Cisco's global channel boss 'very firm' on grey market

Wendy Bahr says she is committed to ensuring only authorised Cisco resellers sell its products

Cisco's senior vice president for the global channel Wendy Bahr has claimed she is very serious about the problem of unauthorised channel sales of Cisco gear.

Last May three British men were arrested on suspicion of running a counterfeit business trading in Cisco products. Then in November CRN revealed that Cisco had reached an infringement dispute with UK broker K2 IT Ltd over unauthorised trading activities with Cisco products taken from outside the European Economic Area (EEA).

Bahr told CRN that unauthorised selling is an issue she takes very seriously.

"The first action I undertook as the leader of the partner organisation was to insist that our products are only sold through authorised Cisco resellers," she said. "And I'm very serious on that because I am very protective of my partners who have made the right investments and decided to become registered authorised Cisco resellers.

"I am working very closely with our governance and audit committees to ensure that is complied with because I believe I am protecting those partners who have the best interests of our customers and Cisco in mind. I think I should reward them by insisting that you must be a registered partner of Cisco to sell our equipment. I am very firm on this issue.

"I want to be clear: if you want to carry a world-recognised brand like Cisco, you need to be a registered authorised Cisco reseller," she added.

Bahr's comments follow similar sentiments from Cisco's UK boss Phil Smith, who said in 2014 that grey and counterfeit kit is "high on [his] radar".