Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / Elisabeth De Dobbeleer & Jason Gallo - Cisco 360 Partner Program Deep Dive

Transcript

Elisabeth De Dobbeleer & Jason Gallo - Cisco 360 Partner Program Deep Dive · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Partnerships Unravel, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of channel and partnerships on a weekly basis.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Rick van der Bos, and I'm the founder and CEO of Chen X.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm here together with not one but two Cisco executives, Elisabeth de Dobelier, Senior Vice President Global Programs, and Jason Gallo, Global Vice President Partner Value Acceleration.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Rick.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Very nice to see you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: Great to be here.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have a very exciting topic for today, which is the launch of the new Cisco 360 program.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Before we dive into that, Elizabeth and Jason, could you share a bit more about yourself and your experience in the industry so far?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So my name is Elisabeth Tadley.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you may hear from my accent or my name.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am from Belgium.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm speaking to you from Belgium as well.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've been at Cisco for close to 26 years in very different roles: legal sales roles, operations roles, business development roles all over the world, in uh EPJC, Middle Eastern Africa, Europe, and global roles as well.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: But right now I am leading the partner program and go-to-market strategy for Cisco's global partner sales organization.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So reporting to the channel chief.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Jason Gallo, and uh I uh report to Elizabeth and lead the uh the go-to-market piece of the uh organization that she described.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so indeed the topic today is all about uh uh the Cisco 360 program.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm super curious, the Cisco program has been foundational for for decades.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: What made this the right moment to uh to fundamentally change the program?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's been a few years in the making, if you want, on the one hand, right?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we we had already worked on transforming uh the incentives themselves to align with um more of a land adopt expand renew framework.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we announced that at Partner Summit in uh 23.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously we saw the market shifting and we saw our peers and competitors shifting from uh single transaction or land focus to everything that happens after the transaction as well.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So more lifecycle selling and motions.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We also saw our ecosystem diversifying.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Surely Jason can speak a lot about that because he's uh very much leading that for us.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We also heard for years our partner saying that uh one of the key opportunities or pain points was the complexity, because obviously, our existing program, as much as it was considered best in class and industry leading, it was more than 20 years old.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we had over the years tweaked and adjusted and built on and added on.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so obviously it became quite complex to manage.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um complexity that I think our partners loved and hated at the same time.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then simply the market moving, right, and what customers expected from us.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I think Jason is uh more uh articulate when speaking about that, about portfolio and customers and and of course the impact of AI.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I and I'll pick up right from there.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to Elizabeth's point, the speed of the market right now with uh AI and and where we're headed with some of the innovations that are coming out of Cisco, uh the program needed another gear, if you will, to where we can be agile, to where we can move at the speed of the market.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so that the timing to your question was was was perfectly put.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: But then the other thing uh along those lines is we found that partners needed to be both deep as well as broad, because the portfolio is very deep in certain areas.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: But yet Cisco is known to have one of the broadest portfolios, and that's a real strength of ours.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so how can we reflect within the program areas where partners can have a depth of understanding in things like security and you know, cloud and AI and you know classical networking, et cetera.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, bring those together uh and have the program recognize both depth and breadth.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: I can imagine, yeah.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And that that's indeed the challenge we we hear a lot in the market as well.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like how how did you approach that, sort of like making sure that it drives both uh depth and breadth?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think one of the first things was to ensure that neither depth or breadth superseded the other, because both are important.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: We have uh great partnerships, let's say for security as an example, where they are specialized in that area or they're focused in that area, I should say.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's okay.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: We really genuinely need that expertise because they can speak to those buyers in a unique way.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then there are other customers that really want an end-to-end approach from Cisco and how to um, you know, bring out the entire solutions, value, maybe even add elements that Cisco doesn't have.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they bring their own intellectual property to the table.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and one of the things that Elizabeth uh early on really instilled in us was to make sure that this was a whole ecosystem.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: So we recognize now developers, advisors, not just the technical breath, but some business model breath and route to market breath as well, because it it takes multiple types of partners to bring those solutions to our customers.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's also Rick why we call it Cisco 360, because 360 refers a bit to be a wink of an eye, let's say, to that all-encompassing or all-inclusive ecosystem whereby we want to accommodate and design in for all the different ways partners are contributing value to our customers.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I really like that approach.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing that really stood out to me also in like the press releases was like how the program is really geared around customer value.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Can you sort of talk talk us through that?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how how do you start with the customer and then sort of work backwards towards a program like that?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you then indeed also sort of align that with the with the partners?