December 18, 2024 • 27 mins
For the first time in 22 years, Cisco is making significant changes to their partner program. They went into more detail at the recent Cisco Partner Summit, and it looks like Cisco partners are in for a different type of collaboration.
Shelby Skrhak speaks with Bobby Young, Sr. Technical Enablement Engineer at Ingram Micro, about:
To join the discussion, follow us on Twitter @IngramMicroUSA #B2BTechTalk
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Shelby Skrhak speaks with Bobby Young, Sr. Technical Enablement Engineer at Ingram Micro, about:
- How the Cisco Partner Summit supports partners
- How the Cisco Partner Program is changing
- The four metrics that make up the partner value index
To join the discussion, follow us on Twitter @IngramMicroUSA #B2BTechTalk
Listen to this episode and more like it by subscribing to B2B Tech Talk on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or Spreaker.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to B to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro,
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and stay ahead of technological advances before they've become mainstream.
This episode is sponsored by ingram Micro's Expantage, the next
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
Let's get into it. Welcome to B to B Tech
Talk with Ingram Micro. I'm your host, Shelby Skirhawk, and
our guest today is Bobby Young, Senior technical Enablement engineer
for Ingram Micro. Bobby, welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hey Shelby, how are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Good?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Good?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
How you been doing I've been doing great. Yeah. Well,
today we are talking about last month's Cisco Partner Summit,
which I understand was a big one. So first off,
let's just set some context here. What is the Cisco
Partner Summit? And I guess then let's go into what
some of those big topics are. But sure, Cisco, When, where,
(01:04):
and why?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah? So, Cisco has kind of two big events that
they put on for their communities per year. The big
one that everyone usually knows is Cisco Live. Right, that's
a kind of a once a year big thing. Right.
This is where they you know, have some big announcements
regarding products and more kind of technology base. You have
a lot of you know, really in depth conversations big
(01:28):
you know, two three hour sessions on you know, the
first eight bits of an IP address. Right, we go
very very in depth, usually more of a technical kind
of focal point, whereas Partner Summit is more on the
actual partner program side of things. Right. So where is
Cisco Live is more of the technology itself, right, focusing
on the actual products and solutions. Partner Summit is more, Hey,
(01:51):
we're going to talk to you from a Cisco perspective,
to you as a partner. Right, how are the partner
programs changing? What does it mean to be you know,
to have these back end incentives? Right, you know, lots
of conversation you know, with individual kind of people within
Cisco to have more of a conversation about how a
partner's business is doing rather than hey, this is this
(02:13):
new thing that just came out right, Right.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What were some of those kind of big highlights our headlines?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, Well, just like Cisco Live where they talked about
kind of the integration of AI into the products themselves, right,
whether it's switching or you know, access points or WebEx
and collaboration. They also talked about AI as well, but
more from a programmatic perspective, right, So talking about how
AI is integrated into the purchasing tools. You know, if
(02:41):
you partners have ever used something called Partner Experience Platform
or p XP, I know we've done I think a
session on that and you know we've definitely been you know,
going with partners demoing that tool for them. I do
probably five or six per week just going over that tool.
But the integration of AI into those types of tools
to give a partner kind of more access into the
(03:05):
data of their customers and then be able to find
out things like, you know, where the white space opportunities
within that customer might be. Right, So, hey, I sold
this person, you know, maybe some access points and some switches. Well,
you know, give me the data and kind of give
me a quick analysis to say what else could I
sell them without me having to kind of drill into
(03:26):
the customer?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, got it? Okay, So AI, of course, what were
some of the other big things that we're talked about?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, So the big thing, I mean, the elephant in
the room. Again, something that I talked to partners on
every single customer call that we have with them is hey,
you know, did you pay attention to Partner Summit and
are you familiar with the changes that they are going
to be putting in place to their partner program? Changes, big,
(03:54):
big changes coming to the partner program. The partner program
has kind of been untouched for literally the last probably
twenty twenty, I think it's twenty two years that they've
actually had the same thing in place. A couple of
years ago, and I know we did a podcast recently
around some of the new changes that have happened within
the last couple of years around you know, giving partners
(04:16):
the ability to not only be an integrator right of
Cisco Solutions basically kind of think of that as more
the traditional route to point selling a switch or an
access point installing it and kind of saying, hey, have
a nice day, versus a more provider role where a
partner would be acting as an MSP and kind of
utilizing you know, Cisco as the ingredients to their own recipe,
(04:38):
right and kind of pushing that to the table. That
nice to have right in the background, has now you know,
been kind of married into this new partner program. They're
calling it Cisco three P sixty. And the good news
is that although they announced it really even last Partner Summit,
they said, hey, there's going to be some big changes coming,
and then this past partner some they announce all the
(05:01):
details to the change. The good news is that all
of that doesn't take place until February of twenty twenty six,
and within that time they're actually grandfathering and kind of giving,
you know, giving a pass on partners as far as
their partner level goes. So a Select partner is going
to continue to be a Select partner from now until
(05:22):
twenty you know, February first, twenty twenty six. A Premier partner,
a Gold partner, they don't have to kind of upkeep
the stuff in the background to be able to to
kind of be part of that grace period. This CX specialization,
the Customer Experience specialization, if you've achieved that, you do
not have to keep that up through the next year.
So that's going to be part of that grace period.
