Cisco rolls Out Managed Services Channel Program

It’s been over a year in the making, but Cisco’s new channel program for managed services providers has gone live. The move is part of a larger “offer-based” go-to-market strategy through which channel partners can choose channel programs appropriate to how they sell to the customer. Cisco’s new managed services program is aimed at both service providers and managed service providers which includes integrators, VARs, and service providers. To qualify, they have to be proactively monitoring the solutions, also need to be able to troubleshoot from the NOC, and the offering needs to be clearly defined in a service level agreement. The full partner strategy is subject to an independent audit aimed at insuring quality performance, and hopefully, by extension, enhanced customer trust. In return, participating partners get an incentive plan designed specifically for this business model, online business development tools, joint selling/joint marketing components, and suggestions for preferred practices aimed at delivering services efficiently and profitably. In effect, the new Cisco program acknowledges fundamental differences between its typical reseller model and managed services in ways that can be quite beneficial to the end customer. If partners are reselling hardware in combination with a service contract, they make money during downtimes. But under a managed services model, greater profitability comes from preserving uptime.