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Cisco channel chief talks 360, AI and partner value
As the vendor pulls thousands of its partners together for its summit, its recently installed channel leader shares his thoughts on a range of issues
It’s been just a few months since Tim Coogan stepped into the shoes vacated by Rodney Clark and picked up the baton to be worldwide channel chief at Cisco.
As he mingles with channel partners at the vendor’s San Diego Partner Summit this week, he will be keen to share his vision and outline what he brings to the role of senior vice-president for global partner sales.
As a 26-year veteran of the vendor, Coogan understands the business and brings a rounded experience into the partner role. He also has an appreciation for the value the channel can bring to both the organisation and customers.
“I am coming from a slightly different angle than a traditional channel leader, which I look at as both an opportunity and a challenge, but I choose to focus on the opportunity that it gives me to work with our partners in a different but very meaningful way,” said Coogan.
Those who work with him will no doubt have heard him talk of the two questions that both colleagues and partners should ask themselves every day.
“The first, ‘Did I help move a deal forward?’ Now I want to be clear,” said Coogan. “I’m not asking all 90,000 Cisco employees to go out and close a deal for five access points, but I’m asking Cisco people, notably our teams in the channel organisation, to think about ‘what did I do that helped move a campaign with a partner from where it is today’, closer to a commercial agreement with a customer that we understand will bring value and deliver a business outcome that is valuable to them.”
Coogan added that the second question was around adding profitability to partners and supporting success across the channel base. “Profitable partners invest more in their ability to deliver value, and if we as a company are focused on the value exchange between us and our partners, we are both more capable to deliver that value to our customers,” he said. “So, did we make a partner more profitable?”
Early days
It is still early days in Coogan’s tenure as channel chief, but he has already been pleasantly surprised by the contribution partners make to the business.
“I continue to be amazed when I see what our partners do with our portfolio, and how they transform it from static or cold products and services and software into things that change our customers, the way our customers go to market every single day,” he said. “I’m amazed when I see what partners do with our portfolio, and I think we’ve only scratched the surface. I’m excited about the future, but I’m so impressed with what our partners do.”
Coogan steps into the channel role inheriting an evolving partner programme, Cisco 360, which comes into effect in January, placing the emphasis on rewarding value and customer satisfaction more than the straightforward transactional approach of old.
He holds the view that the programme is transitioning for good reasons, and that the environment has changed, leading Cisco – along with many other vendors – to rethink its approach.
“We’re not going to shy away from Cisco 360, we are so proud of it,” said Coogan. “It is change and we want to acknowledge that any change presents challenge. But we believe it gives our partners a platform, not just to showcase our technology, but their experience and resources that come around that.”
He said the vendor was proud of having delivered a partner programme experience over the past two decades, but that it had to change to react to the advances in technology and the acceleration in customer demands for greater levels of expertise and support.
“We don’t think of this as ending the VIP [Value Incentive Programme],” said Coogan. “We think of it as modernising our overall incentive and rebate programme, and we’re doing it because the industry is changing – and it’s not just AI, but AI is the best and easiest example of how we have to adapt to an environment that is different than it was a year ago. This programme helps support that, in terms of aligning what we have in our portfolio with the capabilities of our partners in a different but really meaningful and profitable way.”
Edge infrastructure and security
The focus of the next few days will be on the technology that Cisco is trumpeting around edge infrastructure and security, and the benefits that will be on offer for those partners that embrace that innovation.
“I want partners and customers, ultimately, to understand that this is an innovation showcase,” said Coogan. “I think unified edge and Cisco IQ are just two examples of really continuing to use our partner format to be the launch pad for exciting technologies. And I think unified edge may be the best example of that. The ultimate goal exiting San Diego is that the partners in attendance, either in person or via the digital broadcast, have a plan to take this technology and articulate it in a way that brings value to their customers.”
No doubt AI will also be mentioned numerous times at the vendor’s event, and Coogan is keen to stress that for its channel, the opportunity starts before the software tools are deployed.
“We’ve always known that the hardware has a pull-through capability in the form of services, and while the numbers can vary, we see the AI pull-through as really significant,” he said. “There’s several data sources that predict that over the next five years, we can see as much as $267bn of services, with the vast majority related to AI transacting through our partner ecosystem.”
Coogan added that there was a clear opportunity, “connecting the technology with services to the outcome and the value”.
“Any research that you look at shows an increasing level of adoption, an increasing level of urgency around delivering ROI and value from that adoption, but the services element of that will be fundamental, not only to manufacturers, but certainly to the partner community,” he said.
It’s been a few months since Coogan took on the channel role, and in those weeks, there has been time for learning and meeting partners, and discovering the impact that ecosystem can deliver. “I thought I knew a lot,” he said. “I knew some, but what I see our partners do with small companies, with big companies and everything in-between, I am amazed on a daily basis at how incredible they are.”