(05:42):
But something to understand is that every other specialization outside
of that, if it's being part of, you know, some
sort of back end rebate or or you know, just
you know, something that you want to have as bragging
rights on partner locator. All of those specializations do need
to be up kept to keep the specializations. So the
things that are being given a grace period or the
CX specialization as well as the partner level Right, Select, Premiere, Gold,
(06:08):
all of those partner levels are going to be given
a grace period through that twenty twenty six timeline.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay, so let's let's back up a little bit. So
this change, you know, we're talking about a fifteen month
lead up here and those those partner levels. So if
you're already we're at Gold, Premiere, Select, and so forth,
your grandfather didn't until the change.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Until the change, and then once the change is there,
it's it's done. So they gave a fifteen month kind
of you know, walk up to it because of the
big change that that really they're doing. Like I said,
it makes the big outline, biggest changed since since you know,
twenty years ago. Yeah, And what the change really is
(06:52):
is is moving from a more of a traditional leveled
approach of a Select partner, a Premiere partner, a Gold
partner into what they call something that utilizes what they
call a partner value index, which is basically a numerical
value from zero to ten that a partner can achieve
in different kind of architectures, right, security, collaboration, observability, enterprise networking, right,
(07:17):
and that number will kind of correspond to I mean,
you could kind of think of it like a level
of different features that are given to a partner. Right.
So from zero to one, if a partner has a
zero to one value, then they will be able to,
you know, be able to transact basically within Cisco. They'll
(07:37):
be able to kind of do some basic registered partner
type functionality if you're going from two point I'm sorry,
from from one to five, they'll have the ability to
register a deal, They'll be able to do some programmatic
pricing and promotions. They'll have access to things like d Cloud, again,
very similar to what a Select partner is nowadays. From
(07:59):
five to seven point five, it's going to be similar
to the Premier Partnership benefits where they'll be able to
do back end partner incentives, be able to do NFR
gear and then seven point five and above, whereas it
would be a Gold partner that would get you know,
another I think it's a one percent back on everything
from there, they're actually changing that up and they're not
only going to have these next generation specializations that are
(08:23):
going to be part of those kind of elite partners
they're actually calling them Cisco Preferred Partners, but they're actually
going to also give those folks ten annual licenses to
Cisco You and Cisco You. If you guys aren't familiar
with it is, think of it kind of like Netflix
for partner specializations I'm sorry, not partner specialist personal Certifications,
(08:45):
right ccnp CCIE. So having that Cisco U access is
an all access pass to be able to give you know,
ten people at your company the ability to go through
any of that coursework, to be able to achieve a
ccp CCIE, any of the little specializations all over the place.
But it's basically an all access pass for that now
(09:08):
at the time that we are recording this, obviously fifteen
months is a very long time. I almost guarantee that
they're going to be going through some changes within that space,
and I guarantee that they're going to get a lot
of feedback from their partners, including ones that are that
are probably listening to this podcast right now. So The
first thing that you can do as a partner is
(09:30):
and we'll probably put this in the in the note
section where you can click on a link to it,
but check out on Cisco site the Cisco three to
sixty page. And then in mid December they are going
to be allowing partners to get kind of a preview
access into what their PBI or their partner Value index
is for just the security space right now. Eventually the
(09:53):
timeline will be that they will announce the ability to
see the Networking Value Index in February. Observability is going
to come in April, and then a month before that
is going to be collaboration. Now, the good news is
that again you'll be able to see, you know, what
your your your partner of Value index is, but it's
not really going to mean anything, right, so it's going
(10:14):
to be a really nice kind of lead up to say, hey,
if this, if this were to basically drop today, what
would my partner value index be for security? And it'll
give you that and it kind of actually even gives
you some you know, some information here and there on
what you can do to kind of up your scores.
Best way I can kind of describe it is if
you've ever, according to like your you know, transon Union
(10:36):
or your Fighto credit score, if you've ever utilized something
like credit Karma where it kind of says, hey, your
score is seven fifty. It went up ten points last
month because you you know, you utilize this card less
or you paid off this value. Maybe it dropped twenty
points because it you know, you just bought that brand
new Porsche. The visibility is the important thing in there, right,
you know, in the sense of being able to say, okay, well,
(10:58):
you know now that I have this tool in PXP
to be able to visibly see my score, it'll make
it easier for partners to be able to kind of
make day to day changes on that. The other big
thing is that because it's part of PXP, Ingram Micro
will be able to utilize something called DPV or disty
Partner View to be able to have partners give us
(11:20):
read only access into their PXP tool, which then allows
us to actually see that PVI for them. So we're
actually we have tons of resources at Ingram to assist
with every single one of those metrics that are part
of that score, ones that are already in place already
and ones that can help you basically kind of you know,
(11:41):
walk through the next fifteen months and make sure that
you know, come February first, twenty twenty six, when this
thing all drops and when it launches, that you are
exactly where you want to be regarding that PVI index.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
So I want to come back to the PXP. But
I got a love with you. I can kind of
already feel the the stress of worrying about this score
because too, because it's it's it's not like you've got
I mean, it feels like you don't have this Oh
this is leisurely lead up to UH these changes. It's
(12:16):
you have a deadline that you need to get these
things done to get your score up. And if you've
you know, if you just haven't really been paying attention
to to all the ins and outs of your your
Cisco business and just kind of letting it run, your
score is probably not that great. And so you're you're
you know, stressing about one that score when it comes out,
and too, Yeah, you've got a hard deadline. Am I
(12:37):
am I far off in maybe empathizing with UH with
partners feeling.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
That No, no, in fact, actually we've we've gotten calls
all over the board from some of our registered partners,
our select partners, our gold partners even have called us
up and said, hey, you know, we need to you know,
we need to know more about this because this this
could massively affect our business. I can definitely tell you
that that after learning about it more definitely helps a
(13:04):
partner to understand it's not necessarily that scary, right, It's
not necessarily something that you really, you know, have to
concern and worry about, you know, every single day. Again,
the ability for Ingram to assist with that conversation for
us to be granted DPV access, and this is something
if you you know, if you want to know more
(13:25):
about that, you can definitely reach out to me or
your your Cisco SSE or you know, your sales rep
or anyone. But the ability for us to assist with
the right allows us to kind of be, you know again,
instead of that that credit karma that you're logging into
every single day wondering why your your your credit score
went down twenty points. Consider us being like like hiring
a financial advisor, right, so you actually have you know,
(13:48):
a real set of eyes going over that and working
with you on a day to day or a quarter
basis to basically say, hey, what's your PV I where
do you want to be? Right, Let's take a look
at all of those different in dex is in there,
and again Shelby, the great thing is is that it's visibility. Right.
