Cisco’s “Shift to Software” has become prevalent among its portfolio and programs. In this article, TD SYNNEX continues its series on how channel partners can make the transition along with Cisco. To discuss all things Cisco software, EDGE360 sat down with Joe Vlajcic, Director of Cisco Customer Experience at TD SYNNEX. He shared some insight into the coming changes and explained how Cisco channel partners can best take advantage.
Note: This post is part of a several-part series on “Next Generation VAR,” provided by the TD SYNNEX Cisco CX Team.
In the last post, Vlajcic gave his thoughts on Cisco’s third-generation Enterprise Agreement, EA 3.0. In the article, Vlajcic predicted significant consolidation of the Cisco market. “It’s a very interesting topic: we’re hearing that Cisco expects up to 70 percent of upcoming EAs to be of the 3.0 variety,” Vlajcic explained. “A lot of those deals are going to be ‘brownfield,’ which means they’ll be wrapping up existing, already deployed subscriptions into new buying agreements. And bidding partners should be expected to be asked why they should be the ones with whom to consolidate the spend. That might require new partner services and value-adds.”
As customers have options to consolidate their Cisco spend on one piece of paper, it is an almost certainty that they will consolidate some partner relationship as well. Vlajcic discusses the changing market by saying, “Cisco has the stated aim of being a software and recurring revenue company. As partners bid on those ‘brownfield’ deployments, they’re being asked different kinds of questions.”
“In addition to partners, we talk to a fair number of end users. We’re hearing things like ‘you have this renewal if you can help me track consumption’ and similar statements.” Vlajcic goes on to say that License and Asset Management are recurring themes in the latest wave of EAs. “While there are efficiencies in an EA, many customers are still struggling to track usage across bundled subscriptions. There are tools like EA Workspace that help, but there is a lot to do.”
Cisco EA Workspace is the license management tool within Smart Accounts that supports Enterprise Agreements. “It’s not just passive tracking – if you find an under-consumed offering, that should be the start of a conversation. The same goes for over-consumed licenses or expansion opportunities for fully-consumed licenses,” Vlajcic explained.
Partners with Cisco Customer Experience Specializations, in particular, are finding new ways to leverage their customer success investments. To achieve a specialization, partners must have at least two Customer Success Manager (CSM) roles in the organization. It is these CSMs who are often filling the gap with new customer demands. “A CSM is a great role to perform asset management for a customer. A lot of sales organization are used to multi-year lifecycles,” Vlajcic said. “Maybe annually for something like a SMARTnet renewal. In large subscription environments, where consumption can vary, however, you might need someone on top of commitments monthly – sometimes even weekly!”
All of this adds up to new partner services opportunities. Vlajcic concludes, “It starts to ‘click’ for a lot of partners at that point. If I’m managing licenses for the customer, maybe I need adoption services to go with that to drive consumption. Perhaps I need some training options in support. Or customization with Cisco DevNet – maybe building applications on top of Cisco platforms. ‘Care and Feeding’ becomes the focus, instead of the initial deployment. They start to function less as integrators and more like brokerages.”
Whatever partner services end up taking off in the marketplace, the opportunity is enormous. Cisco announced their software subscription revenue by an astonishing 15 percent y/y in their latest earnings call. Capturing a share of that growth will be critical to channel partners in the coming years.
Want to learn more? Contact TD SYNNEX at CiscoCX@tdsynnex.com to learn more about how we help partners align with Cisco’s shift to software!
