Collaboration Just Got Simpler and More Flexible

Cloud technology is changing the market landscape, and Cisco is committed to delivering our collaboration portfolio from the cloud. This is a pivotal year to take our customers there. Today’s announcements position you to win in this new market.

But why is this the year? Well, because the Cisco Spark platform is ready, our go-to-market is ready, and customers are investing in collaboration now. It’s time for us to start cashing in.

With innovations and offers across the portfolio, we’re making it easier to sell collaboration to customers of all sizes – and more profitable for you. Plus, we are building more and more flexibility into everything so customers can choose the infrastructure that’s right for them, while gaining better and better experiences. Let’s take a closer look.

Endpoints that are faster to deploy, with a path to Cisco Spark.

You’ve had great success with the Business Edition (BE) IP telephony platform, adding more than a million new users every year. But you said it needed to be easier to install. So we added cloud management which means you can install the BE6000 in 60 percent less time.

You also said Software Support Services (SWSS) were too high, so we’ve reduced SWSS costs by up to 78 percent on BE6000 SWSS starter bundles, making it more competitive to get smaller customers into this next-generation collaboration solution and put them on the path to cloud.

Speaking of going down market, we’ve introduced a brand new Business Edition product for small businesses: the BE4000. Cloud-managed, it’s fast to deploy and priced to disrupt. This is the right solution for you to expand into the $800 million worldwide Unified Communications market for small business.

In addition, you can encourage your BE4000 customers to try the free Cisco Spark messaging, giving them a taste of the power of Cisco Spark and opening their eyes to the potential benefits of a broader cloud or hybrid solution for their business.

Learn more about these exciting Business Edition changes.

New opportunities to host and profit.

For customers who want to keep a foot in both worlds, now you can offer to host an incredible meeting experience for them in the cloud, while leaving voice and video local to their network. Today we announced something that is completely revolutionary and completely unique to Cisco – Spark Hybrid Media Services. You can set it up in 10 minutes, and it’s free for existing Spark meeting customers.

A way to differentiate that leads to brand new business.

Many of you are already investing in software development, and many of you have even contributed to our new catalog of 110 integrations and bots called Cisco Spark Depot. It’s the latest addition to our Spark for Developers strategy. When you create Spark experiences for your customers based on the software applications they use every day, your customers are more productive and more loyal to you and Cisco Spark. Microsoft has nothing like it.

A radically simpler way to sell.

We don’t expect your customers to migrate to cloud instantly, and they no longer have to decide on the spot. Now with Cisco Spark Flex Plan, you can sell them a single contract that gives them the choice to move between Cisco on-premises and cloud-based collaboration whenever they want. If you’re a Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS) partner, we’ve got you covered. Starting early 2017, you can offer your customers premises, cloud, or hosted cloud calling all through this single subscription.

I am confident we are going to capture this new digital market together. In exchange, you’ll reap the rewards of more breadth, differentiation, and sustainability for your practice – and an escalating book of revenue.

Go Full Speed by taking these steps.

Get yourself ready: Develop your adoption services practice and benefit from becoming a Lifecycle Advisor partner

Get your customers ready: Modernize your customers’ endpoints – Sell the new and improved Business Edition portfolio and DX line

Lead your collaboration sales with Spark: Get certified on Cisco Spark, embrace Cisco Spark internally, and take the first step by getting one new customer to adopt Cisco Spark