Cisco has never given that much visibility. I recently decided
(14:09):
to try and be healthier in life right in my
forties and realized I wasn't where I wanted to be.
And I, you know, a big thing that really helped
me in my you know, in my ability to see
that was you know, things like like Apple health right
or or you know, my Fitness Pal right, because it
allows me to see where I am, allows me to
see my goals, and allows me to plan better on
(14:31):
how to achieve those goals. So I believe that that's
that that PXP And then with Ingram's help right with DPV,
a lot of partners I think are going to take
a big sigh of relief when they realized that, hey,
you know, we're probably where we want to be right now,
or at least we know what we need to do
to be able to be at that point. Come February first,
(14:53):
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay, and again I will come back to p XP,
but let's talk a little bit about Partner Value Index.
What are some of the things that will make up
that score.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yep, yeah, that's a great question. So there's actually four
different metrics that they're going to be putting out. One
of them is the foundational Metrics or metric metric, but
that is around really a partner's customer experience specialization. So
you're basically kind of given ten points if you have it,
zero if you don't. If you want more information on
(15:26):
what that CX specialization is, ingram Micro has their care
team which has been around for years helping partners to
achieve that specialization and work with them on those customer
success plans. The other big one, and we kind of
mentioned this again from a provider perspective, is the other
piece of that foundational metric is their MSP practice maturity. Right,
(15:48):
how much of your business is being flagged in CCW
as a managed service versus how much are you basically
just selling out to you to the end user. How
many switches are you managing right versus how many are
you just you know, selling to an end It's hard
to say what the you know, the algorithm is going
to be to how many points that's worth at this time. Again,
this is very very brand new, but at the same
(16:10):
time that is going to be that foundational right seex
specialization as well as practice the journey. The second one
is going to be around your capabilities. This is more
of a traditional sense of you know, having you know,
career certifications and black belt certified and black belt trained
personnel at your company, and you'll basically be given a
score on how many of those you have. The third one,
(16:31):
and this is where I think a lot of partners
are having some concerns, is around your performance. So this
is the first time we've actually seen you know, performance
value indexes being utilized for how a partner you know,
can kind of level up. But that's going to be
everything from total contract value, growth percentages, you know, stuff
that's very similar to There was a back end rebate
(16:53):
called perform plus that's still in play right now, but
those same type of metrics that would get you a
bad end rebate are kind of being utilized to say
what type of partner you are. The last one is
called engagement, and that is around your partner life cycle,
your arm sorry, your customer life cycle, and it's based
on an onboarding percentage as well as an adoption percentage
(17:15):
of you know, those customers that you have, you know,
partner lives are customer life cycle plans for So again,
the good news is that is that Ingram basically has
we have if I had to look at all these right,
foundational and engagement that's our care team, right, That's something
we've had in play for years, and you know the
resources are kind of already there to help with out
the capability piece around black Belt as well as career certifications.
(17:38):
That's my team, right, all of the technology enablement engineers
we have at Ingram. And then the performance side is
is our SEC team, right, so our sales executives through
our Cisco team that can really help you with those
numbers making sure that your growth percentages are where they are.
So we're excited again because we already have a foundation
to assist partners with this and it's not even out
(18:01):
for another year, right, So we're just going to be
just honing in on kind of what that program looks
like more and more from an Ingram sign so you'll
be able to get with us and be able to say, hey, look,
let's work on all four of those metrics to make
sure our PBI is exactly where we need to be
across all those architectures.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So we're releasing this, we're recording this in early December.
We're getting this out just as soon as we can,
but probably just on the heels of this score coming out.
You said when was that score likely to come out?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yep, So mid December is when the PVII is going
to be part of p XP, and it'll be under
the Practice Maturity tab and that's going to be coming
out again mid December, and that's just going to be
for security later on in starting in February, then they'll
basically put out the Networking one. March is going to
(18:51):
be the Collaboration one, and then observe Ability is coming
out in April. Again, knowing Cisco, those dates might change,
but at least at this point you can kind of
see all of those value indexes will be added into PXP,
but they're really not going to mean anything again until
February first or twenty twenty six, So it'll kind of
be a kind of a practice go right where a
partner can look at that and kind of, you know,
(19:13):
learn how to you know, move those numbers up and down,
but not really have it mean anything until you know,
the starting gun fires on February first, got it, So,
but just something to again realize and I know I've
probably said it two or three times just on this,
but a big realization is that come February first, right,
all of those partner programs change. There will be no
(19:34):
go backs at that point, So you know, it's plenty
of time. And again, if you have any questions, if
you want to, if you don't know what PXP is, right, definitely.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Reach it out to Yeah, let's go ahead and cover
that just really quick. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So PXP is Cisco's Partner Experience Platform tool, and this
is basically a single kind of one stop shop for
Cisco partners to go and view everything from a partner perspective,
as well as really cool tools when it comes to
sales opportunities. I mentioned some of kind of the AI
(20:07):
focused stuff where you know you can find those whitespace
opportunities or you know, hey, give me a list of
partners you know, or of customers that I've that I've
sold to that you know would be good leads to
talk to them about enterprise agreements, right, all of that
information is in that tool. It's not just for maybe
your vendor, business manager or someone who's focused on, you know,
(20:29):
what specialization should I get next. But we're having conversations,
like I said, almost on a daily basis with partners
on how to best utilize PXP. It's definitely daunting for
a lot of smaller partners that kind of like look
at it and go, oh wow, that's a lot of
I don't even know how to digest that. But again,
call us up right, we can demo it for you.
