When looking ahead to the new year, there are many reasons to believe that VARs and Cisco partners can truly bolster their businesses and thrive in 2022. One such avenue to success is utilizing partnerships with companies like SYNNEX Comstor and the EDGE Partner program. Designed to help its partners utilize the latest solutions and trends defining the IT channel, the EDGE program has been an invaluable resource. What is in store for the EDGE Programs in the new year?
Recently, Carissa Scholl, Manager, Cisco Enablement Programs at SYNNEX corporation, and Shawn Motley, Director, Cisco Product Business Management at SYNNEX corporation, joined EDGE360 to discuss some of the trends and changes that most excited them in 2021. Building on those, they also shared some insights into what the future of EDGE Programs has in store. . Both showcased their team’s commitment to providing their partners with everything they need to succeed in 2022.
EDGE360 Editors: Finish this sentence, “2022 will be the year of ___.”
Carissa Scholl: The year 2022 will be the year of excitement and growth! For us, the merger represents a lot of opportunities for us to expand our reach and invest more into our partners. Tech Data and SYNNEX Corporation merging brought the two organizations a lot of growth almost overnight and a lot of smart and talented individuals.
Both sides have always worked to provide some of the best assistance available in the channel, and we are ready to help partners even more together. I am excited to see what our partners can do with the resources we can now offer. It’s the best of both worlds.
Shawn Motley: I completely agree. I’m thinking about the merger for our partners, too, and I think it really provides an opportunity for us as a distributor to best build the future of EDGE Programs. So, that would be my answer to the question: 2022 is the year of opportunity.
The future of EDGE Programs is full of opportunity because of the new capabilities and solutions available, especially as more industries shift to a service model. There might need to be a slight change in how partners sell, but they can count on us to help them make that transition and watch their businesses grow.
EDGE360 Editors: As we kick off 2022, we all know that collaboration is going to be much more of a cornerstone of how businesses operate. What support can partners expect in the future of EDGE programs as they look toward taking advantage of this move?
Scholl: We are absolutely supporting this move. In fact, one of the many methods we’re employing is bolstering education and training options across the program. Specifically, we want to educate partners on solution based options. Some of the solutions could include securing the data centers, collaboration, enterprise networking, cloud, and Meraki. We are also exploring more IOT solutions and adding in more content to educate our partners as those are incredibly important for these solutions. We really want to make sure that our partners are prepared to have those discussions with their customers, old and new, and to give them the knowledge and confidence they need to sell Cisco products that meet customers’ needs.
We’re also emphasizing solution selling, which is weaved throughout the EDGE program. We have developed a system that can help partners identify solutions in a customer’s existing infrastructure and let them know that “This solution is outdated, so here is a new one that serves you better” or “There is a new Cisco solution that performs that better, so let me tell you about it.”
We have modules in the EDGE Focus tool for all the Cisco architectures. We also added new platforms for Customer Experience, Enterprise Agreements, IOT, Public Sector, and much more. Virtual Reality has become a great way for us to give our partners a hands on experience with Cisco. We plan to have more events and training utilizing virtual reality in 2022.
Motley: Building on that and touching on the merger into TD SYNNEX, we have so many more tools available to EDGE program partners right now. We have the same expert-level resources that they have grown accustomed to, but now we just have more of them.
EDGE360 Editors: What final takeaway would you offer to Cisco partners as they embark on the new year?
Motley: Right now, we have a lot of available training material and content. Those include insights from the past two years, all of which details how to best interact with customers who are focused on digital transformation. Beyond that, partners can always reach out to our team for support. We have all worked to understand what customers need as far as building that collaborative framework. Partners can always ask – we are more than ready to help them succeed.
