This week’s Cisco Partner Summit in Montreal has been not only educational, but incredibly rewarding. Our entire team was highly honored to receive the Cisco Americas Distributor of the Year for our results last year, including four consecutive quarters of more than 59-percent growth.
We also got a little “sideways” recognition during Monday’s Global Session with John Chambers, Cisco’s Chairman and CEO, and Bruce Klein, Senior Vice President of Cisco’s Worldwide Partner Organization, when they said that in today’s Internet of Everything (IoE) reality, you need to be ready and willing to make new partnerships with companies you never thought you’d partner with before and work in ways you never thought you would work. As the session was described, “None of us can capture the value of the Internet of Everything alone. The Cisco Partner Ecosystem brings us all together to capture our share. Our leaders will discuss how together we can capture the enormous market opportunities we see ahead.”
I took it as recognition because the foundation of our Comstor EDGE platform recognizes that today technology is moving so fast that you must be agile, open to new partnerships, etc. Just like John said.
I think of it like this, you are either working as fast as technology evolves and finding the right partners to create the best solutions for your customers, or you are kind of like the folks who paint the Golden Gate Bridge. It takes you an entire year to paint it, and just when you get to the end – success! – you have to start over and do the same thing all over again.
If you choose to be agile and innovative in every area of your business – sales, marketing, training, distribution, professional services, and finance – you won’t be left behind holding a paint brush and looking on as your competition speeds on by you.
Through the EDGE platform, we use education and empowerment to enable our partners to grow their Cisco practices successfully and profitably. I feel like we are doing the right thing, and when I heard John Chambers’ remarks, I took it as a very positive reinforcement for all we do as a team. Our team – from BDM to account managers to logistics – is 100-percent committed to taking the EDGE program to our partners and helping them to succeed.
Now that we have been recognized – and, trust me, we wouldn’t have won the distributor award without the support and dedicated enthusiasm or our partners – we just have to push harder and faster and continue to create innovative programs.
We look forward to learning more at the Summit this week and to sharing some of the things we have learned with you.
