This week powerhouse Cisco gold partner - Calence, announced its intention to be acquired by mega-powerhouse Cisco gold partner Insight, for at least $125 million cash.
Are Cisco gold partner rollups being sparked by the CCIE revenue rule change?
In March 2007, Cisco officially dropped their requirement that every Cisco Gold Partner must add one additional CCIE for each $40 million in annual Cisco revenue.
Previously, the last change to Cisco's CCIE revenue rule was at the April 2001 Cisco Partner Summit in Las Vegas, Cisco eased the revenue-scaling requirement for partners from one CCIE on staff for every $10 million in Cisco revenue to one CCIE for every $40 million.
 Cisco's official response to cessation of its gold partner CCIE revenue requirement: |
"We continuously solicit feedback from our partners and based on that feedback make evolutionary changes to our programs."
"We started socializing the elimination of the Gold Certification requirement that stated, one additional CCIE had to be added per $40M in annual revenue with our partners roughly 4 years ago as part of the creation of our current Offer-Based Channel Partner Program
.""At that time we felt this requirement was dated and that we had other ways (specialization, support/services and customer satisfaction requirements to name a few) to validate a growing Gold Partner's technical capabilities."
"However, this change didn't officially go into effect until roughly a year ago due to the two year long program creation and two year long program transition periods."
In response to the above rule change, received the following email message from a concerned CCIE Voice candidate:
Given the changes involved with Cisco's Channel Partner Program, is the demand for CCIEs likely to go up, down or remain the same?
The main purpose of my email out of the way, I'll give you a little background.
I'm in the process of studying for my voice CCIE.
I made my first attempt earlier this month and am looking to make my second attempt in early to mid-March.
Yesterday, I happened across the changes that Cisco has made to their partner program.
What I found conspicuously absent from their new set of requirements was any mention of the one additional CCIE for every $40 million in annual Cisco revenue.
If that is no longer the case, there's a possibility that the demand for CCIEs could drop assuming that the $40 million/CCIE requirement is gone.
Now, in the Channel Partner Q&A revised 4/3, Cisco notes in several places how the CCIE requirements have remained the same.
However, they may be simply referring to the 4 CCIEs required for Gold Certification and the 2 CCIEs required for Silver Certification.
There is no clear tie between revenues and CCIEs listed under the new Gold/Silver requirements whereas it is very easy to find that tie under the Retired Gold/Silver Requirements tab.
Is that an unintentional omission or a purposeful and little noticed change?
I don't claim to fully understand how the Channel program worked before and I certainly don't understand fully how it works moving forward.
I do know that the CCIE community will likely react unfavorably and with surreal speed to anything that would reduce their value in the job market.
If I'm misreading the requirements, overestimating how much the CCIE/$40 million of Cisco revenue contributes to CCIE demand or am otherwise uninformed, I'd be very happy to be corrected so I can get back to studying knowing that I'm working towards something that will have enduring value moving forward.
If I'm not misreading the requirements and it is an actual change with some potential for affecting CCIE demand, I figure it will make good material for an article or two.
I thought who better to answer the concerns of the above CCIE Voice candidate than the first CCIE in history - Terry Slattery
 Terry's reply: |
Brad,
Regarding the email, good networking people are always in demand.
A CCIE certification means that you took the time to go the extra step and are likely (though not always) to be a higher quality candidate than someone else with similar experience, but no CCIE.
Good candidates know how they are good and confidentially present themselves without being brash.
Brash is a clue that the candidate is not likely to be a good team player.
Another aspect of the demand is to look at the number of jobs that might be affected.
We would have to look at the dollar volume per channel partner and determine how many jobs that translates into.
Then figure the total potential job market, which includes all the Cisco customer base.
I don't have the data necessary to do that calculation, but my gut feel is that it won't have that much of an effect on the demand for CCIEs.
Also note that good Cisco Channel Partners know that they can sell the services of their CCIEs, so even though Cisco may no longer mandate that they have CCIEs on staff, the partner is likely to continue to use them as a way to differentiate their services over partners that don't have CCIEs.
So, is the demand going to go down?
I seriously doubt it.
A CCIE candidate won't be able to demand a fat compensation package from a Cisco partner, but that kind of negotiation builds a relationship that's doomed from the start.
If you're strictly in it for the money, get a job in sales.
Take care,
-tcs
The opinions of yours truly:
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Cisco dropped the CCIE revenue rule because there is a shortage of CCIEs, which has had a severe impact on the growth of both Cisco and its gold partners. |
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Cisco and its gold partners are locked into a never-ending competition with each other to hire basically the same CCIE talent. |
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The rules of that competition as mandated by Cisco have severely limited the salaries of CCIEs by depressing their true market value. |
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Cisco and its gold partners are being absolutely penny wise and dollar foolish! |
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Because Cisco and its gold partners are stooping for pennies by restricting the true market value of CCIEs, both Cisco and its gold partners are growing at only a quarter of the rate that they could grow should CCIEs be able to earn their true market value. |
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Until Cisco unplugs its foolish rules that depress the true market value of CCIEs, Cisco will forever be searching for pie in the sky growth platforms. |
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Unbelievable growth for both Cisco and its gold partners is in their very own backyard - CCIEs, whom if allowed to earn what they are truly worth, would fuel spectacular growth beyond even John Chambers' wildest dreams! |
Again, the above are merely my opinions...
