds (MDF) and Provider Investment Funds (PIF).
• Deal Velocity and deal protection. To accelerate sales motions, Providers in all tiers may receive competitive, pre-approved, upfront discounting (known as Simplified Pricing) across the Cisco portfolio and including preferential pricing on Cisco SD-WAN (Viptela) on MSLA when they use Simplified Pricing.

In Q2 FY21, CMSP partners with Collaboration Cisco Powered Services can use the Managed Service Hunting (MS Hunting) incentive for Managed Services on Collaboration Flex 3.0 for partner deal protection and exclusivity on managed service deals.

• Go to Market Support. Providers receive additional programmatic services to help them go to market, including the development of customer-facing content, sales enablement, and joint marketing campaigns.

Future-ready: Our journey together

We want to reassure you that every decision used to guide the creation of the NEW Cisco Partner Program and Provider role has focused on bringing our partners the industry’s best profitability program. For us, it means taking a critical look at where we are now and where we want to be in the future – our goal to help every provider be future ready.

Please bookmark the New Cisco Partner Program eBook and join us on December 3rd for a Cisco Ignite Series Power Hour (AMER/EMEAR, APJC), where we will continue to explore the Provider role, and you will have the opportunity to ask questions.