Cisco Capital Partners: Keeping Up with the Changing Pace of Business

Co-authors:  Wendy Bahr, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partner Organization and Steve Taylor, Senior Director, Cisco Capital Global Partner Organization

At the last Cisco Partner Summit, our CEO Chuck Robbins said that business has “never been moving faster than it is now.” We think this statement couldn’t be a more accurate reflection of our current work with partners around the world.

Customers are demanding new ways to acquire and consume technology and this puts pressure on our partners’ capital strategy, cash flow management and other financial health indicators — all while profitably growing their businesses.

It’s a tough balance, but several of our partners have been able to accomplish this. Conscia, Compnet, and NSC, for example, prove that the balance isn’t just possible with Cisco Capital, but simple, too. We wanted to highlight how these partners are changing the way they sell solutions, align to customer requirements, strengthen client relationships and ensure financial stability even while moving at the light speed rate of today’s enterprise technology industry.

A Packaged Approach

Conscia, an organization that builds IT infrastructure and offers around-the-clock services for networks, data centers, security and mobility in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, understands the value of selling finance solutions integrated into technical solutions. This packaged approach ultimately leverages an integrated financial offer early in the quoting phase, which provides end customers with a simple, bundled solution and the ability to pay over a period of time.

Working together with Cisco Capital, Conscia has developed a solution where they focus on delivering the implementation and on-going services that support hardware and software acquisition. In fact, Cisco Capital is currently working with Conscia on several finance models helping them adjust to meet customer needs and drive the financial outcome that so many ask for. Conscia illustrates how packaged approaches to financial solutions can help simplify and consolidate previously complex processes.

Building Relationships

Irawan Purwono, President Director of PT. Nusantara Compnet Integrator (Compnet), an IT solutions provider in Indonesia, has been very concerned with the continual decline in the oil and gas sector and the uncertainty in the current global political and economic climate. “The weakening Indonesian currency also impacts our customers’ purchasing power. With intense competitions and shrinking budgets, we leverage on Cisco Capital’s financial solutions to change the conventional buying model of our resale business to managed services,” says Irawan.

With this approach, Compnet could avoid price competitions and instead offer premium, best-in-class Cisco products with Compnet’s value services. Ultimately, this partnership helped Compnet meet their customers’ business objectives and in line with their budgets through manageable monthly payments. By presenting the best possible solutions to customers, Compnet helps them transform faster than ever to keep pace with the changing landscape and digitization trends.

This shows how the partnership between Cisco Capital and Compnet has led to a win-win scenario where both the partner and customer mutually benefit from flexible financial solutions on Cisco technologies to achieve the best business outcomes. They were able to strengthen their client relationship and get an edge on the competition.

Simplify to Scale

NSC, a managed service provider based out of the U.K that leverages subscription-based payment, helps customers solve problems through simplified technology solutions. In order to execute these financial models, NSC utilizes Cisco Capital’s ability to manage cash outflows over extended periods in order to meet the demand and consumption-based models currently gaining popularity in today’s market.

As a global IT services organization, NSC uses Cisco Capital’s engagement to further strengthen their ability to drive non-traditional resale deal structures. By ensuring they can deliver managed services to their customer, both from a financial and IT perspective, this partnership allows NSC to actively seek out new growth opportunities across the business.

Financing for Growth

Like the examples from our partners Conscia, Compnet and NSC demonstrate, no matter what value proposition, organizational size, or market, Cisco Capital can help our partners transform quickly and effectively. Whether it’s packaged approaches to finance solutions as demonstrated by Conscia, Compnet’s exemplary relationship building, or similar to NSC’s simplified scaling, financial strategy continues to be a key driver of organizational agility and nimble scaling. While business continues to transform at an unprecedented rate, financing solutions will help you keep pace.