Improving Partner Performance

This past Summer, we created the Partner Performance and Operations team, also known as the PPO. This new team has one simple but significant goal: simplify and improve the partner experience. Rethinking how we work to cut down on the back-and-forth means you can focus on what matters most–driving new business and creating more predictable, measurable outcomes.

How are we going to make that happen? Here are the five ingredients we need to achieve our goals:

Digitize

What it means

We’re hard at work automating many processes between Cisco and our partners. One of the biggest places we’re going digital is in our Partner Experience Platform (PXP), as Oliver Tuszik talked about at our Partner Summit. We have a lot more to come on this front, and you will hear much more about it all as we continue to roll out our digitization plans. Stay tuned!

How we make it happen

Black Belt Partner Academy is an example of the type of simplified, uniform experience we’re aiming to create. It provides a digital, role-based education framework that spans all of Cisco’s architectures and solutions. That means partners can become better at selling, deploying, and supporting the latest we have to offer. (Look out for more on Black Belt in my upcoming blog!)

Simplify

What it means
A lot of hard work is going into simplifying how we do things. Partners have been vocal about their need for this, and while it will take some time (and many proof points) for our partners to see how serious we are about it, we’re confident we will rise to the occasion and make working with Cisco as simple as possible.

How we make it happen
Our big portfolio of digital partner tools had no concrete organizing strategy before the creation of PPO. We got to work making the portfolio simpler by consolidating existing digital tools and capabilities, both by retiring older tools and by integrating tools that made sense together. In turn we reduced over 150 tools by 30%. This work is ongoing! We’ll keep you in the loop as we continue to create new ways to simplify.

Optimize

What it means
When we talk about optimizing, we’re really talking about efficiency. Saving time, money, and resources across the board.  Making our partners’ interactions with Cisco as efficient as possible is a key element of providing the most effective resources we can. We’re hard at work on ways to optimize processes across Cisco, because we know that the easier it is for a partner to get what they want, the more likely they are to continue relying on for the services they need.

How we make it happen
We recently underwent a substantial revamp of our internal processes, which included both automation and operational improvements.  One example is the creation of Enterprise Agreement Proposals, which has helped reduce the transaction process from one week to just one day!

Personalize

What it means

Partners are looking to be provided only with information directly related to them. Supplying information that’s as relevant as possible helps businesses run better, which is why we’re striving to make all information provided as personal as we can.

How we make it happen
A truly personalized experience for our partners means working closely with both analytics and automation. By building a strong connection between the two, we can create and send out more engaging communications as well as helpful tools to our partners, tied directly to the partner lifecycle.

Automate

What it means

At every turn, we’re looking for ways to save you time by cutting out traditional manual processes. That means automating systems that help partners spend less time searching for Cisco data, and more time with their customers.

How we make it happen

When partners automate their processes, they’re more likely to renew. The strong connection between the partners that embrace automation and their rates of renewal send a clear signal–people want to get things done faster and easier and will stick with a partner who helps that happen. We’ll get more in depth on this in a future blog, but in the meantime, you can find details in our global renewals policy.

The work of our Partner Performance and Operations team is a perfect example of how we are making the partner experience a top priority. Keep an eye out for our 2020 blog series on improving partner experience.

We’ve come far in just a few short months, and I’m thrilled to continue working with you in 2020!