Enable Partner Value-Add

Enable Partner Value-Add

Partners were selling many technologies and they did not have the time to focus and learn speci?c technologies. Even partners who had made an investment to learn particular technologies were ?nding it dif?cult to credibly communicate their expertise. As a result, some partners were losing interest in developing value-added solutions around Cisco technologies, customers were confused about which partners were the real experts, and the customer experience with buying and implementation was beginning to suffer.

Cisco approached this problem by developing a framework of structured program that enabled partner value-add through training and certi?cation. By certifying partners, Cisco formally acknowledged their expertise and allowed partners to attach the Cisco brand (co-branding) that enhanced their credentials. Providing a clear signal to customers about partner expertise helped reduce customer confusion and made it easier for customers to buy technology.

A second-order effect of the framework was to make training ef?cient and certi?cation rigorous; giving a choice to partners in terms of breadth or depth of expertise and encouraging partners to develop their own solutions that added on to Cisco products and services.

Create Ef?cient Training and Rigorous Certi?cation Programs

In the case of Cisco, this includes:

? Technical Knowledge: The partner must be familiar with all the features related to the product, including any limitations and the target technical environment that it is most suited for.

? Product Positioning: This includes the ability to identify the target market and position the product correctly in the target segment.

? Lifecycle Services Offering: Successful deployment of Cisco offerings requires an end-to-end delivery process that includes planning, selling, installing, and operating competencies.

In each specialization, partner employees are typically assigned to three types of roles: Account Manager, Sales Engineer, and Field Engineer. There are speci?c learning tracks associated with each of these roles. To be recognized as specialized, partner employees must ?ll these roles and annually pass exams corresponding to the subject role. The use of e-learning (apart from the instructor led learning) helps manage the costs and effort that a partner has to bear in obtaining the training.

Enable Partners to Bene?t from Both Breadth and Depth of Expertise

The current framework used by Cisco enables partners to bene?t from the breadth and depth of certi?cations. For example, a partner can choose to specialize in Uni?ed Communications at the Express, Advanced, or Master level. Partners can choose to become deeply specialized in one technology (e.g., Master Uni?ed Communications or Master Security) or be recognized as a Gold partner capable of delivering a breadth of technologies: Security (Sec.), Wireless LAN (WLAN), Uni?ed Communications (UC), and Routing and Switching (R&S) without requiring the same depth of capability as a Master partner would have in any of the individual technologies.

Provide Co-branding for Partners

Cisco has created a partner branding program to provide a clear signal to the marketplace regarding the partner's capabilities. The primary objective