Cisco: at your service
CRN talks exclusively to the vendor's European channel boss about his plans for partners this year
Thierry Drilhon: Cisco is moving from being a networking company to an IT company, and working together is going to be even more critical
Cisco’s recent Worldwide Partner Summit saw the vendor unveil several initiatives designed to help partners accelerate out of the downturn.
Chief among them was Cisco’s first services-centred specialisation, allowing partners to work with Cisco, providing services to high-end customers across 500 carefully selected “transformational accounts” worldwide.
At the event, Thierry Drilhon, Cisco’s vice president of worldwide channels for European markets, detailed his ambitions and priorities for the European channel over the coming year.
CRN: What are your priorities for Cisco’s European partners this year?
Thierry Drilhon: First, it is about existing partnerships and how we reinforce them. Partners really want to build their own services capabilities. If you look at the long term, [the market is moving to] everything-as-a-service. There are a lot of different components where our partners need to adapt to a new business model.
CRN: How important will financing be for the channel this year?
TD: It is really about driving the change and shift that is happening from capex to opex, and finance is a differentiator. It is a weapon, a way to increase the top and bottom line for our partners. Partnerships should be about consistency and being easy to partner with; we are crossing a stormy period, and this is where we need to put in a lot of effort. Financing is critical.
CRN: Will you be recruiting new partners?
TD: Looking at the transition to the datacentre, we do need some new partnerships. SME is also a market where you need coverage, coverage, coverage, coverage and we will recruit new partners. We are also looking to develop our partnerships with consultants such as Accenture and Capgemini.
My last priority is services partnerships: outsourcing, managed services, cloud-based services. This is where we want to offer customers a different way to consume IT. We will be expanding and looking for our partners to collaborate with each other. I do not believe one channel can do everything.
CRN: How key will video become this year?
TD: We will be a key player in this area and are very excited about the acquisition of Tandberg. It complements our strategy in a fantastic manner. We just announced a full integration between Tandberg and Cisco; it is one team, one organisation and the chief executive of Tandberg [Fredrik Halvorsen] will lead the video business unit.
CRN: What work is required to bring the two channels together?
TD: Over the next six to nine months we will work at adapting our channel programme to have one video specialisation, one video programme and one product line. For the moment, Cisco partners will remain Cisco, and if I have a customer implementing the video solution, our teams will decide whether Cisco or Tandberg fits best, and they will be compensated on both.
CRN: What is the importance of the transformational accounts?
TD: Our go-to-market is customer-led for large accounts where customers want to get the best from their architecture. From an innovation and a speed perspective, we need to have the best services positioning involving Cisco and our partners.
CRN: What was the impetus behind introducing the services specialisation?
TD: We want to make sure we have the best capabilities from a partner perspective to make it happen, to make sure the architecture will be well deployed, and that the network is part of the core strategy. We will need partners that have strong infrastructure capabilities and highly skilled people.
We are already working with some learning partners, such as Global Knowledge, and we are training the salesforce to be fully ready to ensure we will be able to deliver.
CRN: What key message should partners take away from this event?
TD: Most important is Cisco’s commitment to partners. It has never been so strong and I feel optimistic about the future. Cisco is moving from being a networking company to an IT company, and working together is going to be even more critical.