When I look at the key trends we see around digitization, it’s clear to me that they are accelerating:
- Digital transformation is imperative for customers to make faster decisions across networks
- Software is key to enable automation, improve system security and performance, and harness the intelligence in the network—all to support our customers’ businesses in new ways
- Customers want the benefits of cloud computing, software as a service and remote management
- Therefore, partners need to develop new skills to deliver new solutions via new consumption models
As a consequence, we are accelerating changes to our competency portfolio, so partners can meet rapidly evolving customer needs on a shorter timeline. We need to help our partners build capabilities that:
- Expand their talent and practices beyond architecture-based technical skills and reseller-oriented business models
- Differentiate their solutions and deliver recurring value, so customers maximize the value of their technology investments and meet their unique business objectives
- Build on partners’ existing investments in competencies to provide even more value in addressing the trends above
What are we doing to accelerate our partners’ ability to thrive in a rapidly evolving business environment and meet changing customer needs?
Today, we are launching the DevNet Specialization designed for partners with a robust software development practice. It validates and highlights their ability to automate solutions and develop applications on top of Cisco platforms. The DevNet Specialization assures customers that partners have the right skill sets to meet their evolving needs. Partners can achieve the DevNet Specialization virtually and renew virtually. You can learn more about DevNet in Susie Wee’s blog about this announcement.
Additionally, last fall we launched our Customer Experience Specialization to help our partners build out their customer success practices to help ensure customers are realizing maximum value from the solutions they are adopting. The Customer Experience Specialization recognizes partner practices that go beyond traditional product and service offers and ensure the customer is engaged throughout the entire lifecycle.
Taken together, these two business specializations encourage Cisco partners to differentiate the solutions they offer and work with customers to derive more value from those solutions. We will continue to evolve our existing competency programs and create new ones that accelerate partners’ ability to deliver innovative technology via new consumption models.
What capabilities do you think we should encourage our partners to expand? I’m interested in your comments below.
Tune in to #DevNetDay, and be ready to take notes! We will be highlighting Cisco Partners who can share examples and advice to get you started on your DevNet Specialization journey.
developer.cisco.com/devnetday
Cisco is committed to working with our partners to address evolving customer demand for business outcome solutions! #OwnYourEdge, #TransformTogether