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: All of this only matters if we can drive better and more customer value.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so we defined partner value in one of these core principles, meaning the partner value index, in terms of how is a partner bringing value to the customer.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: That was really core to everything we did, and we used it as a design principle, and that also led to our um first ever marketing campaign to customers in terms of the value of our ecosystem and how our ecosystem is a differentiated asset and can bring value to the customers.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I think that that's indeed something that I found very unique when reading more and hearing more about the program is that how much it is really geared around that.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And indeed, something you shared as well is around like the process to get there, the design thinking, and and that was some was something that really stuck out for us is co-designing a program of such skill that that is, I think, super impressive.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what I think is super interesting for our audience as well, is like how did you approach this to really make sure you got to the right uh uh the right outcome eventually.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: When we started, we brought together a community inside Cisco of both people with channel expertise and people already in the channel organization, but also um thinkers from across, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I call them thinkers because I knew that either they were very uh up to speed on what was happening in the market, they were working with partners, but they were not necessarily in the partner org.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we had technical SE leaders, we had folks from uh operations and IT, we had folks from the business entities all contributing.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we made it a very deliberate choice in those very early stages when it was just an idea and just a beginning, and it was all NDA protected still, to bring a very diverse community together of um disruptive thinkers and people who really cared about our ecosystem and the value our ecosystem is bringing to our customers and obviously also to our company.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we started like that, and and I would say it became a bit of a movement because those were about 20, 30 people developed into 50, 60, I think.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: At the end, we were probably a couple of hundred people who were actively designing this as a community.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as and when just the summer before Partner Summit, you may know Partner Summit is our kind of defining moment um at Cisco, where we invite um our partners to join us for a key event.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it always happens end of October, early November.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the summer before, now I'm speaking uh the summer of 24, we started to um expose these ideas very early on with some key partners and um analysts as well.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then, as and when we had declared our intent at Partner Summit, after that we went in a full-blown co-design process.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: We engaged with our um what we call PoAP community, which is our um partner operations advisory board.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jason and Gary Wolfson are actually leading that for us, and we went into very intense co-design um and agile development, inviting all of our partners to actively contribute.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we started with early releases, we started with the security partner value index, we got lots and lots of feedback, um, and then that helped us to continue to design and refine.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, Jason and his team were both responsible for um that engagement with that top advisory board, but also for the partner value index.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe Jason, you can comment on how we did that.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think um, you know, the to Elizabeth's point, it became a little bit of a movement.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: The the term we used for a while that kind of caught on, it should have been on t-shirts or something, was like for partners, by partners.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I think it really continued to remind everybody, yeah, this is for partners, but it has to be by the partners as well.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: They have to be bought in, they have to feel like they're part of the design.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and co-design can't just be a catchphrase.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: It needed to be real.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so engaging with that community on a regular basis, both an in-person event in some ways that really kicked off the the gravity, the reality of it with our partners out in uh Dublin, Ireland.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: So partners from all across the globe.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: We got together with them and had a three-day deep dive session.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it was not about showing slides.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: We rethought the process.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, to the point now where some of the partners have asked us to package that format up and show them how to do that workshop in their companies because it was using the Cisco whiteboard.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_02: So we leveraged the technology, we were getting the ideas out real time.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was different groupings throughout the day so that uh everyone had a chance to share their views on certain topics and sticking points that we knew we had to go through with the program.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Very thoughtful and intentional co-design, not just in name, but truly in action.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm hearing some very interesting things here.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I I think indeed get the partners involved very early in the process.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you really build together from the from the core.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Use a strong framework like design thinking or agile, and it's really sort of run the full process end-to-end.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what really intrigued me was the movement and the community you guys will, because I can already hear some of our listeners thinking like, how do I orchestrate hundreds plus uh people?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, could you touch a little bit more on that side, what that looked like once it really got to sort of more and more skill?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get their input and feedback?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: And how did you also communicate back to keep them in the loop?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the things I'll give Elizabeth credit for is I think like many of us, we're all really busy.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it's easy to sometimes miss emails or we use WebEx internally and WebEx teams.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: But Elizabeth pushes us to ensure that we're constantly monitoring and responding back to this one uh community space where all of those partners who helped us with the co-design, again, we call them the Poab Partners, the Partner Operations Advisory Board, if they ever ask a question, VPs, directors, multiple functions across the company, we're jumping in and answering.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not just like a help desk somewhere that, you know, send partners to a 1-800 number.