The inside scoop on IOT and Industries from Partner Summit 2018

Another Partner Summit wrapped up in mid-November and our IOT and Industry Partner Team was working “round the clock” on several major announcements and events that I would like to share with you. I’ll also share some links so that you can view any events you were unable to attend. Please check out the five highlights below:

First – IOT was announced as a new Cisco Architecture and we are building out partner enablement and programs to support IOT@scale for Cisco partners.  Gerri Elliott, Cisco EVP of Sales and Marketing, announced the new Cisco Partner Program for IOT in the Global Insight Session: Leading Together, Seizing Our Opportunity.

Also, All the IOT technologies (hardware and software) have been consolidated in one Cisco Architectural Business Unit led by SVP Liz Centoni.  Liz led the presentation at the IOT Impact session titled Cisco IOT is the Name of the Game. We’re In It to Win It, Together!  Liz and the team highlighted that IOT solutions are for ALL Cisco partners and they show how you can build IOT into your everyday selling motion.

IOT also had 2.5 hour “deeper dive” Auxiliary Session called IOT Architecture@Cisco.  Vikas Butaney (VP, IOT) led a team of Business and Technical presenters who provided a detailed review of the sales strategies partners can use to “bake” IOT into their GTM offers.  A highlight was seeing 3 new demos that the team prepared (with costumes I might add) that “made it real” on delivering the value of IOT to customers.

Second – Digital Navigator was launched by Oliver Tuszik, Cisco’s new SVP of the Global Partner Organization in the Partner Strategy section of the Global Insight Session: Leading Together, Seizing Our Opportunity.  Oliver Highlighted that partnering with Cisco is about performing AND transforming, and Digital Navigator is the tool partners can use to help them leverage Cisco’s new architectural solutions and industry sales plays to drive new sales and business models to better address customer requirements.  There is an opportunity.  There also was a booth at “The Hub” where we demonstrated the capabilities in Digital Navigator.  If you want to explore Digital Navigator visit www.cisco.com/go/navigator to learn about our special Partner Summit offer.

Third – In the Industry Solutions@Cisco session, Dan Wiggins, VP of Industry Solutions, Cisco WW Sales, launched the partner strategy for repeatable, scalable Industry Sales Offers and Plays.  Industry leaders and Cisco Global Sales Directors described Cisco partner opportunities in Education, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Smart Cities, Utilities, Energy, and Financial Services

Fourth – Brand new at Partner Summit was the reveal on Trusted Critical Infrastructure (TCI), including an Auxiliary Session called TCI@Cisco in Industry Verticals. This solutions portfolio is targeted at hi-performance networking for service providers, enterprise and public-sector verticals, where scale, low-latency, security, reliability and automation are top of mind. This session highlighted a key use case with Enterprise LTE and how to change the game in different verticals through TCI. Learn more at the TCI Selling Hub.

Fifth – AI/ML and Blockchain were covered in a session that describes Cisco’s AI offers that are available to sell today and with Blockchain we gave a preview of Cisco’s direction and a description of what partners can do to get ready to put solutions together in this hot new area!

Thanks to all of you who joined us at Partner Summit and we all look forward to working together on opportunities in IOT and Industries in the upcoming months.