What are partners saying about the new-look Cisco?

Are partners encouraged by the big changes coming to Cisco next year? Josh Budd, content editor of CRN sister publication Channelnomics Europe, finds out

Spirits were undoubtedly already high in the Cisco camp ahead of its Partner Summit 2018 in Las Vegas.

It's because, this year, there's been a growing consensus that Cisco's arduous shift to remain relevant in a changing market is finally paying off.

The networking vendor had suffered eight long quarters of decline as it shifts more sales to a recurring revenue model. But this year Cisco finally returned to growth, as its Q2 results to 27 January 2018 delivered a three per cent sales increase to $11.9bn. Q3 saw a repeat performance, while Q4 became Cisco's best-ever quarter.

So Cisco's senior management - which is almost entirely decked with new faces compared to last year - could only be brimming with positive energy ahead of greeting its thousands of partner delegates at Mandalay Bay Convention Centre this week.

Let's quickly run through the new faces in Cisco's executive and senior management teams.

Firstly, you have Salesforce veteran of almost nine years, Maria Martinez, in charge of driving Cisco's customer experience strategy across the business; a crucial new development which took centre stage throughout the conference.

Then there's Amy Chang, who's now running Cisco's Collaboration business. She has been a board member of Cisco for some time, and previously sat on the boards for Splunk and Informatica.

Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur Gerri Elliott joined Cisco just eight months ago, and has already completely restructured Cisco's sales and marketing units into one team.

Lastly, there's Cisco's new, affable channel boss Oliver Tuszik. The ex-Computacenter Germany CEO of almost 10 years moved into the partner role less than two months ago.

All four senior Cisco execs were appointed mere months ago. With the noticeable absence of CEO Chuck Robbins, who was preoccupied with prepping for its Q1 results, Cisco's new hires had to step up and become the face of Cisco's Partner Summit 2018 in their leader's place.

Talking with partners, it was clear that the new management team was eager to build bridges with the delegates in attendance.

"Look at my agenda, it's jam-packed," said CEO of NOK 32.4bn (€3.38bn) systems integrator Atea, Steinar Sønsteby, as he held up a well-used piece of paper covered in scribbled annotations and notes.

"It's been back-to-back. There are a lot of new people now; sales, marketing and channel. Gerri is new and there are some new people like Oliver from Germany and so on. So it has been interesting to listen to their thoughts and try to align our business to what they're saying," he said.

"But I feel very assured. Cisco will continue to be a very good thing for us."

And for BT's general manager of IT and managed services, Richard Oliver, who's attending Cisco Partner Summit for his fourth time, the event has taken on a new energy from previous years.

"There's a huge change in the leadership of Cisco. I think there's a very clear message around how Cisco is moving to a customer experience-led organisation," he said.

"We've definitely had great access to all of the Cisco execs, which is probably one the key things for us. And meetings have gone on for up to an hour this year, whereas in the past it has felt a bit like speed dating."

Out of the partners I spoke to, especially those based in Europe, many were full of praise for new channel boss Oliver Tuszik.

One executive from a Cisco partner based in Germany said: "It would have been a dream for me to have someone like Oliver when I previously worked at a vendor."

"It's great to have a European in charge. Also, he's spent more of his career working for a partner than for a vendor. That's good for us."

Sønsteby echoed the advantages of having someone with European partner experience in Cisco's hot seat, but issued a word of advice for the newly installed channel chief:

"I think Oliver is a good guy no matter where he comes from. My only advice to him is that - even though he comes from the channel from years back - he still needs to listen," he said.

"Sometimes when I talk to people, they say I'm ‘the channel'. I am not the channel, I am running Atea. I am a big company, and we're not completely the same as everyone and that is the same with Computacenter, Dimension Data and all these big partners of Cisco. I would rather you talk to us like a partner than as one of ‘the channel'."

Cisco's messaging to partners over the last week has been clear and consistent: Cisco's primary go to market will remain the channel, it will support partners with their day-to-day business, while also transforming them as part of its software and subscription-oriented future.

Justin Harling, CEO of UK-based partner CAE Technology Services, told Channelnomics Europe that, this year, Cisco has got its messaging right.

"The messaging has been a lot more sophisticated than previous years," he said. "There's been no mention of the usual Ubers and AirBnBs that you normally hear."

"I've been really impressed with everything I've heard this week. Cisco is a huge part of our business, so it's really important we get our partnership right."

Something that set its messaging apart from other vendor partner conferences was Cisco's awareness that partners are running day-to-day businesses, so "transforming" to fit Cisco's image is easier said than done.

Aside from the introduction of new customer experience certification next year, and small tweaks to its VIP and CSSP programmes around "activation bonuses" and new annuity-based models, very little has changed for Cisco partners. Changes are coming, but partners have a whole year to test the waters.

Tuszik hit this point home in his keynote, arguing that partners' ability to transform for the future depends on their profitability today.

In a one-on-one interview, I asked Tuszik why he felt including this message in his keynote was so important.

"I think mainly because I have been a partner," he said

"I have the feeling that we're sometimes creating the impression that we're only expecting partners to look at all the cool new stuff and complex things that will come in the future. Therefore I made the point that every sales person at Cisco has pressure on the daily, weekly numbers; they're all looking at it. So we need to be very clear and specific that today's performance is paying on our future transformation."

Tuszik's message was not lost on the Cisco partners in attendance.

"Cisco laid out a position: the why, the value and was open to have us be part of this," said Oliver from BT.

"This week has not been about selling. It was about saying ‘this is what we're doing, we think it's going to be good collectively, here are the proof points - let's do it carefully'. That's what I took away."

"I took away that there's a very clear understanding of where Cisco wants to go, and they're very transparent that all the answers aren't there, but clear that partners are going to be part of that journey."

Chuck Robbins concluded Cisco's conference with a note of humility. He stressed that Cisco doesn't have all of the answers and it may make mistakes along the way. But one thing was crystal clear: big change at Cisco is only just beginning.