Usually takes about an hour. We usually have you share
(20:49):
your screen so you're actually going through your data, and
then we'll kind of walk through each of those tabs
with you together. There's even black belt courses if you
don't want to, you know, to do anything. If you
just like to, you know, sit on the couch with
a with an iPad and kind of go through it yourself.
You can go on black belt search p XP and
there is you know p XP one oh one type
(21:11):
training to basically kind of walk you through each of
those tabs there.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And these are different than certifications. Are these almost like
a precursor or prerequisite or a cheat sheet for the
certifications for PXP mean yes, pixy and the yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Just black belt, oh, black Belt in generally as a
it's a training platform that the Cisco has. So if
you're not familiar with black belt again reason number twenty
three to reach out to Ingram Again, we can kind
of go through this stuff for you in person, you know,
or on you know, kind of live rather than you know,
just throwing you a link in there. But yeah, black
(21:50):
belt is basically their their training platform. They've taken a
lot of that stuff in house. The good news about
black Belt is that it is updated much more frequently
than in the past, where you've had to go out
and you know, maybe go to a third party trainer
and train on some subject that you know. By the
time the trainer gets it and builds a class out
and all that stuff, guess what, you know, technology has
(22:11):
changed and all of a sudden, you know, all the
names and faces and technology has changed. So this allows
them to pivot much much quicker and update that content
on a more regular basis as well.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
All right, so we've covered a lot. If we were
to look at the big picture, then so okay, Cisco
Partner Summit, lots of big changes Cisco three sixty, this
move towards more of a metered program an emphasis on
managed services. Where does this all fall then, kind of
in the big picture of Cisco's progress in technology. I mean,
(22:47):
you know, it's the business has changed, the practice has changed,
and so I wonder if you can just give us
some insight where this lands in the big picture.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And it's it's one of those things that is it
a you know, is it a symptom of something bigger,
or is it kind of them pivoting along the same side.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Cisco went through some big changes back in August, and
they announced some you know, some big heavy changes regarding
some of their more siloed type you know, architectures and
kind of putting them under the same leadership. For example,
security and enterprise networking are now under the same leadership.
But then that allows them to you know, focus on
kind of a single strategy moving forward rather than having
(23:28):
you know, kind of two siloed approaches to things. The
merging of a lot of this stuff together is really
you know, again, how technology is kind of moving forward,
So you know, these these changes kind of needed to happen, right,
It's it's one of those things that it's it's a
bit of a band aid ripping off for some you know,
some folks that have been very comfortable with the program
(23:49):
that it's that's been in place. But also it's it's
one of those things that you know, if you have
too many people that are at the top, then it
doesn't really make any sense. So, I mean, it's like,
a know, I used to travel a lot more for
my for my job. I was a Delta diamond, you
know at one point, and at one point they changed
the program completely, right, they kind of scrapped and they said, hey,
we're you know, we're gonna we're going to make it
(24:11):
a little harder for you to get diamond, right.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I was.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I was frustrated at that. However, I still remember that
it was I think it was Ed Bastion at the time,
he was the CEO of Delta came out with an
email that basically said, hey, we're doing all these changes right,
And I was upset until I read the last you know,
kind of his last little words of wisdom at the end,
and he said, you know, the issue is is that
if everybody is diamond, then no one is diamond. And
that really kind of got me because I was like,
(24:34):
it's a good point, Like if I'm you know, if
everyone's diamond and I'm also diamond, I'm still not going
to get the free upgrade, right, because then everybody else's right.
So I kind of figure this is the same kind
of thing from a Cisco perspective, where it's like, hey,
if we have too many people that are gold and
premiere and and and they're not you know, putting those
performance numbers out right, they're not considering that. They're just
(24:54):
going out and you know, farming those certifications and basically
just just you know, calling themselves gold and check in
the box. At the end of the day, if everybody's gold,
then nobody's gold, right, And that's an issue that makes sense.
I know that we talked about the you know, the
different types of partnerships in the last podcast that we
had around you know, the different integrator role in the
provider role. Again. That used to be kind of a
(25:16):
nice to have, right. It's not a nice to have anymore.
It's a need to have, right, It's a it's it's
the ability for you know, for partners to to say, hey,
I can't just I can't just be an e commerce business. Anymore. Right,
I can't just point sell switches and you know and
access points because I'm not going to be competitive. So
having that provide or function kind of built into this
(25:37):
whole thing, right, and allowing partners to you know, to say, hey,
look like we understand a vast majority of you have
your own MSP business, right, let's integrate that. Let's have
everyone kind of utilize Cisco as those ingredients for building
their own recipe and then moving into you know, into
kind of providing Cisco as a managed service or a
(25:57):
managed service that's powered by Cisco.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Got it? Got it? Well, So four listeners who have
specific questions about something that we talked about today or
just you know, need to say, hey, help me, help
me get started. How can they reach out?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, I would say, just reach out to me. I'm
always available, you know, Robert dot Young at ingrammicro dot com.