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: There's a true constant, always-on relationship cadence, such that, you know, that ability to take hundreds of people, but make it feel really small, like a community with, again, leveraging the Cisco innovations, the tools like WebEx to do that.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: But then I think with the culture that's been built where we're we're monitoring that, uh, not just sending it to a help desk somewhere.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: It I think people began to trust that the ideas were being heard, not just once a year in Ireland, let's say, but a continuous follow-up process that um was always on.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would just add, I think it was a very deliberate and organized effort.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we we did what Jason just explained, but on top of that, we had webinars that were open to all partners, right?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh small and big and medium and any partner at all.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we would consistently collect feedback through that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: We would collect feedback through one-on-one meetings.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, um we would feedback, collect feedback through the co-op community.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we would through multiple channels um get feedback, whether it's survey-based, uh, we use Slido within WebEx, whether it was anecdotal, whether it was from uh one-on-one conversations, from one-to-many conversations, we would consistently uh collect everything.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we did leverage AI also to sort the feedback and summarize the feedback.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the beautiful thing, and that was, I thought quite interesting that you know we we then uh managed to distill relatively easy um consistent feedback.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we were always, I don't know if you agree, Jason, but I think we always kind of knew what the top three, top five, top seven care about were.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because in some funny or maybe not so funny way, um the feedback we got was very consistent through all these channels.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So which then made us feel, you know, because I was always obsessed also with how do you make sure that that we are on top of things and that we know what's going on and we know what's really um finger on the pulse, let's say, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt reassured that the feedback we were getting was quite consistent.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so whether Jason or I were presenting in an executive exchange or talking to a partner one-on-one or assisting in a webinar, somehow the themes were very uh consistent, and that made us feel that we were close enough to the truth, right?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can only manage if you're managing reality and and I I am very committed to that.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: That you know, we're not here to manage PowerPoints or to make things look good.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're here to manage reality.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we were obsessed with finding the reality and really understanding, which doesn't mean that we said yes to everything or we agreed with everything.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: When we uh when partner said, I don't necessarily like X, you know, we may or may or may not agree or we may or may not adjust, of course, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we absolutely wanted to know what the real sentiment was.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, and if I can pick up off of that, I I think by knowing what the real sentiment was, it allowed us to be empathetic as well.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: I I think when you start, you can approach some of these changes as the vendor, as a you know, a company like Cisco, and it's like, you know, here's the change and it is what it is.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And that I think can be a little bit harsh.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: What co-design and and understanding the sentiment allowed us to do was here's a change, but let us help you explain that internally.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm empathetic to understand that you have a boss in your business, Mr.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: or Mrs.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Partner.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: You have a board that you're gonna have to explain to uh that these profitability and growth and transformational changes, what's the benefit?
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so it actually allowed us to start to put together collateral that was executive-facing and allowed them to take the stories back into their company in a way that they could help us explain it.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't just a push for information, it was truly a pull.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they became champions in inside of their own businesses because we were on top of the pulse of what the care abouts were.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I really love what both of you are saying because I think indeed there are some really actionable advice here on how to involve your partner community in the best way when you're doing a co-design like this, because that eventually that's what uh what makes a success of the program.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh another another thing that I constantly hear also when speaking to executives is sort of like the balance between global standardization and consistency and then local variation and diversity.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: How did you approach that in terms of building the the program?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I Jason, I the first word in my mind was with a lot of sympathy.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was thinking as you were speaking, Rick, because obviously I am from Europe, right?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so my uh previous role was to lead um the channel organization in the MIR.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a bias, let's say, or hopefully a healthy bias towards uh how it's like to do business in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we had that mix of the people designing uh the program, there was a good mix of people from all around the world, and we were also very close to our regional teams.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll say that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, you need some global consistency to be efficient and to make sure it makes sense, to make sure you're fair to the partners.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, a lot of our partners have global or multi-region business as well, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you want the experience to be consistent across the globe.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think we I don't know if you agree with that, Jason, but I would argue that in the current program, we've moved away from a lot of regional bespoke approaches in favor of indeed a more simplified global consistent framework.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the but here is that we have accommodated for uh what we call the t-shirt sizing, the size of a partner, and you can argue because right now it's still a booking size, so you know, we've been debating whether over time that's the perfect measure.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: But for sure, there is an intent to design in for different sizes of partners or sizes of businesses, let's say, that need different scale, different efficiency, and different resourcing, different capacity, but also to accommodate for diversity of partner business models, which is what we said at the beginning.