Cisco reveals 'biggest change to partner incentives in a decade' for hardware, software, and as-a-service sales

The vendor is adding up to six new solution specialisations within the next nine months

Cisco has made its biggest shakeup in ten years with the significant evolution of its flagship incentives to reward partners for selling Cisco hardware, software and as-a-service solutions.

Announced today at the Cisco Partner Summit 2023 in Miami Beach, US, the networking vendor is adding up to six new solution specialisations within the next nine months.

"The Cisco Partner Incentive is the biggest change we've made to partner incentives in more than a decade and is the capstone on the Cisco partner programme evolution started in 2020," said Marc Surplus, VP of partner strategy and programs at Cisco.

"In broadening Cisco's suite of solution specialisations, we are helping our partners differentiate in the market and demonstrate their expertise in the technologies and solutions sought by customers."

The apparently historic shakeup aligns with Cisco's transition to more software and services-based offerings and will reward partners with rebates to drive predictable and profitable growth.

The incentive will specifically support new logo acquisition, up-sell, and cross-sell opportunities.

The Cisco Partner Incentive is expected to begin in the second half of 2024.

Intentionally partner-led, the San Jose, California-HQ firm said managed services represent a total addressable market of $161bn (£131.2bn) for Cisco products ($357bn with partner services included), with 46 per cent of the company's sales expected to be sold as a managed service by 2027.

To enable MSPs to deliver a premium support experience, Cisco has also introduced Partner Advanced Support for MSPs with the added benefit of guided access to API integrations that build on MSPs' existing services.

The new incentive will cover non-recurring offers, recurring offers and customer value.

Partners will earn rebates based on the total contract value of a closed sale, completion of activities to drive customer adoption of the solution, and incremental annual contract value as they increase subscriptions.

Cisco's new sustainability estimator

The tech giant also introduced several enhancements to the partner experience platform (PXP), including the introduction of a sustainability sstimator.

Exclusively available to environmental sustainability specialised partners and launching on November 20, 2023, the sustainability estimator will provide partners insight into the estimated energy savings, emissions reduction, cost reduction and environmental impact that a customer may realise by modernising their IT hardware.