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Cisco announces significant enhancements to Cloud Partner program

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DQI Bureau
New Update

Cisco is holding its annual partner summit in Boston bringing together senior executives and premier partners in business and technology to celebrate the relationship and chart the course for future growth.

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One of the key announcements was around the cloud partner program, the first phase of which was introduced two years ago to enable partners capture cloud computing opportunities along with Cisco as cloud builders, cloud providers, and cloud services resellers. Since then, Cisco's partner community has embraced the cloud opportunity, introducing clouds for themselves and/or their customers as evidenced by the nearly 1,700 cloud and data center partners.

Cisco's cloud strategy tightly focuses on 'enablement', ie, as a cloud enabler, Cisco aims to help customers build, deploy, and consume cloud services while at the same time stimulating demand for partners' Cisco powered cloud and managed services. Apart from stimulating demand, Cisco also works closely with partners to help build their business initiatives as well as align strategic partnerships with ecosystem players to take advantage of market opportunities.

The new initiative, the Cisco Cloud Services Reseller model provides several updates to the cloud partner program, introducing a variety of benefits to partners in terms of both greenfield opportunities as well as different routes to market via qualified reseller partners, in addition to help with capital to set up/offer their own cloud business.

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The program is available starting August 2013 across all markets and is open to Cisco registered partners with a valid Cisco Cloud Services Provider contract and an individual on staff to manage the relationship with that Provider. Benefits of the Cloud Services Reseller program include:

·Existing Cisco partners that become Cloud Services Resellers will receive a Value Incentive Program (VIP) rebate on sales of Cisco Powered Cloud Services.

·Cisco's own sales force will be compensated to sell a Cisco Powered Cloud Service sold through a Cloud Services Reseller.

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·Cisco Cloud Services Resellers have access to the Cisco-Powered branding and logo as part of their marketing campaigns when they are partnered with qualified Cisco Cloud Providers, providing a strong technology platform brand for marketing their services.

·Cisco partners will have access to an enhanced Cisco Rewards Program that includes a catalog consisting of individual rewards and Cisco go-to-market assets that individuals within our Cloud Resellers partners, who have earned Reward points from cloud services sales, can redeem points for a variety of rewards, including Cisco Learning Credits.

·A Cloud GTM Resource Center which provides an online self-service portal for Cisco partners, including Cloud Resellers, to gain access to all of Cisco partners' go-to-market tools and assets. Included in those assets is a new virtual Cloud Connections capability which allows Cloud Resellers to see and understand Cloud Providers' services in market today, compare various resale options, and to develop a short list of Cloud Providers to talk to.

In addition, Cisco also introduced the new Cisco Cloud Business Transformation Playbook, which provides comprehensive guidelines to help enable partners start a cloud business on their own, including guidance on key business functions such as business-model building, marketing, sales, operations and services, complemented with the Business Transformation Workshop - a consultative, in-person or webinar-based workshop to support development of an action plan for partners shifting toward cloud.

Cisco also made available a Video-on-Demand (VoD) series on Partner Business Transformation designed to augment the playbook and workshop content using seven training modules.

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