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's less about global versus local, but maybe more about um sizing and then also uh business models.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because in today's environment where physical boundaries are blurring, let's say, if you think managed services and being able to provide services from all over the world and even the influence of software services and then even AI, you could argue that some of that, you know, we had a lot of brick and mortar type of requirements in our old program, which of course were inspired by shipment of products all across the world.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and we still have a lot of that because we care about our national partners, and but we've tried to uh be fair in terms of how important that still is.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Not much to add from my side.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think that's exactly it.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: That balance of sizing versus simplicity is more of a modern approach than just global versus local.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think also with what you both have explained around running the process and the co-designing, that's where also you got partners from everywhere throughout the world and therefore also the local regions.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you're really by involving also all the different regions early on within the process and the different partner sets, that's how you get sort of to the best program eventually, where indeed, on one hand, it really is ready for the future, and it and it's also has the has the skill uh and the consistency that's required while really adhering to the different partner types there are.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: A thing that we discussed briefly in the beginning is indeed also the fast evolving market and and AI and everything around it.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like how did that really fast pace in the in the market influence how you designed the uh the program?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think, well, a few things.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: One, there is uh a set of uh I think that are happening, let's say now with the program and then into the future.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of now, I mean, I I think some of it's obvious, right?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we ensure that the partners have the capabilities and a depth of understanding of the innovations that we've brought out?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: AI and building AI, as in like, you know, the AI pods and the compute stack and the things that we have there.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: So there's there's a technical element, but then it's AI is in everything.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So in our security portfolio, we have AI defense and and firewalling, not a single firewall, but now it's you know distributed throughout the network.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a it's a very different way of thinking about if you have to think about a firewall not as a single thing in security, but it's firewall-ing, as in it's spread out even in the network.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: How do you now have somebody who's security and networking together?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's what these specialization levels are within the program.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so you start to think about bringing together and recognizing how things like AI and security are going to be prevalent across other parts of the portfolio.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: They're not just discrete areas or silos of the technology, then you can't have silos or discrete parts of uh the program either.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: There has to be levels in which you can recognize partners that uh have capabilities and practices that go across.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'd say that's the now.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: The future, though, is you know, what do we uh start to, or how do we build a program that has the flexibility to recognize agents and where we're headed with literally the capacity that humans have to now work with uh these agents into the future?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: Are agents going to be recognized with their own identity?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: Are we gonna see CCIE agents?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know, right?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: But the program now with the metric design that we have, we can be a little bit more flexible and have a point system that recognizes these new type of areas within a partner practice as AI develops and becomes a natural part of the workflows.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not rigid where it was just a set of people taking tests like in the past.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: We can put some points that allow us to recognize where the innovation, particularly AI and agents, are headed.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I guess that's a couple ways I look at it in terms of how the program had to move to this new world because you know AI and the market itself is requiring that level of uh agility.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that is indeed really intriguing because of the things that are moving so fast in all areas in in how we sell, how we market, how we deliver the value the value.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: I can imagine that was an interesting puzzle to put together uh to think about okay, how do we make it great for now, but also make it ready for how this can skill in the future.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: What's what sort of input did you did you get from partners on that uh on that area?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like how are partners thinking about that?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: We've got a variety.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Of partners.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: There's one partner out of New Zealand.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: They, for example, have recently set up a department where they have the classic engineers and technical teams, but they're leading others who are agents.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: So they're no longer tools, they're teammates.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, the org chart design shows a human at the top, but they may have agents underneath them.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're starting to share those ideas with us.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: And while we, again, don't have the perfect answer for how to evolve the program yet, it allows that co-design to continue to happen because now with this point space system, we can continue those conversations.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: And as their business models, as their org charts develop, we can adjust and mold the program aligned to where they're headed.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: So we are starting to get some really cool partner feedback and where they're headed.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's great to know that the program will be able to meet them where they're at.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing to add, maybe, Eric, is that we, I think we talked about it yesterday in our team as well.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: This was not just a program change.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we also made a huge investment in data foundation metrics and then ultimately digital partner experience.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I am almost even more excited about that part in the program change itself because we we had something that was pretty cool already in the partner experience platform, which was something that was considered differentiated, but we really doubled down on enhancing that and bringing the program to life in that PXP or partner experience platform.