If you’ve been a Cisco Partner for any length of time, you’ve probably heard about the Cisco Not For Resale Incentive (NFR). But for those of you who haven’t heard, NFR is designed to offer highly discounted products to our Partners for their office use or for building out demo labs. Over the last year, we’ve been taking a closer look at NFR and the impact it’s had on our Partners.
Quarter after quarter we can clearly see one key differentiator: Partners who purchase and use NFR hardware and software are growing faster than those that don’t.
This makes perfect sense. When partners have demo capabilities and use Cisco products and services internally, they develop better solution expertise and are more effective sellers. They have firsthand knowledge of the features and functionality but also can personally speak to the business impact. As a result, these partners close more deals and grow more quickly.
Cisco is committed to ensuring that our Partners have access to steeply discounted products so they can conduct effective customer demos and run their offices. Currently, every product on the Cisco Global Price list (with the exception of a limited set of restricted SKU’s) is available for NFR purchase. The available discounts vary but average 80%-85% off published list prices for hardware and many software SKUs are discounted at 100%. Our goal is to further standardize NFR discounts to make it easier for our Partners to anticipate NFR costs. In the meantime, NFR is ready and available for use by our Partners.
So which Partners can purchase NFR?
The answer is simple: All Select level and above Partners have access to NFR. Our hope is that every Partner chooses to invest in the Cisco solutions they need to outfit their offices to ensure optimized operations, a differentiated employee experience, and network security. And setting up state of the art demo labs is one clear path to greater credibility with customers.
How much NFR hardware and software can Partners purchase?
The good news is that annual NFR purchasing limits are very generous and aligned to the investments partners make in their Cisco practice. So, the higher your role level the higher your annual NFR purchasing limits. The lowest annual purchasing limit of $300K is for Select Partners but the purchasing limits go up from there, reaching $3M annually for Gold Partners, and $7M+ for our largest Partners who generate over $100M per year in Cisco bookings.
Are there any restrictions on what Partners can do with purchased NFR products?
Yes, NFR products are intended for office use and demo purposes only. Setting up a demo lab or installing Cisco hardware and software for employee use or general office networking purposes are excellent ways to leverage NFR. Recently we’ve also expanded the rules to allow the purchase of NFR products to be used in employee home offices for conducting company business. But purchasing NFR for the intention of building out a production environment designed for revenue generating purposes is prohibited. Spot audits may be employed by Cisco to ensure proper use of NFR purchases.
To request Not for Resale discounts, simply visit Cisco Commerce and follow the guided prompts.
Discounts will be applied to each selected product based on program rules. Once your annual purchasing limit is met, the system will no longer allow additional NFR purchases for your company until the following fiscal year.
Learn more about Not for Resale
And stay tuned for news related to enhancements we are making to the Cisco Not For Resale Incentive (NFR) being announced at Partner Summit in November.
Good Selling!
We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with #CiscoPartners on social!
Cisco Partners Social Channels
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Very informative