Cisco has announced a significant partner programme revamp and says that the outfit is gearing up for 2021 in the post-CORVID world.
Angela Whitty, UK and Ireland managing director of partner organisation at Cisco said that that the firm has a solid set of people selling the brand in the market after the performance of partners during the pandemic.
The pandemic has seen Cisco improve its channel programme. At the partner event in October, the firm revealed the most significant changes it had made for a decade.
“The new programme will allow our partners to bring together all of the disparate programmes and will allow partners to play in their areas of expertise, so they’ll be a gold standard integrator, managed service provider developer and adviser. So you still have that high standard, but it just allows people to be more specific in the areas that are important now”, said Whitty.
Business conditions have been affected by restrictions and lockdowns, but the channel seems to have got through them in a position to focus on making gains before the year ends.
Aside from the roll-out of the vaccine and a hopeful end to COVID-19, there are technology areas that should drive optimism in the channel around the prospects for 2021.
Some appear made for the Cisco channel, with 5G, continued remote working and increased cloud consumption, all having an impact on the infrastructure.
Whitty said that just in terms of the attitude and adoption across the channel of collaboration tools, it boded well for the year ahead. “The creativity that I’ve seen from our channel partners has just been fantastic and that makes me feel really positive for the future”, she said.
“With changing our programmes, developing this new platform to make the ability for partners to work with Cisco simpler, and the customer [feedback], it all makes me really positive about next year”, she added.
