Cisco's channel exec on how its resellers have evolved

Wendy Bahr, Cisco's SVP of the Global Partner Organisation, on the networking giant's channel set-up

Describe your company in five words or fewer.

New networking era company

Tell us how your channel program works.

We are committed to being partner-led with over 300,000 people from our channel partners around the world selling Cisco offerings. Our partner initiatives and programs have changed since first being introduced in 1996, and we continue to evolve with market trends.

Our partner community has also evolved. To keep up with the pace of change, our partners are embracing new go-to-market strategies. They are now selling to IT and line of business and building vertical expertise. They're joining forces to build sophisticated technology solutions that go beyond point products to deliver business outcomes for customers. They're creating recurring revenue opportunities with software, services and customer lifecycle practices.

In essence, Cisco's partner ecosystem leverages the unique strengths and capabilities of different partner types, which includes resellers, system integrators (SIs), consultants, distributors, ISVs and developers, to name a few.

What do you think is the most challenging trend in the channel today?

To succeed in this new era of rapid technology innovation, partners must transform their business to meet the changing needs of our customers.

It comes down to three key points:

1). The way customers are purchasing technology is radically changing. It's no longer just about buying a point product, but rather about helping a customer address a business objective that requires the channel to be a bridge between the line of business and IT.

2). Delivering value that goes beyond the initial sale, across the entire lifecycle. The channel has a responsibility to help customers use technology so they're experiencing the full value it can provide. When this happens, we're in a much better position to expand our technology footprint and renew contracts.

3). With open architectures and APIs, the channel has an amazing opportunity to build services and recurring revenue streams, which not only increases their value to the customer, but creates a more strategic, lasting relationship.

If you had to give your channel partners one piece of advice, what would it be?

The way you were successful yesterday doesn't necessarily translate into how you will be successful today and especially in the future. Take a healthy look at your business, and make sure you are keeping pace with the continuous change. In addition, take full advantage of all the tools, resources and enablement that your vendors provide. This is a time unlike no other. You need to be equipped for success.

What are the three most important things partners need from vendors to be successful?

1). Innovative, dependable and secure technology

2). A clear go-to-market roadmap with a value exchange encompassing partner enablement, training and incentive programs that help them capture these new digital opportunities

3). A rich and diverse ecosystem of partners to work together on innovative customer solutions

What is your favorite conference location and why? Any host city that is fun, vibrant and easy for global partners to get to from around the world. I also look for a city that reflects and leverages technology innovation.

What IT trends do you see dying out in the next 18 months to two years?

A single cloud strategy is no longer the answer. It's all about a multi-cloud strategy. Customers need choice and expertise in determining which workloads are suitable for public, private, or hybrid.

Secondly, the Swiss-army knife approach to security will go away. Companies can use up to 50 different security vendors that are all struggling to work together. In today's world, the risks have become too real and too complex when it comes to security. It's imperative that companies have end-to-end security solutions that were designed to work together seamlessly while being simple, open and automated.

Lastly, the explosion of data and devices is starting to outpace customers' IT capabilities, and the network needs to be redefined. It needs to transition from a manual, time-sensitive, static approach to one that anticipates needs and understands intent. It is vital for companies to capture these advanced analytics from the network to address their business challenges and objectives.