Level Up Your Cisco Partnership with Black Belt Academy

In a world where technology evolves at lightning speed, staying competitive means staying informed. For Cisco partners, success hinges on having the right tools, training, and insights to deliver exceptional value to customers. Enter Black Belt Academy—a game-changing enablement platform that goes beyond traditional training. Designed to empower your team and drive measurable growth, Black Belt Academy has become a cornerstone of partner success within the Cisco ecosystem. With an impressive community of over 7,500 unique partners and 53,000+ active learners annually, it’s adoption continues to soar—proving that knowledge truly is power.

The Black Belt Academy Value Proposition: Your Growth Engine

Black Belt Academy stands on three powerful pillars that drive partner success:

• Tailored, Growth-Focused Content: Say goodbye to one-size-fits-all training! Black Belt Academy delivers high-quality, role-specific content designed to empower your teams with the knowledge they need to confidently tackle customer opportunities and real-world projects. Targeted knowledge to drive real results.
• Quarterly Agile Updates: In a fast-moving technology landscape, staying relevant is key. With quarterly updates, Black Belt Academy ensures partners are always updated with the latest insights, aligning with Cisco’s Go-to-Market (GTM) and Global Partner Engineering (GPE) priorities to stay ahead in the ever-evolving technology landscape.
• Free and Accessible for All: Democratizing access to excellence. Black Belt Academy is free for all partners, regardless of size or location, ensuring equal opportunity for growth and success across the board.

Black Belt Academy and the Cisco 360 Partner Program: A Strategic Alignment

The Black Belt Academy is an integral part of Cisco’s integrated partner enablement strategy and tightly aligned with the Cisco 360 Partner Program. It complements other enablement offers like Cisco Career Certifications and Cisco Xpert, helping partners enhance their Partner Value Index (PVI) score and unlock greater opportunities within the Cisco ecosystem. Its content is strategically aligned with Cisco 360 focus areas—Cloud & AI, Networking, Collaboration, Security, and Services—ensuring relevance to business priorities and key technology domains. Together, they create a holistic, results-driven ecosystem that make Black Belt Academy a dynamic enabler of partner excellence.

Addressing Your Concerns: Transparency and Continuous Improvement 

We understand that you may have questions or concerns about the Black Belt Academy. Here are some common issues and how we’re addressing them, using the exact responses provided:

• Training and Certifications: Cisco offers partners a wealth of information for them to understand Cisco’s technology and prepare themselves to offer world class solutions to their customers. Cisco 360 Partner Program honors partners investments in both Cisco Career Certifications as well as the Black Belt Academy for partners. These programs are complementary in nature as Cisco Career Certifications focus on deep technical skills while Black Belt Academy focuses on accelerating partners ‘growth opportunities.
• Training Platform and Exam Experience: Black Belt Academy recommends partners check the available course material before retaking the quiz/assessment. Incorrect answers will not be disclosed at the end of each attempt. Cisco continues to work to provide the best training platform for partners, providing bug fixes and adding functionality on a continuous basis.
• Data and Calculation Transparency: Cisco 360 Partner Program, PXP and Black Belt Academy are working together to provide clear metrics and calculations pertaining to each PVI. The Cisco 360 FAQs today have a complete list of all Black Belt Academy trainings eligible per portfolio. Our vision is to provide an automated and simple way to identify eligible trainings in both the learning platform as well as in PXP for easier consumption and analysis.
• Localization and Support: Cisco is building a world class translation platform to provide partners localized training content within Black Belt as part of the Cisco 360 Partner Program. This will be available in 1HFY26.
• Outcomes-Based Sales Training: As the content continuous to evolve with High Quality in mind, the Sales role training will evolve to a more outcomes-based sales training where sales representatives can better articulate value proposition, handle objections and prospect opportunities. Sales role will see improvements starting Q4FY25 and will continue unto 1HFY26.

The Black Belt Academy is your partner in success within the Cisco ecosystem. At the heart of the partner enablement, the Black Belt Academy stands as your ultimate source in driving growth and achieving excellence. With tailored, role-specific content, continuous updates to keep you ahead of the curve, and directly addressing your concerns, we’re here to empower you every step of the way. Don’t just keep up—lead the way. Unlock the power of the Black Belt Academy and accelerate your growth today!

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