Cisco partners must grow Cisco reseller business by $20B

Cisco partners need to contribute $20 billion in new business over the coming years to help the network giant meet CEO

John Chambers’ aggressive long term growth plan of 12% to 17% the next three to five years, according to a story in ChannelWeb. ChannelWeb cites from a keynote address given by Cisco channel chief Keith Goodwin at the company’s Partner Summit last week: “There are two ways to we could do that. We could recruit thousands of new partners, but that’s not our strategy. Our strategy is to build it through each and every one of you in this room by continuing to invest in you.”

Specific channel initiatives include the Cisco Partner Exchange to enable partners to collaborate “as a means for scaling up to meet the growth targets.” Cisco is also creating a new tier of reseller specifically for the network-centric data center.

How should customers take advantage of these new goals for Cisco partners in order to get good deals? 

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