Last year, Cisco revamped its channel partner certification programs in an effort to get the VARs and integrators — through which Cisco sells 80% of its products — to become more competent in such advanced technologies as IP telephony and voice, wireless and security. The change required partners to specialize in certain technology areas, such as VoIP or WLANs, as opposed to Cisco integrators who just resold, installed and supported the vendor’s whole product menu.
A year after this program was launched, Edison Peres, vice president of worldwide channels at Cisco, talked with Network World Senior Editor Phil Hochmuth about the state of expertise and certification in its channel.
Some of Peres’ comments:
* “when we last measured, our customer satisfaction through our partner community has outpaced satisfaction coming from customers who do direct business with Cisco; these would be only the largest enterprises. Last year was the first time that that we crossed that line, where partner community was outpacing what do on a direct basis.”
* “Now the value of the partner is determined by the number of by degrees you have, or specializations. By going to school, the thought is you get higher degrees of certification, and the more committed you are to Cisco.”
* “we require partners to have a specialization or take a course to have access to it. Voice is a restricted product. Unless you pass certain exams, you don’t get access to the products.”
How have your experiences with Cisco partners changed – positively or negatively – since Cisco revamped its partners program?
