If there’s one message Joseph Vlajcic, Senior Director of TD SYNNEX Revolution, it’s that Cisco doesn’t have to be complicated. Revolution is a true “one-stop shop” for all things Cisco recurring revenue – software, services, and Enterprise Agreements. The Revolution team has now taken this goal digital with the Revolution Insights platform. Insights is now available to partners, providing a streamlined, comprehensive solution for managing Cisco recurring revenue. During a recent webinar, Vlajcic, alongside Carl Paul, CX Team Lead at TD SYNNEX, and Steven Wallace, Customer Success Manager, Cisco CX at TD SYNNEX, highlighted the platform’s extensive features designed to simplify partner operations, enhance data visibility, and ensure consistent deliverables.
Overcoming Challenges in Managing Cisco Subscriptions
Managing Cisco subscriptions can be a daunting task for partners. The need to gather and analyze data manually from different Cisco platforms, respond to customer inquiries about usage, and ensure that clients see value from their investments can be quite time-consuming and complex. These challenges are particularly significant given the importance of fully adopting Cisco subscriptions. Cisco estimates that a 20 percent increase in renewal rates can drive a 50 percent increase in revenue for both Cisco and its partners. With data visibility expected to be a top indicator of successful renewals, the Revolution Insights platform is the tool partners need to achieve that goal.
Recognizing these challenges, the Revolution team at TD SYNNEX developed a platform to simplify these processes and provide comprehensive post-sale support. Revolution Insights, launched in 2023, consolidates data from numerous Cisco platforms into a single pane of glass. It includes features like consumption dashboards, budget estimates, customer portals, playbooks for lifecycle management, and a knowledge management system with more than 300 articles.
A Unified Approach to Data Integration and Automation
The platform allows partners to import data from various Cisco data stores: from Cisco Ready purchase records to EA Workspace…even individual solutions like the Meraki Dashboard! Whether data comes through CSV files or APIs, Insights can consolidate this information into a single platform and build useful views that help drive customer success. Vlajcic said, “We’re trying to take all these tedious, manual processes going on right now – renewals, license management, inventory reviews – and take them out of spreadsheets. The more of that we can bring into the toolset the more consistent the customer experience is and the better the outcome will be
The platform provides a consistent view for both partners and customers, allowing for real-time updates and feedback. “What the partner sees, they can show to their customers”. Vlajcic continues. “And either the partner or customer can take action right inside the toolset.” Insights allows for active inventory management, regular reporting, and digital interactions to all happen inside the toolset. This “eliminates confusion and reduces document control errors”, according to the Revolution team.
Continuous Innovation and Partner-Driven Development
While Revolution Insights already offers extensive capabilities for partners and their customers, the platform is far from complete. Vlajcic jokes about the platform: “I don’t think anyone is allowed to launch any IT project these days without having an Artificial Intelligence (AI) component! Insights is no different – we’ve added in a chatbot to provide partner CSMs with a clear, accessible way to access our knowledge and deliver targeted recommendations to their customers.”
TD SYNNEX plans to further enhance Revolution Insights with AI-driven features. An upcoming natural language interface will allow partners to interact with the platform’s knowledge base using simple, conversational queries. This AI integration represents a significant step forward in making Revolution Insights even more accessible and user-friendly.
“We have lots of opportunity to do continued development on this,” Vlajcic continues. “This project is only about a year old, but we’re taking quite a bit of partner feedback. We looked at commercial products that claim to provide Cisco lifecycle management and we really couldn’t find one that did everything we wanted. We chose to do the development in-house because we wanted to be able to accommodate whatever our partners need. We want to know what’s going to make your life easier!
A Comprehensive Solution for Cisco Subscription Management
Not just another tool, Revolution Insights is a comprehensive platform designed to support every aspect of Cisco customer success. From data integration and automation to knowledge management and AI, the platform provides partners with everything they need to deliver consistent, high-quality service to their customers.
Partners who would like assistance, support, training, or consulting around Revolution Insights can engage with the Revolution team by emailing Revolution@tdsynnxex.com.