But I can definitely be the point person if you
have a favorite person or at Ingram too. You know,
we tend to be a big company, but we're all
very very you know, friendly together. So call your sales
rep tell them, hey, I'm interested in you know, talking
to someone about my Cisco business. They can always get
(26:35):
some other resources on the line, but at the same times,
feel free to reach out to me directly and I'll
at least, you know, be able to act as that
operator and get you the right resource.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
In place, reach out to your friendly neighborhood. Right all right, then, well, Bobby,
I really appreciate it. That's been helpful, and I think
we'll definitely have more questions and sure, you know, developments
as the program change and evolves before that deadline. But
thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Today, Bean, glad to be here, all right, and.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Thank you listeners for tuning in and subscribing to B
to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro. If you liked
this episode, please give us a thumbs up, and don't
forget that you can find all of these episodes on
the ingram micro Exvantage platform. Until next time, I'm Shelby Scarehawk.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
You've been listening to B to B tech Talk by
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B to B Tech Talk is a joint production between
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Speaker 2 (00:26):
Let's get into it. Welcome to B to B Tech
Talk with Ingram Micro. I'm your host, Shelby Skirhawk, and
our guest today is Bobby Young, Senior technical Enablement engineer
for Ingram Micro. Bobby, welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Hey Shelby, how are you doing good?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Good?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Good?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
How you been doing I've been doing great. Yeah. Well,
today we are talking about last month's Cisco Partner Summit,
which I understand was a big one. So first off,
let's just set some context here. What is the Cisco
Partner Summit? And I guess then let's go into what
some of those big topics are. But sure, Cisco, When, where,
(01:04):
and why?
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah? So, Cisco has kind of two big events that
they put on for their communities per year. The big
one that everyone usually knows is Cisco Live. Right, that's
a kind of a once a year big thing. Right.
This is where they you know, have some big announcements
regarding products and more kind of technology base. You have
a lot of you know, really in depth conversations big
(01:28):
you know, two three hour sessions on you know, the
first eight bits of an IP address. Right, we go
very very in depth, usually more of a technical kind
of focal point, whereas Partner Summit is more on the
actual partner program side of things. Right. So where is
Cisco Live is more of the technology itself, right, focusing
on the actual products and solutions. Partner Summit is more, Hey,
(01:51):
we're going to talk to you from a Cisco perspective,
to you as a partner. Right, how are the partner
programs changing? What does it mean to be you know,
to have these back end incentives? Right, you know, lots
of conversation you know, with individual kind of people within
Cisco to have more of a conversation about how a
partner's business is doing rather than hey, this is this
(02:13):
new thing that just came out right, Right.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
What were some of those kind of big highlights our headlines?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, Well, just like Cisco Live where they talked about
kind of the integration of AI into the products themselves, right,
whether it's switching or you know, access points or WebEx
and collaboration. They also talked about AI as well, but
more from a programmatic perspective, right, So talking about how
AI is integrated into the purchasing tools. You know, if
(02:41):
you partners have ever used something called Partner Experience Platform
or p XP, I know we've done I think a
session on that and you know we've definitely been you know,
going with partners demoing that tool for them. I do
probably five or six per week just going over that tool.
But the integration of AI into those types of tools
to give a partner kind of more access into the
(03:05):
data of their customers and then be able to find
out things like, you know, where the white space opportunities
within that customer might be. Right, So, hey, I sold
this person, you know, maybe some access points and some switches. Well,
you know, give me the data and kind of give
me a quick analysis to say what else could I
sell them without me having to kind of drill into
(03:26):
the customer?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, got it? Okay, So AI, of course, what were
some of the other big things that we're talked about?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Yeah, So the big thing, I mean, the elephant in
the room. Again, something that I talked to partners on
every single customer call that we have with them is hey,
you know, did you pay attention to Partner Summit and
are you familiar with the changes that they are going
to be putting in place to their partner program? Changes, big,
(03:54):
big changes coming to the partner program. The partner program
has kind of been untouched for literally the last probably
twenty twenty, I think it's twenty two years that they've
actually had the same thing in place. A couple of
years ago, and I know we did a podcast recently
around some of the new changes that have happened within
the last couple of years around you know, giving partners
(04:16):
the ability to not only be an integrator right of
Cisco Solutions basically kind of think of that as more
the traditional route to point selling a switch or an
access point installing it and kind of saying, hey, have
a nice day, versus a more provider role where a
partner would be acting as an MSP and kind of
utilizing you know, Cisco as the ingredients to their own recipe,
(04:38):
right and kind of pushing that to the table. That
nice to have right in the background, has now you know,
been kind of married into this new partner program. They're
calling it Cisco three P sixty. And the good news
is that although they announced it really even last Partner Summit,
they said, hey, there's going to be some big changes coming,
and then this past partner some they announce all the
(05:01):
details to the change. The good news is that all
of that doesn't take place until February of twenty twenty six,
and within that time they're actually grandfathering and kind of giving,
you know, giving a pass on partners as far as
their partner level goes. So a Select partner is going
to continue to be a Select partner from now until
(05:22):
twenty you know, February first, twenty twenty six. A Premier partner,
a Gold partner, they don't have to kind of upkeep
the stuff in the background to be able to to
kind of be part of that grace period. This CX specialization,
the Customer Experience specialization, if you've achieved that, you do
not have to keep that up through the next year.
So that's going to be part of that grace period.
(05:42):
But something to understand is that every other specialization outside
of that, if it's being part of, you know, some
sort of back end rebate or or you know, just
you know, something that you want to have as bragging
rights on partner locator. All of those specializations do need
to be up kept to keep the specializations. So the
things that are being given a grace period or the
CX specialization as well as the partner level Right, Select, Premiere, Gold,
(06:08):
all of those partner levels are going to be given
a grace period through that twenty twenty six timeline.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Okay, so let's let's back up a little bit. So
this change, you know, we're talking about a fifteen month
lead up here and those those partner levels. So if
you're already we're at Gold, Premiere, Select, and so forth,
your grandfather didn't until the change.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Until the change, and then once the change is there,
it's it's done. So they gave a fifteen month kind
of you know, walk up to it because of the
big change that that really they're doing. Like I said,
it makes the big outline, biggest changed since since you know,
twenty years ago. Yeah, And what the change really is
(06:52):
is is moving from a more of a traditional leveled
approach of a Select partner, a Premiere partner, a Gold
partner into what they call something that utilizes what they
call a partner value index, which is basically a numerical
value from zero to ten that a partner can achieve
in different kind of architectures, right, security, collaboration, observability, enterprise networking, right,
(07:17):
and that number will kind of correspond to I mean,
you could kind of think of it like a level
of different features that are given to a partner. Right.
