When Hannah took over as a CISO of a healthcare company, she was looking for a partner that could help shape her five-year security agenda. Hannah doesn’t have the time, budget, talent pool, or even the right tools to maximize efficiency and productivity. She was racing against time to keep up with a million new projects and decisions. She was burdened with the choice of picking security technologies from a marketplace that’s rife with incompatibility; that leaves her teams struggling to integrate systems and removing newer bottlenecks created in the process. It was getting harder to focus on the initiatives that truly move the needle.
Now, how often do you meet Hannah? How often do you get to have conversations that do not revolve around selling security products? How often do you get to elevate the conversation and cater to your customer’s needs exclusively? If you’ve been wondering how one might go about that, let’s talk about how our platform approach to security allows you to be Hannah’s trusted advisor. She wants security simplified and efficient to move fast, gives her team confidence through context and helps her achieve desired outcomes.
Cisco SecureX: A powerful ally
This year at Cisco Partner Summit Digital 2020 we will share how we are empowering you to help Hannah. This is a good time to reflect on how far we’ve come with our efforts to reduce complexity with the broadest, most integrated, cloud-native security platform — SecureX. It’s also a good time to look ahead at the opportunities SecureX offers you. Let’s look at the top 5 benefits:
1: Raising the bar with a great conversation starter
SecureX sets an organic cadence with your customers to discuss how they can continue to amplify the value of their existing security investment and how you can become a strategic partner in that journey. You can help your customers simplify breach defense everywhere. You can help your customers leverage Extended detection and response (XDR) capabilities. You can help them accelerate their success when securing remote workers. You can help them protect their future with a comprehensive zero trust approach. The bottom line is that Cisco SecureX helps you bring back the focus on customer needs and challenges. It shifts the conversation away from feature knife fights and reenergizes it with a focus on maximizing ROI instead. Simply put, SecureX sets you up for success with great conversations.
“SecureX helps us show customers where they need to tune their investments. It creates opportunity for great ongoing conversation where you can continue to add more capabilities and help customer advance their security maturity. It sets you up on a good cadence.”
Michael Van Zoggel, National Sales Manager, Outcomex
2: Getting to outcomes faster
Show, tell, and demonstrate. And do all of that in not 3,6,9 or 12 months. It’s almost instant gratification since SecureX is built-in with every integrated Cisco Secure product. In under 15 minutes, they can activate SecureX with any existing product license – even with one they’re trialing – and show them quantifiable benefits. You get to exceed customer expectations and engage your customers in a more consultative way without a lengthy selling cycle or a price sticker involved.
“SecureX helps us show customers where they need to tune their investments. It creates opportunity for great ongoing conversation where you can continue to add more capabilities and help customer advance their security maturity.”
Michael Van Zoggel, National Sales Manager, Outcomex
3: Leapfrog to success with opportunities multiplied
We’ve anticipated your future security needs and invested in ways that few others in the industry have. A collection of disjointed solutions isn’t the force multiplier you need as a Cisco partner. That’s why we’ve acquired the talent and dedicated several years of engineering to unite our products into one platform. And that gives your customers the confidence that investing in Cisco as a strategic security partner is a smart choice. It will help open new opportunities to engage with customers, build additional recurring revenue streams that work with the platform, and allow you to deliver services. It will enable you drive more value with enterprise agreements combined with SecureX. In short, get ready for more need-based opportunities created through SecureX discussions to drive your cross-sell profitability.
“SecureX for us has been the game changer. It’s a crucial piece of the Cisco offering. It brings all of the Cisco security technologies together. Our strategy has been to make sure all of our clients have rolled out SecureX….”
“This has resulted in many of our customers who have a couple of Cisco technologies re-evaluate their security posture and are now looking to replace legacy point solutions with the Cisco platform. We have tied this into our customer success practice, and we have seen our opportunity and pipeline increase by 32% alone since July.”
Matthew Palm – CTO, R1i Technologies
4: Continue building trust without the fear of vendor lock-in
Since 2007, Cisco invested billions to innovate internally, acquire the best products in the market, built true turnkey interoperability with core infrastructure including third parties, and united all these efforts. Our goal for SecureX is to deliver capabilities that work across customers’ entire security environment; not only Cisco. You are enabling your customers with faster access to innovative technologies without impeding their speed and removing integration headaches. SecureX should improve your win rate against competitors who sell point products or even other portfolio competitors that present significant roadblocks for adopting newer technologies. You have a significant edge over vendors who charge a high upfront cost to migrate to their platform without demonstrating any value.
“Great news for Cisco and great news for Cisco partners is there isn’t really another platform that can do exactly what SecureX can do today. “
Bob Rossi – VP, Networking, Digital Workspace, & Security Solutions – CDW
5: Close any gaps with a true differentiator
Traditionally, businesses have tried to build their security program on a solid foundation with “best
of breed” solutions. They have overlooked the more strategic question: Will they all integrate into my existing environment, or will they create unnecessary complexities? A platform approach will certainly help them simplify security while consolidating their vendor footprint. In their journey to streamline operations and build efficiency through automation, SecureX will prove to be a key differentiator. It will enhance the experience of the underlying Cisco Security products they are using. It will multiply outcomes and advance their security maturity by enabling a comprehensive Zero Trust, Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) approach. No matter what approach your customers take, partnering with the right vendor will help your customers achieve their goals today while setting them up for future success.
“There is a lot of consolidation that SecureX can provide so that is a large leap in efficiency for our customers.”
Jeroen Hentschke – Propositie Lead Security – Telindus
Increase your winning edge with Cisco SecureX
The feedback we have received from our partners has been paramount in helping us identify the innovation we needed to deliver better security outcomes for customers as well as success for our partners. In short, this is just the beginning. Our goal is to partner with you to help organizations reduce complexity, not just sell to them. Our security portfolio is one of the most profitable architecture for our partners. And we are confident that Cisco can help you grow and win as no other vendor can.
Join us at the Cisco Partner Summit Digital event at the end of October for more exciting updates. Here is two must see security sessions that I strongly recommend:
Security for the Accelerated IT Agenda
Featuring speakers Dr. Gee Rittenhouse – SVP/GM, Security Business Group, John Maynard – VP, Global Security Sales and Frank Lento – Managing Director, Global Security Partner Sales
Cisco SecureX: Securing What’s Now and What’s Next
Featuring Al Huger – VP/GM, Cisco Security Platform & Response
I would love to hear in the comments below how you’ve leverage SecureX for setting a cadence with your customers. If these benefits resonate with you, or provoke additional areas of inquiry, we’d love to hear from you. Make sure you register for the event and let’s keep the conversation going.
Please stay connected, safe and in touch.
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