Brad Reese cofounded BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished, which enables affordable Cisco networks globally by assuring customer satisfaction with guaranteed one year warranties on both Cisco Repair as well as Refurbished Cisco.
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As the voice candidate who originated the question...
...I wanted to begin by thanking Brad and Terry for taking the time to respond to my email.
In the immediate term, it is about the money. As I'm self-sponsoring my CCIE, I've taken on thousands of dollars of debt directly related to my pursuit of my CCIE and incurred thousands more indirectly. This includes study materials*, rented lab time, costs of each attempt at the lab, vacation days (and unpaid time off when those ran out) to study and take the test. If the bottom of the market is going to drop off come March 2008 when the old requirements officially go away, or shortly thereafter when all of the waivers Cisco has granted expire, then I need to know to stop digging myself into further debt.
In the long term, I'm doing this about job security. As I sit here, in the office, alone in an empty building, on a Saturday, about to start yet another eight hour lab session, I tell myself I'm making a sacrifice now so I won't have to worry about being employed in the future. I'm doing this so I won't have to put up with bosses trained from a Dilbert cartoon, put into positions where I'm asked to stretch the truth to make a sale or do things of questionable ethics. This is not to say I'm asked to do these things now; I'm not and I'm grateful for that. But I don't ever want to have to do these things and I'd very much enjoy the opportunity to be able to walk away without having to worry about finding a job in short order.
I have more to say on this topic but I have to cut it short there since my lab session is about to begin and I'm considering making my next attempt as soon as February 12th. Now that Brad has been kind enough to confirm that I am reading the rules correctly, I'll be able to do additional research - into the total revenues and number of Channel Partners - to estimate, roughly, roughly what kind of impact this may have.
Regards,
Ray Cuadro
*Purchased from IPExpert and ProctorLabs. I'm a high-maintenance customer and they've responded each time quickly, politely and without ever implying that it was a keyboard-chair interface problem. So I figured I'd plug them here as a small/little thank you.
March 2007
Hi Ray,
Cisco officially dropped the old requirements in March 2007.
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As per your success with IPexpert, you may find interesting the $2.3 million home lab of Scott Morris - Quadruple CCIE and IPexpert's vice president of technical training!
Sincerely,
Brad Reese
http://www.BradReese.Com
Ray, I don't think you have
Ray,
I don't think you have to worry. Your core values sound good to me and I've never encountered anyone with those values to go without a job for very long. I was just talking with the folks at Chesapeake Netcraftsmen (http://netcraftsmen.net) and they're not seeing qualified candidates on the market for long (if at all). The demand is pretty high right now. The CCIE cert will help differentiate you from the others in the market.
Keep up your knowledge once you pass the exam. I've interviewed people that I wouldn't have considered R&S CCIEs because they were missing an understanding of basic routing and switching technologies.
Of course, the 2-year renewal period will make sure that you're up to speed on current technologies. I see that as a good thing, even though I have to take time out to study for the written ever couple of years.
Good luck with your studying.
-Terry
Some Additional Facts to Consider
As I read this blog entry I was troubled by some of the opinions expressed by the creator (Brad Reese) and wanted to provide some additional facts to be consider, especially to the reader who is wondering if his career as an IT professional is some how being jeopardized by Cisco's elimination of a CCIE for every $40M in revenue partner program requirement.
First, a couple of quick facts about the technical IT career market. According to a recent IDC study, Networking Skills in North America, the IT skills gap in North Amercia is projected to grow from 7% to roughly 9% in the next four years, meaning demand is outpacing supply. In VoIP specifically, that number is projected to jump from 9% today to an estimated 20% by 2011. As IDC points out this skills gap will continue to increase the market value and salaries of IT skilled professionals.
Second, not sure how eliminating the addition of a CCIE per $40 million in revenue impacts the "true value" of a CCIE, but if Brad is attempting to connect this program change to a drop CCIE value or salary you need not look any further than Network World's own Salary Survey( http://www.networkworld.com/salary/2007/092407-annual-salary-survey.html), which states,"Pay raises (for IT professionals) have continued to outpace inflation, and bonuses are downright impressive — 11.6% on average. And if you don't like IDG data how about CMP data, which in a recent CRN story (http://www.crn.com/it-channel/202401994?queryText=salary+survey) stated, "Solution provider salaries across the board from owners to technical talent to salespeople are soaring."
Finally, it should be pointed that Cisco doesn't set CCIE value the market does. Furthermore, Cisco is not obligated to employ a channel program that includes a CCIE requirement. With that said, I will leave you with this final thought. If eliminating the revenue requirement is some how hurting a CCIE's "fair market value"...who is responsible for creating the CCIE baseline value, which in the US CCIEs currently average roughly $116,000 per year, according TCPmag.com and featured on BradReese.com(http://www.bradreese.com/compensation-database.htm)?
Why work for a reseller at all ?
I have not had good experiences working for resellers and, in the current market, would not consider doing so. As Brad hints, you can typically earn more recognition (financially and personally) and have more control over your career by working for end users, or freelance for specific projects.
While resellers can offer a wide range of work, they tend to be complicated and difficult places to work. Partly because of their limited finances, and partly due to the nature of satisfying so many customers at once. I miss the range of challenges, but not the personal problems that long days of working for a reseller.
Greg Ferro CCIE#6920
http://etherealmind.com