Rodney Hamill (Cisco)
Cisco has launched a new set of partner discounts aimed at boosting its footprint in the Asia Pacific and Japan small-to-medium-sized business market.
Known as Partner Deal Express, it offers upfront discounts on a targeted set of portfolios selling to SMBs.
The discounts are calculated based on historical pricing and analysis for each individual APJ market and apply to net price deals of US$50,000 in enterprise networking and Meraki solutions, and US$25,000 for security and collaboration.
The discounts will be available twice per quarter for partners in what is a first for Cisco.
Rodney Hamill, managing director of partner and routes to market sales across A/NZ at Cisco, said the vendor was aiming to “hit the sweet spot” with its SMB customers.
“It’s about offering partner profitability and an improved customer experience at the same time,” he told a press briefing at Cisco Live.
According to the networking giant, Partner Deal Express will allow faster transactions by partners without seeing additional deal approval. Previously partners experienced delays while waiting for smaller deals to be approved, in contrast to large enterprise-wide projects.
Cisco also claimed it will improve customer experience through the best pricing and promotion by Cisco partners.
Finally, the vendor said it will increase partner profitability by having predictable pricing that allows them to close small deals faster.
Partner Deal Express will apply to five portfolios: Cisco Meraki; its collaboration solution Webex; its multi-authentication solution Duo; its cloud security offering Cisco Umbrella; and Cisco’s on-premises portfolio, covering its Catalyst, Business and Firepower series.
According to IDC, SMBs now account for 98 per cent of APJ businesses and 50 per cent of the workforce. Meanwhile, for Cisco, SMBs represent its fastest-growing market.
“With technology growing at a fast pace, SMBs need our partners’ expertise to ensure they deploy the right technologies to transform the right areas and harness the potential of digitalisation,” said Michiko Kamata, managing director of Cisco SMB in APJ.
“The Partner Deal Express program is an initiative that enables and empowers our partners to help SMBs by proving simplified visibility, management and control.”
This year, Cisco also introduced six new partner solution specialisations aligned to “fast-growing market opportunities”, expanding capabilities via the channel to meet evolving customer demands. It has also expanded security portfolio capabilities to provide additional layers of value to partners, enhancing offerings linked to zero trust, networking and data protection.
Eleanor Dickinson attended Cisco Live in Melbourne as a guest of Cisco.
