Celebrating Connections and Launching the New Cisco 360 Partner Program

What an incredible week we had in Los Angeles at Cisco Partner Summit 2024! It was fantastic to connect with so many partners and colleagues, sharing ideas and building relationships that drive our collective success.

Thank you to everyone who participated—whether in person or virtually. Your dedication brought us here, and your continued support will keep us moving forward on this exciting journey.

Forward as One was our theme this year, focused on how we deliver customer value together and how we connect and protect customers in the AI era. The resounding message throughout the week was that by leveraging the entire ecosystem, we are empowered to create exceptional customer experiences—together.

Chuck Robbins, our Chair and CEO, said it well: “We are at a major inflection point as our customers are feeling relentless pressure to deploy AI infrastructure. They need our expertise and technology more than ever, and strong partnerships are critical to their success.”

Introducing the New Cisco 360 Partner Program

At Partner Summit, we unveiled the new Cisco 360 Partner Program—one ecosystem, shared success. This program was built with input from over 1,000 hours of feedback from partners, customers, and industry analysts.

It builds on our rich hardware and networking legacy while evolving with today’s shift to software, subscriptions, and services. The program supports all types of partner models, focusing on what matters most—driving value through go-to-market strategies, building capabilities, and engaging deeply with customers. Its portfolio-based framework ensures partners grow with us as we innovate.

The Cisco 360 Partner Program reflects global impact, agility, and simplicity—and most importantly, it represents our commitment to working together and winning as one ecosystem.

What this means for you

Let me break it down into the three things that matter most:

Money. Time. And relationships.

For those of you who have built relationships with Cisco, your investment is protected. We will provide you with tools and resources to achieve predictable profitability, providing stability and long-term success.

You will also have plenty of time to transition. With 15 months to adjust—before the new program takes effect on February 1, 2026—you can move at your own pace with confidence.

Most importantly, this program is built with you at the center, aligning with your needs and supporting your growth for years to come.

A new way to measure partner value

The Cisco 360 Partner Program introduces the Partner Value Index, a new framework for measuring your contribution across four dimensions:

• Foundational: The maturity of your lifecycle or managed services practices.
• Capabilities: Your investment in technical and other skills.
• Performance: How you land, retain, and renew customer value.
• Engagement: How you connect with customers throughout their journey.

This approach ensures that your unique strengths—whether in Security, Networking, Collaboration, Cloud & AI, Services and Observability, and/or across multiple portfolios—are recognized and rewarded.

Amplifying your value to customers

We want to highlight the investments and capabilities that set you apart. That is why we are introducing two new designations: Cisco Partner and Cisco Preferred Partner; and will be sunsetting the existing Gold, Premier and Select levels.

These new designations reflect your strengths and commitment to excellence. We are also investing in them to ensure customers recognize their value—making it clear why they should choose you as their partner.

All partner anniversary dates for current roles, levels, and the Customer Experience Specializations will be extended to February 1, 2026. During the transition period, if you achieve a new role, level, or Customer Experience Specialization, your anniversary date will be set to February 1, 2026, regardless of when that credential is earned.

Next-gen Specializations and boosting benefits

The shift from traditional Architecture Specializations to Solution-based Specializations will continue as we transition to the Cisco 360 Partner Program. We will develop next gen Specializations that will allow you to differentiate your technical expertise either more deeply into one specific portfolio or across portfolios; going forward, these specializations will be available to our Cisco Preferred Partners.

Get started today

We have some exciting immediate steps available to you:

We are excited to announce the first AI focused specialization. The Cisco AI-Ready Infrastructure Solution Specialization was designed to meet demand for advanced Cisco AI infrastructure solutions, delivered by expert Cisco partners. This new specialization positions you to deliver business outcomes that matter most today.

For Managed Service Providers (MSPs), we have also added two new Cisco Powered Services Specializations:

• Secure Access / Security Service Edge (SSE)
• Industrial OT Security

These will help you meet growing market demand for security-focused managed services, while driving growth with differentiated solutions.

Finally, we encourage you to get trained in the latest Security & Observability solutions available in the current Cisco Partner Program and Splunk Partnerverse. To support your investments, we are excited to announce cross-program partner specializations. These specializations, available on November 20, 2024, will protect Splunk partners’ investments and allow Cisco partners to expand their expertise and reach more customers.

Evolving incentives

To enhance your profitability and competitiveness, we are boosting our range of benefits offered. You will benefit from a mix of upfront discounts and back-end rebates aligned to the value you bring to customers.

As we already announced at Partner Summit ‘23, our flagship rebates—VIP, Lifecycle Incentives,  and Cisco Services Partner Program (CSPP)—will roll into the new Cisco Partner Incentive, offering the same rewards with a more streamlined approach.

We have expanded the Customer Assessment Incentive to cover Networking and Collaboration, in addition to Security. These proactive assessments not only identify new opportunities but also increase customer loyalty and accelerate deal approvals.

The Perform Plus program now offers even more ways to earn, with increased payout levels and rewards for growth across architectures and midmarket customers.

Lifecycle Incentives also continues to evolve, adding new incentives for Enterprise Networking, Security, and Data Center, plus new Customer Experience use cases like Duo. We have simplified tracking with a new single-step view in Funds Manager, making it easier to predict earnings.

Looking ahead

Over the next 15 months, we will roll out the program in a phased approach starting with a focus on the Security portfolio and providing deeper insights into your organization’s value index. Then we will roll out additional indices for Collaboration, Networking, Cloud & AI, Services, and Observability —all accessible on Partner Experience Platform (PXP).

The Cisco 360 Partner Program reflects everything we have heard from you—your insights, challenges, and ambitions. We know that predictable growth fuels your ability to innovate, invest, and create meaningful outcomes for customers. And we are committed to your profitability, providing the tools and resources you need to unlock new opportunities.

Let’s connect

I look forward to connecting with many of you in the coming months through advisory boards, events, and one-on-one conversations. For more details, visit the new 360 Partner Program page to find a wealth of resources and registration links for upcoming webinars on the Cisco 360 Partner Program. You can also email askpartnerprogram@cisco.com with feedback and questions.

And, if you missed my breakout session BIS 05 at Partner Summit—or want to watch it again—check it out on November 12 when it goes live on the Partner Launch Experience platform.

Together, we will go beyond meeting customer expectations—we will exceed them!

Not sure we want to guarantee this profitability forecast, esp in writing?

Watch breakout session BIS 05 at Partner Summit on Partner Launch Experience

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