Our executive chairman, John Chambers, would always emphasize “when we partner, we partner for life.” That simple philosophy is foundational to the Cisco Partner Ecosystem. Cisco was one of the first technology companies to build a channel strategy and, decades later, partnering is still at the heart of our DNA. It’s who we are and what we do. It’s our past and our future. That’s why I am pleased to share the news that Cisco has emerged the winner in four of six product categories of CRN’s 2017 Annual Report Card (ARC) awards program.
- Collaboration [Swept Category]
- Converged/Hyperconverged [Overall, Support, and Partnership Winner]
- Enterprise Wireless LANs [Swept Category]
- Enterprise Networking Infrastructure [Swept Category]
The Annual Report Card summarizes results from a comprehensive survey that details solution provider satisfaction across product innovation, support and partnership for the hardware, services and software vendors they partner with. The vendors with the highest ratings are named to the prestigious Annual Report Card list of winners and celebrated as best-in-class by their partners.
In three of four product areas, Cisco swept the category, meaning we received the highest marks in each of the three criteria used to determine the category winner: partnership, product innovation, and support. Cisco not only took the overall category, but also won all three subcategories. We narrowly missed sweeping the Converged/Hyperconverged category as well.
This year’s group of honorees was selected from the results of an in-depth, invitation-only survey by The Channel Company’s research team. More than 3,200 solution providers were asked to evaluate their satisfaction with more than 60 vendor partners in 22 major product categories.
On behalf of the entire go to market, partner program and product solution teams, we are excited about these awards and what they represent: an acknowledgement that Cisco is continuing to meet and exceed partners’ business needs and providing superior support, innovation and partnership. Our partners work hard to achieve success in their businesses. And the Cisco team continuously strives to listen to their feedback, create programs, and deliver technologies that enable our partners to be successful. By having solution providers like you share your opinions about our products, programs and performance, we can use this valuable feedback to help shape our channel strategy, refine product offerings, enhance support offerings and improve our mutual value exchange.
As Cisco continues to innovate and transform with speed to help solve our customers’ business challenges – and help drive your profitability – it’s important we understand how we can better serve our partners and your business objectives. Thanks to all our partners who continue to recognize Cisco for our solutions, training, tools, and support we provide to help you rise above the competition.
The 2017 Annual Report Card results can be viewed online at www.crn.com/arc
Thanks for sharing. It is interesting to know about Cisco’s unique channel strategy.
No doubt, Cisco is always a winner.