So from zero to one, if a partner has a
zero to one value, then they will be able to,
you know, be able to transact basically within Cisco. They'll
(07:37):
be able to kind of do some basic registered partner
type functionality if you're going from two point I'm sorry,
from from one to five, they'll have the ability to
register a deal, They'll be able to do some programmatic
pricing and promotions. They'll have access to things like d Cloud, again,
very similar to what a Select partner is nowadays. From
(07:59):
five to seven point five, it's going to be similar
to the Premier Partnership benefits where they'll be able to
do back end partner incentives, be able to do NFR
gear and then seven point five and above, whereas it
would be a Gold partner that would get you know,
another I think it's a one percent back on everything
from there, they're actually changing that up and they're not
only going to have these next generation specializations that are
(08:23):
going to be part of those kind of elite partners
they're actually calling them Cisco Preferred Partners, but they're actually
going to also give those folks ten annual licenses to
Cisco You and Cisco You. If you guys aren't familiar
with it is, think of it kind of like Netflix
for partner specializations I'm sorry, not partner specialist personal Certifications,
(08:45):
right ccnp CCIE. So having that Cisco U access is
an all access pass to be able to give you know,
ten people at your company the ability to go through
any of that coursework, to be able to achieve a
ccp CCIE, any of the little specializations all over the place.
But it's basically an all access pass for that now
(09:08):
at the time that we are recording this, obviously fifteen
months is a very long time. I almost guarantee that
they're going to be going through some changes within that space,
and I guarantee that they're going to get a lot
of feedback from their partners, including ones that are that
are probably listening to this podcast right now. So The
first thing that you can do as a partner is
(09:30):
and we'll probably put this in the in the note
section where you can click on a link to it,
but check out on Cisco site the Cisco three to
sixty page. And then in mid December they are going
to be allowing partners to get kind of a preview
access into what their PBI or their partner Value index
is for just the security space right now. Eventually the
(09:53):
timeline will be that they will announce the ability to
see the Networking Value Index in February. Observability is going
to come in April, and then a month before that
is going to be collaboration. Now, the good news is
that again you'll be able to see, you know, what
your your your partner of Value index is, but it's
not really going to mean anything, right, so it's going
(10:14):
to be a really nice kind of lead up to say, hey,
if this, if this were to basically drop today, what
would my partner value index be for security? And it'll
give you that and it kind of actually even gives
you some you know, some information here and there on
what you can do to kind of up your scores.
Best way I can kind of describe it is if
you've ever, according to like your you know, transon Union
(10:36):
or your Fighto credit score, if you've ever utilized something
like credit Karma where it kind of says, hey, your
score is seven fifty. It went up ten points last
month because you you know, you utilize this card less
or you paid off this value. Maybe it dropped twenty
points because it you know, you just bought that brand
new Porsche. The visibility is the important thing in there, right,
you know, in the sense of being able to say, okay, well,
(10:58):
you know now that I have this tool in PXP
to be able to visibly see my score, it'll make
it easier for partners to be able to kind of
make day to day changes on that. The other big
thing is that because it's part of PXP, Ingram Micro
will be able to utilize something called DPV or disty
Partner View to be able to have partners give us
(11:20):
read only access into their PXP tool, which then allows
us to actually see that PVI for them. So we're
actually we have tons of resources at Ingram to assist
with every single one of those metrics that are part
of that score, ones that are already in place already
and ones that can help you basically kind of you know,
(11:41):
walk through the next fifteen months and make sure that
you know, come February first, twenty twenty six, when this
thing all drops and when it launches, that you are
exactly where you want to be regarding that PVI index.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
So I want to come back to the PXP. But
I got a love with you. I can kind of
already feel the the stress of worrying about this score
because too, because it's it's it's not like you've got
I mean, it feels like you don't have this Oh
this is leisurely lead up to UH these changes. It's
(12:16):
you have a deadline that you need to get these
things done to get your score up. And if you've
you know, if you just haven't really been paying attention
to to all the ins and outs of your your
Cisco business and just kind of letting it run, your
score is probably not that great. And so you're you're
you know, stressing about one that score when it comes out,
and too, Yeah, you've got a hard deadline. Am I
(12:37):
am I far off in maybe empathizing with UH with
partners feeling.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
That No, no, in fact, actually we've we've gotten calls
all over the board from some of our registered partners,
our select partners, our gold partners even have called us
up and said, hey, you know, we need to you know,
we need to know more about this because this this
could massively affect our business. I can definitely tell you
that that after learning about it more definitely helps a
(13:04):
partner to understand it's not necessarily that scary, right, It's
not necessarily something that you really, you know, have to
concern and worry about, you know, every single day. Again,
the ability for Ingram to assist with that conversation for
us to be granted DPV access, and this is something
if you you know, if you want to know more
(13:25):
about that, you can definitely reach out to me or
your your Cisco SSE or you know, your sales rep
or anyone. But the ability for us to assist with
the right allows us to kind of be, you know again,
instead of that that credit karma that you're logging into
every single day wondering why your your your credit score
went down twenty points. Consider us being like like hiring
a financial advisor, right, so you actually have you know,
(13:48):
a real set of eyes going over that and working
with you on a day to day or a quarter
basis to basically say, hey, what's your PV I where
do you want to be? Right, Let's take a look
at all of those different in dex is in there,
and again Shelby, the great thing is is that it's visibility. Right.
Cisco has never given that much visibility. I recently decided
(14:09):
to try and be healthier in life right in my
forties and realized I wasn't where I wanted to be.
