Dare to be Bold in Collaboration

Last month we had the most successful Collaboration Summit conference ever, with partners, analysts, consultants, customers and Cisco executives coming together to explore how new collaboration solutions are helping companies become more empowered, engaged and innovative.

My mantra throughout the event was dare to be bold. Just as Cisco is launching a new wave of innovation, I am challenging you, our Cisco partners, to be bold in collaboration around 4 key imperatives:

• Transform your sales
• Extend the workspace in new ways
• Accelerate your cloud business
• Redefine the services you offer

If you didn’t attend Collaboration Summit, you can still learn from the content that was shared and presentations that were delivered at the event. Visit the Collaboration Partner Launch website, where you can download event presentations and watch replays of several sessions, including the opening keynote by Rowan Trollope, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cisco Collaboration Technology Group. Throughout Collaboration Summit, we discussed many ways that partners can start making bold moves in your business to accelerate growth. Here is a list of five steps you can put in place immediately:

1. Move your customers to the latest version of Cisco Unified Communications Manager to ensure they can take advantage of today’s most powerful collaboration capabilities such as mobile video on any device. Leverage the Drive to 9 program to simplify upgrades. And download the new tablet-based tool – CUCM Upgrade Readiness – that lets you easily analyze your customer’s readiness to upgrade, determine a recommended path, and estimate their potential savings.
2. Begin the shift to a lifecycle sales strategy with the Software Activation Incentive. Register now for this new incentive (available in North America and APJC) that rewards partners for Drive to 9 customer migration combined with Jabber activation and adoption.
3. Reach new decision makers and tap new budgets by focusing on selling business outcomes with the Collaboration Use Case Tool. This online resource center helps you position Cisco collaboration technology in context of how customers deploy our products. The use cases are aligned to high-level business imperatives, making it easier for you to engage in the right conversations with your customers.
4. Join the Jabber Guest early adoption program and DevNet, the new Cisco developer community. Jabber Guest is a new solution that makes collaborating beyond the corporate boundaries easier than ever before. DevNet encourages partners to develop rich enterprise apps to run on Cisco Collaboration devices such as the new Android-powered DX650, an enormous opportunity to differentiate your practice.
5. Start using dCloud to engage your customers in collaboration. Cisco dCloud is a powerful next gen demo platform that provides self-service capabilities for partners. Enter the dCloud challenge for your chance to win a DX650.

Watch this video to hear some of our collaboration partners’ plans for bold strategies. Can you think of new ways to be bold in your business? Start today.

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