Name: Dominic Pierce
Role: Managing Director UK&I Partner Organisation, Cisco
Walk-on song: Dry the Rain (The Beta Band)
How would you summarise Cisco's channel philosophy?
As a channel led business, our priority is to put partners first. They are top of mind in our decisions and strategies and our philosophy is to evolve our channel approach as our partners' needs evolve to ensure we have a thriving partner ecosystem.
Tell us about Cisco's partner programme in 100 words or fewer…
Our partner programme is focused on enabling our partners to build and maintain a sustainable, profitable businesses. This means that we strive to build lasting strategic relationships with our partners, enabling them to continuously add value to their customers.
How many partners do you work with in the UK?
We are working with roughly 2,000 partners across the UK and Ireland.
Are you looking either to expand or reduce that? If so, what partner profile does this apply to?
Our focus is on identifying the right partners whose values and focus areas are aligned to our strategic business priorities, so we don't have specific targets in terms of number of channel partners across the UK and Ireland.
Cisco is a channel-first business. More than 90 per cent of our global business goes through the channel, which is reflective of the UK & Ireland market
Have you made any major changes to your partner programme recently, or are you about to?
We have been working over the past couple of years towards streamlining our partner programme to help partners provide more value to customers and to better tailor our approach to the different players in the channel ecosystem. In the next few years, we are likely to see a continuous focus on lifecycle selling to ensure the solutions and services we provide as part of the partner programme continue to help our partners deliver the outcomes their customers want.
Describe your perfect partner?
The perfect partner for us is the one offering a choice to their customers and continuously driving innovation.
In which areas would you most like to see your partners invest over the next 12 months?
We believe our partners will benefit from continuous investment in customer success and establishing strong lifecycle selling practices and we are happy to support them on this journey.
How do you see vendor channel programmes and channel engagement models evolving over the next few years?
In the last couple of years our partners have become more critical to the business success of their customers than ever before, so we expect to see more partners focusing on the long-term strategic relationship with their customers, rather than transactional engagement. We are proud to be seen as a loyal vendor that our customers and partners trust, and we will continue to focus on helping them to deliver profitable and sustainable businesses over the long term.
What are your priorities for the next 12 months?
I'm still early in my role in the channel, so a large part of the next few months will involve listening. That said, I already see amazing work in our channel that I want to help accelerate, and opportunity to expand our partnerships in new and emerging areas that matter to our customers, such as sustainability, IoT, cloud, and cyber security.
Do you feel Cisco is doing enough to cater for non-resale partners, including those that sell technology as a managed service, ISVs, or agents?
We see huge opportunities in managed services, and we'll continue to invest in creating incentives for them within our channel programme.
Is direct-channel conflict ever an issue in your partner ecosystem, and if so, how do you mitigate that?
Cisco is a channel-first business. More than 90 per cent of our global business goes through the channel, which is reflective of the UK & Ireland market. From our experience, when there is transparency and mutual trust, conflicts come less often and can be easily avoided. We'll always aim to do the right thing for our customers, so on the rare occasion that we do serve customers directly, it is based on their specific needs.
Name one trait you prize highly in partners, and one you deplore?
Innovation is the trait I value the most in a partner. It's rewarding to work with partners who are driving innovation to continuously add value for their customers. I don't have a particular trait that I deplore.
How do you feel Cisco's margin proposition stacks up against your peers?
Our partners choose us because we enable them to run a sustainable and profitable business, and this makes us confident that our value proposition is very competitive.
What's the most challenging aspect of being a channel leader?
I started in this role very recently, so the most challenging aspect has been seeing the amazing work that our channel partners are doing and realising that it does not always get the visibility it should. This is one of my key priorities in my new role - to make these achievements more visible within our organisation and better understood more broadly in the market.
I appeared on the 1980s soap opera Crossroads
Tell us something about yourself most people won't know
I appeared on the 1980s soap opera Crossroads.
What would be your walk-on song, and why?
It will be ‘Dry the Rain' by The Beta Band because I think it's a great song.