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's also where we are then able to embed AI and develop agents as well, who over time will be able to speak to agents at the partners, right?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: We we yesterday I had a discussion with a distribution partner as well, who are also developing agents.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we're now talking indeed about how can our agents speak to their agents and how can we enhance that experience.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: I like to use the word experience, right, between us and the partners, and then obviously the partners and their customers, whether they're resellers or ultimately uh end users.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that we've just seen the beginning of that.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think people who are designing partner programs will have to become more and more savvy in terms of thinking through experience as well.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I don't I don't know if you agree, Jason, but I think all of us were extremely intimately involved in designing the experience of the program that we were developing.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: You both mentioned indeed the word experience and and and feedback.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've now been uh a few months into the launch.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: What has been the feedback so far from the from the from the ecosystem?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can start well, what I um would like to say maybe is that, and I would like to think it's thanks to the way we um defined and and executed on the process, is that it's been very smooth and quiet.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's been so the the launch itself actually happened on midnight California time from the 25th of January, and so we had some of our team being there in person at the moment itself.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it was very uneventful almost.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's that was also our hope, and the hope became reality in the sense that everything went extremely smoothly, precisely because a lot of things had been tested and live for many months already.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: The partner value index, the experience in PXP, the numbers and the metrics that we then used to reward partners in the Cisco Partner Incentive were visible many months before.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when we cut over, it was actually mostly an operational cut over the tail, meaning do the systems work and is everything going smoothly?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happened, we were very relieved.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think just on that level it's been quite quiet.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: On another level, we are still extremely busy uh designing for distribution, designing for advisors and developers.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um we will be uh coming out with that uh at Partner Summit, but we're doing a lot of work right now already, and um we've we've used the same approach of tapping into the community and doing co-design.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we still have uh a lot of work to do and to deliver.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: So in that sense, it's not quite at all.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in terms of partner feedback, um I think everybody is now over the, you know, on the other side of the lounge.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are uh making sure profitability is still number one priority and that partners are able to monetize the relationship and doing, as we promised, hopefully at least as good, if not better, in the new program.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a lot of talk about enablement.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And again, Jason, maybe you want to talk about that.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because the the other side of the coin of this partner value and customer value is investing in capabilities and technical skills.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, Jason, maybe Yeah, I mean, I I think that's that is the key.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: You um get through some of those launch um levels of understanding.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: And once that quiets down, which I think we're seeing, um, and that's just literally just understanding of the new world that we're operating in, both internal to the Cisco partner account teams and external to you know the resources at the partner.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: But the very next focus to Liz's point is naturally enablement and then profitability.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think we're we're seeing a natural progression of uh what a rollout like this looks like.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think we've even supported that more so.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: We've we've launched some rebate acceleration activities where we've we've had some extra bonuses, we call it, in the program.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that was always a a component of Cisco 360, is that there would be a way to add bonuses and and that would be in a in a period or uh one of our fiscal halves to help again boost or align with the business and back to that first principle of you know, are we driving towards the customer that um uh uh outcome that we want?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've put some bonuses in place.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: So first time we kind of use one of these new levers and it's working pretty well, and I think supporting our partners' profitability.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: And then to the point on enablement, we've seen um our uh we call it Black Belt, which is a free training and uh set of modules that partners can take across multiple personas.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: There's free training for SEs, there's free training for salespeople, uh, there's free training for operations personas, there's marketing uh for the marketeers at the partner.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: All of that content has skyrocketed in terms of its usage.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that usage and depth of accessing the training and the enablement, I think, is starting to play out where, you know, again, back to what Elizabeth mentions earlier, it's much bigger than just being a program.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you start to realize that this is a fundamental business shift and and strengthening their practice so that we can ultimately again serve that customer that we started with that being the guiding principle.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's bigger than being just a program shift.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is truly more of a practice or a business shift.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, as we see partners go beyond just looking at the programmatic elements, which, you know, I think some programs are even in the past, when you just look at it as a set of requirements, you can check a box.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: We always wanted this to be alignment with improving, you know, foundational performance, capabilities, engagement, which is ultimately that engagement piece, is where it comes back to are we tied into that first principle of making uh this a better experience and outcome for the customer.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, really that driving that enablement with and for the partners, that's really the key to successfully launching a big shift like this as well.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: If if we fast forward five years, what a success criteria would you look at to say, hey, I think Cisco 360 has been a big success?