And I, you know, a big thing that really helped
me in my you know, in my ability to see
that was you know, things like like Apple health right
or or you know, my Fitness Pal right, because it
allows me to see where I am, allows me to
see my goals, and allows me to plan better on
(14:31):
how to achieve those goals. So I believe that that's
that that PXP And then with Ingram's help right with DPV,
a lot of partners I think are going to take
a big sigh of relief when they realized that, hey,
you know, we're probably where we want to be right now,
or at least we know what we need to do
to be able to be at that point. Come February first,
(14:53):
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay, and again I will come back to p XP,
but let's talk a little bit about Partner Value Index.
What are some of the things that will make up
that score.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yep, yeah, that's a great question. So there's actually four
different metrics that they're going to be putting out. One
of them is the foundational Metrics or metric metric, but
that is around really a partner's customer experience specialization. So
you're basically kind of given ten points if you have it,
zero if you don't. If you want more information on
(15:26):
what that CX specialization is, ingram Micro has their care
team which has been around for years helping partners to
achieve that specialization and work with them on those customer
success plans. The other big one, and we kind of
mentioned this again from a provider perspective, is the other
piece of that foundational metric is their MSP practice maturity. Right,
(15:48):
how much of your business is being flagged in CCW
as a managed service versus how much are you basically
just selling out to you to the end user. How
many switches are you managing right versus how many are
you just you know, selling to an end It's hard
to say what the you know, the algorithm is going
to be to how many points that's worth at this time. Again,
this is very very brand new, but at the same
(16:10):
time that is going to be that foundational right seex
specialization as well as practice the journey. The second one
is going to be around your capabilities. This is more
of a traditional sense of you know, having you know,
career certifications and black belt certified and black belt trained
personnel at your company, and you'll basically be given a
score on how many of those you have. The third one,
(16:31):
and this is where I think a lot of partners
are having some concerns, is around your performance. So this
is the first time we've actually seen you know, performance
value indexes being utilized for how a partner you know,
can kind of level up. But that's going to be
everything from total contract value, growth percentages, you know, stuff
that's very similar to There was a back end rebate
(16:53):
called perform plus that's still in play right now, but
those same type of metrics that would get you a
bad end rebate are kind of being utilized to say
what type of partner you are. The last one is
called engagement, and that is around your partner life cycle,
your arm sorry, your customer life cycle, and it's based
on an onboarding percentage as well as an adoption percentage
(17:15):
of you know, those customers that you have, you know,
partner lives are customer life cycle plans for So again,
the good news is that is that Ingram basically has
we have if I had to look at all these right,
foundational and engagement that's our care team, right, That's something
we've had in play for years, and you know the
resources are kind of already there to help with out
the capability piece around black Belt as well as career certifications.
(17:38):
That's my team, right, all of the technology enablement engineers
we have at Ingram. And then the performance side is
is our SEC team, right, so our sales executives through
our Cisco team that can really help you with those
numbers making sure that your growth percentages are where they are.
So we're excited again because we already have a foundation
to assist partners with this and it's not even out
(18:01):
for another year, right, So we're just going to be
just honing in on kind of what that program looks
like more and more from an Ingram sign so you'll
be able to get with us and be able to say, hey, look,
let's work on all four of those metrics to make
sure our PBI is exactly where we need to be
across all those architectures.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
So we're releasing this, we're recording this in early December.
We're getting this out just as soon as we can,
but probably just on the heels of this score coming out.
You said when was that score likely to come out?
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yep, So mid December is when the PVII is going
to be part of p XP, and it'll be under
the Practice Maturity tab and that's going to be coming
out again mid December, and that's just going to be
for security later on in starting in February, then they'll
basically put out the Networking one. March is going to
(18:51):
be the Collaboration one, and then observe Ability is coming
out in April. Again, knowing Cisco, those dates might change,
but at least at this point you can kind of
see all of those value indexes will be added into PXP,
but they're really not going to mean anything again until
February first or twenty twenty six, So it'll kind of
be a kind of a practice go right where a
partner can look at that and kind of, you know,
(19:13):
learn how to you know, move those numbers up and down,
but not really have it mean anything until you know,
the starting gun fires on February first, got it, So,
but just something to again realize and I know I've
probably said it two or three times just on this,
but a big realization is that come February first, right,
all of those partner programs change. There will be no
(19:34):
go backs at that point, So you know, it's plenty
of time. And again, if you have any questions, if
you want to, if you don't know what PXP is, right, definitely.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Reach it out to Yeah, let's go ahead and cover
that just really quick. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So PXP is Cisco's Partner Experience Platform tool, and this
is basically a single kind of one stop shop for
Cisco partners to go and view everything from a partner perspective,
as well as really cool tools when it comes to
sales opportunities. I mentioned some of kind of the AI
(20:07):
focused stuff where you know you can find those whitespace
opportunities or you know, hey, give me a list of
partners you know, or of customers that I've that I've
sold to that you know would be good leads to
talk to them about enterprise agreements, right, all of that
information is in that tool. It's not just for maybe
your vendor, business manager or someone who's focused on, you know,
(20:29):
what specialization should I get next. But we're having conversations,
like I said, almost on a daily basis with partners
on how to best utilize PXP. It's definitely daunting for
a lot of smaller partners that kind of like look
at it and go, oh wow, that's a lot of
I don't even know how to digest that. But again,
call us up right, we can demo it for you.
Usually takes about an hour. We usually have you share
(20:49):
your screen so you're actually going through your data, and
then we'll kind of walk through each of those tabs
with you together. There's even black belt courses if you
don't want to, you know, to do anything. If you
just like to, you know, sit on the couch with
a with an iPad and kind of go through it yourself.
