Committed to helping partners transform themselves at any stage of their business journey, Cisco has introduced new Transformational Partner Practice Building Training available at the new Partner Transformation Website. Through this training, partners will discover a robust portfolio of resources to help them build new capabilities, deliver more customer value, and profit in today’s markets.
Transformation and the new normal
Today, Cisco and our partners are operating in a “new normal.” We must continue to meet the needs of customers who are challenged by often-disruptive technology advances, while they must remain laser-focused on driving better business outcomes. According to IDC, line-of-business (LOB) spend is growing at 2X the rate of IT spend as LOB buyers now influence 80 percent of IT purchases and control 60 percent of the budget. Further, our customers’ buying behavior is changing—they are increasingly buying through subscription and managed services models.
But with all these challenges, opportunities are arising for partners to extend their offerings beyond the traditional Cisco IT resell to deliver complete solutions with enhanced services that produce positive business outcomes and exceptional end-user experiences. In response to these opportunities, Cisco is evolving its business to not only meet the shifts in today’s marketplaces, but also to translate them into further growth and profitability for our partners. This evolution includes helping our partners transform as well.
Customer Experience and DevNet Specialization
Helping our partners transform started last year with Cisco’s first Business Specialization for Partners: the Customer Experience Specialization. To acquire this credential, partners needed to demonstrate their customer success practice capabilities, which include certified people, validated processes, and tools that automate the customer lifecycle.
The DevNet Specialization represents an additional resource to help our partners transform. It gives partners a path to build or enhance their software development practice, addressing their need to solve customer problems through automation and custom applications on top of Cisco Platforms. Learn more on what resources Cisco provides through the DevNet specialization.
Partner transformational website
Continuing with our commitment to assist our partners in transforming their businesses, Cisco has launched the new Partner Transformation Website. Meeting partners where they are, we offer three paths and resources to help them along their journey of transformation:
- Why transform: includes motivational content around market conditions and changing customer dynamics and is intended for those who have not yet started their journeys
- How to transform: includes content and training to help build a transformation strategy.
- Building a practice: offers proven practices to help build capabilities that include differentiated services to drive deeper customer engagements and greater profitability.
Partner Transformation Learning Map
In addition, the trajectory of Cisco’s transformation helping partners transform has taken a deeper and broader step with the new Transformational Partner Practice building training, as outlined in the learning map shown in Figure 1. This training is organized around four key business imperatives:
- Who you sell to: Expand your customer base by selling to new buying centers.
- What you sell: Expand your portfolio by building business-outcome solutions as well as integrating third- party applications.
- How you monetize: Increase your income by making platform-enabled offers bundled with recurring services and flexible consumption models.
- How you sell: Develop updated go-to-market strategies by expanding your sales approaches to influence customers’ lifecycles.
By leveraging Transformational Partner Practice Building training, a partner can transform its business by increasing revenue through a larger portfolio, new sales approaches, an expanded target audience, and a long-term service commitment to customers. And this excellent training is both online and self-paced.
Figure 1 Transformational Partner Learning Map
Transform your Practice Today
Partners are already using our practice-building resources to develop a unique competitive edge for their businesses. For example, Mastersystem, a 25-year-old system integrator based in Indonesia, adopted a new services subscription model to bring its business into the digital age. Making this shift meant Mastersystem could tap into new customer analytics and insights, enabling the company to offer more customized services, increase customer satisfaction, and create recurring revenue streams.
Trends, a Cisco partner based in the Philippines, revolutionized its business by transitioning to a “solution as a service” OpEx consumption model that is preferred by customers over CAPEX business models.
Now is the right time for you to sharpen your edge so you’re in the best position to benefit from the growth and revenue opportunities surfacing in this “new normal” market. Take advantage of the resources, insights, learning map, and proven partner practice capabilities available through the new Partner Transformation Website. And get started today on your transformation journey by registering for the Transformational Partner Practice Building training.
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