Cisco's EMEAR boss: Rivals aren't 'channel friendly' taking half of sales direct

Milo Schacher says Cisco could do a better job of talking up its channel credentials

Cisco's EMEAR channel boss has said the vendor could do a better job of shouting about how channel friendly it is, taking a swipe at rivals who boast their channel credentials while taking a lot of business direct.

Milo Schacher, Cisco's EMEAR vice president for the partner business, told press and analysts at its Partner Summit in San Francisco that one partner recently told him the vendor's partner messaging could be improved.

"I saw so many of our partners at the Canalys event in Barcelona," he said, referencing last month's gathering. "One of the partners said to me ‘you guys don't make enough noise about really being a channel-friendly company'. What he said is ‘in Barcelona there are all of your competitors saying we are channel friendly because 50 per cent of our business goes through you'. He said to me that this isn't channel friendly having half of the business taken away direct.

"We've always done 95 per cent [in the channel] - in EMEAR we are 100 per cent - and he said we need to make a bigger story around that. And I think he is right. If someone sits up there and says 50 per cent is channel friendly - it's not."

Schacher was not explicit about which rivals he was referring to, but at the Canalys event he spoke about, Michael Dell reaffirmed his commitment to the channel, claiming about half of its EMEA business goes through partners. Dion Weisler, HP Inc's CEO, also took a swipe at Dell at Canalys, boasting that his firm does "all our business through the channel - not just 50 per cent".

"If someone sits up there and says 50 per cent is channel friendly - it's not."

He said that Cisco's partnering philosophy has been in place since 1996 and hasn't changed since.

"So it's 20 years this year and everything we did since then has had partners in mind," he said. "Even every acquisition - WebEx, Meraki - everything we acquired that could have gone direct potentially as well, but we always pulled the partners round. With Meraki we have a really good value proposition."

Elsewhere in the Q&A, Schacher said that he is happy with the vendor's current distributor line-up, despite big changes to the landscape thanks to M&A. Tech Data is undergoing plans to snap up Avnet's Technology Solutions business, Ingram is set to become part of Chinese firm HNA, and Exertis has purchased Hammer.

"I'm very happy with distribution channel," he said. "Do we want to add an additional global player? No. We are happy with the key players - Comstor, Ingram Micro, Tech Data. Avnet [Technology Solutions] is becoming part of Tech Data as we all know. Right now today there is no need for us to add anyone else."

He said the union of Tech Data and Avnet TS is "absolutely" good news.

"Right now the deal is not done but I think one plus one will equal three from my perspective," he said. "I'm happy with that combination."