You can go on black belt search p XP and
there is you know p XP one oh one type
(21:11):
training to basically kind of walk you through each of
those tabs there.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And these are different than certifications. Are these almost like
a precursor or prerequisite or a cheat sheet for the
certifications for PXP mean yes, pixy and the yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Just black belt, oh, black Belt in generally as a
it's a training platform that the Cisco has. So if
you're not familiar with black belt again reason number twenty
three to reach out to Ingram Again, we can kind
of go through this stuff for you in person, you know,
or on you know, kind of live rather than you know,
just throwing you a link in there. But yeah, black
(21:50):
belt is basically their their training platform. They've taken a
lot of that stuff in house. The good news about
black Belt is that it is updated much more frequently
than in the past, where you've had to go out
and you know, maybe go to a third party trainer
and train on some subject that you know. By the
time the trainer gets it and builds a class out
and all that stuff, guess what, you know, technology has
(22:11):
changed and all of a sudden, you know, all the
names and faces and technology has changed. So this allows
them to pivot much much quicker and update that content
on a more regular basis as well.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
All right, so we've covered a lot. If we were
to look at the big picture, then so okay, Cisco
Partner Summit, lots of big changes Cisco three sixty, this
move towards more of a metered program an emphasis on
managed services. Where does this all fall then, kind of
in the big picture of Cisco's progress in technology. I mean,
(22:47):
you know, it's the business has changed, the practice has changed,
and so I wonder if you can just give us
some insight where this lands in the big picture.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
And it's it's one of those things that is it
a you know, is it a symptom of something bigger,
or is it kind of them pivoting along the same side.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Cisco went through some big changes back in August, and
they announced some you know, some big heavy changes regarding
some of their more siloed type you know, architectures and
kind of putting them under the same leadership. For example,
security and enterprise networking are now under the same leadership.
But then that allows them to you know, focus on
kind of a single strategy moving forward rather than having
(23:28):
you know, kind of two siloed approaches to things. The
merging of a lot of this stuff together is really
you know, again, how technology is kind of moving forward,
So you know, these these changes kind of needed to happen, right,
It's it's one of those things that it's it's a
bit of a band aid ripping off for some you know,
some folks that have been very comfortable with the program
(23:49):
that it's that's been in place. But also it's it's
one of those things that you know, if you have
too many people that are at the top, then it
doesn't really make any sense. So, I mean, it's like,
a know, I used to travel a lot more for
my for my job. I was a Delta diamond, you
know at one point, and at one point they changed
the program completely, right, they kind of scrapped and they said, hey,
we're you know, we're gonna we're going to make it
(24:11):
a little harder for you to get diamond, right.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I was.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I was frustrated at that. However, I still remember that
it was I think it was Ed Bastion at the time,
he was the CEO of Delta came out with an
email that basically said, hey, we're doing all these changes right,
And I was upset until I read the last you know,
kind of his last little words of wisdom at the end,
and he said, you know, the issue is is that
if everybody is diamond, then no one is diamond. And
that really kind of got me because I was like,
(24:34):
it's a good point, Like if I'm you know, if
everyone's diamond and I'm also diamond, I'm still not going
to get the free upgrade, right, because then everybody else's right.
So I kind of figure this is the same kind
of thing from a Cisco perspective, where it's like, hey,
if we have too many people that are gold and
premiere and and and they're not you know, putting those
performance numbers out right, they're not considering that. They're just
(24:54):
going out and you know, farming those certifications and basically
just just you know, calling themselves gold and check in
the box. At the end of the day, if everybody's gold,
then nobody's gold, right, And that's an issue that makes sense.
I know that we talked about the you know, the
different types of partnerships in the last podcast that we
had around you know, the different integrator role in the
provider role. Again. That used to be kind of a
(25:16):
nice to have, right. It's not a nice to have anymore.
It's a need to have, right, It's a it's it's
the ability for you know, for partners to to say, hey,
I can't just I can't just be an e commerce business. Anymore. Right,
I can't just point sell switches and you know and
access points because I'm not going to be competitive. So
having that provide or function kind of built into this
(25:37):
whole thing, right, and allowing partners to you know, to say, hey,
look like we understand a vast majority of you have
your own MSP business, right, let's integrate that. Let's have
everyone kind of utilize Cisco as those ingredients for building
their own recipe and then moving into you know, into
kind of providing Cisco as a managed service or a
(25:57):
managed service that's powered by Cisco.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Got it? Got it? Well, So four listeners who have
specific questions about something that we talked about today or
just you know, need to say, hey, help me, help
me get started. How can they reach out?
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Yeah, I would say, just reach out to me. I'm
always available, you know, Robert dot Young at ingrammicro dot com.
But I can definitely be the point person if you
have a favorite person or at Ingram too. You know,
we tend to be a big company, but we're all
very very you know, friendly together. So call your sales
rep tell them, hey, I'm interested in you know, talking
to someone about my Cisco business. They can always get
(26:35):
some other resources on the line, but at the same times,
feel free to reach out to me directly and I'll
at least, you know, be able to act as that
operator and get you the right resource.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
In place, reach out to your friendly neighborhood. Right all right, then, well, Bobby,
I really appreciate it. That's been helpful, and I think
we'll definitely have more questions and sure, you know, developments
as the program change and evolves before that deadline. But
thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Today, Bean, glad to be here, all right, and.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Thank you listeners for tuning in and subscribing to B
to B Tech Talk with Ingram Micro. If you liked
this episode, please give us a thumbs up, and don't
forget that you can find all of these episodes on
the ingram micro Exvantage platform. Until next time, I'm Shelby Scarehawk.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
You've been listening to B to B tech Talk by
Ingram Micro. This episode was sponsored by Ingram micro Exvantage.
B to B Tech Talk is a joint production between
Sweetfish Media and Ingram Micro. To listen to this episode
and many others, visit ingrammicro dot com.
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