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a couple.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I I think we've talked about it already, right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: The agility and the still being relevant, as in still being able to provide the outcomes customers need would be a cornerstone to this, right?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: That would ultimately have proven that this program is landing and is successful.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a philosophical point almost.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I think being able to drive customer value on an ongoing basis as the market is moving fast and technology is developing in an exponential way, let's say.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, with that profitable growth, I think my team and I were very committed to profitable growth for our partners.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way we, and and this is again Jason's remit, the go-to-market strategy and the way we translate that into programs and incentives and specializations that allow partners to become more capable and driving more value and ultimately making more money is the the goal.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the only thing I'll add is because I think we covered the external and and and those pieces, but I I have a lot of hope for internally.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I think what a program shift of this scale has done is it really elevated the impact that the concept of partnering can have.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_02: And Cisco's always been a very partner-first, partner-friendly company, I think everyone knows.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but when you have a change like this, it's it's it's galvanized so many things towards improving the operations, improving the systems, improving the data foundation behind how we work with partners.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Elizabeth mentioned, you know, the agentic, you know, AI connections between us and our distributors, you know, it it really has brought the rest of the company to the table to say, way beyond this being a program, how do we all rally around making partners and the concept of partnering more successful five years from now?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's really what's sticking with me indeed after this this conversation is that by starting on designing a new program, you actually start looking outward to the customer, to the world, what are the trends that are happening?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the result of that is actually driving a movement, like you two have also called it, not just with the parkers, but actually with the full company.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: What is our view on how the world is changing and how are we going to drive towards that?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh super interesting.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have a final question, which is for our audience and the wider ecosystem.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's next for Cisco 360?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what is the what are the things that people should be looking out for in the rest of this year?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe I'll start so that you can like hit it at the end, but uh I'll just say on a tactical level, we are driving some new partner value indices.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as you heard from us with advisor, consultant.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, advisor uh really speaks to our consultants and GSI community.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: We have developers, so there are communities that we want to bring in that uh really build on top of our platform uh and and drive their individual code base.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: We are looking at some of the distribution partner value indices and bringing our distributors in more alignment and recognizing the value that they bring.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then from a portfolio standpoint, what we call mass scale infrastructure.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: Think of that how uh we build out these for governments or for large enterprises, the backbone, the infrastructure that they have, those product sets, uh, bringing them even more to the forefront by having a partner value index that we'll we'll recognize there.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we're we're working on all of those things.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's as a little bit tactical, but I think it's important to now go back in and finish the journey that we committed to and said that we would start.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I I would just add is the experience bit.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we are very excited about the roadmap we still have around the implementing everything Jason just said in a delightful, simple experience, right?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll continue to invest in that.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe the related point to that is sales alignment.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things, yeah, we didn't speak about that yet, but one of the things that our ecosystem and partners were very excited about is the promise of Cisco 360 bringing more and improved sales alignment, as in the alignment between our partner sellers and our engineers and our Cisco sellers and our engineers, the fact that we are now measuring our partners with the same metrics as our sellers, the fact that we'll be much more agile implementing campaigns and with the accelerators we can implement in the Cisco Partner Incentive, which again where uh JSON's team plays a big role.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then also from an experience point of view, that when we think about co-cell motion, for example, we are enhancing the ability for an account manager or account executive to work with a partner on a specific opportunity, whether in a transacting, more traditional mode or in a non-transacting, more influenced business development kind of mode.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: So there's still a lot of work and potential around the experience and related to that sales alignment.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: One other, if I could, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention uh Elizabeth and I are heads down right now in Splunk and making sure that um, you know, Partnerverse and all the great um best practices from uh Splunk's Partnerverse are even more seamlessly integrated.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: There is already a partner value index for Splunk, but I think you know, continuing to bring that relationship along and and recognize and cut you know some of the partnerships that have come over and understand how to recognize and boost metrics and things that are relevant for a uh a SaaS-based business.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think we're making some some really incredible strides there.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was already such a big launch a few months ago, but there's so much cool stuff coming up as well.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I I really learned a lot today and have enjoyed the the conversation very much.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: For our listeners that want to keep following your journey and maybe read more about Cisco 360 as well, where where can they best follow you?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think sisco.com, right?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have a page there which is dedicated to um find a partner, and then that gets you to um Cisco 360 program and anything you need to know.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, we also have a new brand new partner locator, so you can also find uh any and all um most capable partner for what you need in that same link as well.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um really enjoyed it, and uh to our listeners, see you next week.