Embracing the Ecosystem Mindset: Navigating the New Frontier of Tech Partnerships

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inclusive future for all with Cisco smart Building Solutions we believe all businesses can better optimize their energy use between meeting human needs and a sustainable future there's a bridge Cisco the bridge to possible [Music] at Cisco We Believe inclusion isn't just the right thing to do it's the Innovative thing to do because every invention every Improvement every achievement every small step and giant leap inside our company and in the history of the world started when a different perspective was invited a different voice was elevated a different opinion was accepted to us inclusion is progress and it's why we're reimagining how people come together changing the system tearing down barriers respecting and honoring each other's identities promoting equality and fairness using technology to create more opportunities empowering a more inclusive future for each other for good for all [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] a Cyber attack can grind everything to a halt Cisco security keeps your network and your company moving forward because if it's connected it's protected [Music] Cisco so what do you think here can 7 it needs to carry 150 right y should be perfect Cisco's purpose is to power an inclusive future for [Music] all that's why we're working with the apga and the USGA to make golf more inclusive shot thanks appreciate it thank you we're teeing up tomorrow because the more of us who play the better golf is for all of us yeah great great butt nice job there you [Music] go a hacker doesn't always look like a [Music] hacker the Hacker's at home everywhere [Music] hacker comes in many [Music] for he's interested in everything you can work alone but with a crew so much better [Music] a hacker is free with Cisco protecting your business from cyber attackers is simple if it's connected you're protected [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] at Cisco our purpose is to power an inclusive future for all and in that future Mother Nature has a [Music] voice how have things been at work it's Groundhog Day you know just always the Builder never the architect the thing is is I've got ideas big ideas about better products new revenue streams smarter Investments but right but the thing is is I can't focus on any of that because here I am too busy like playing whack-a-mole all day it's a lot of metaphors today thank you so so it sounds like you need a platform that drastically reduces the amount of confusion caused by zillions of analytics tools and focuses the data for you something that allows me to spend time thinking big picture something that would reduce the amount of app system errors pinpoint areas of improvement and proactively suggest fixes exactly why do you know that don't know [Music] it's a new day for the new era AI is everywhere so are we we have the infrastructure AI needs and now the breath of data AI craves we'll use AI to help the world see more do more and we'll secure it like never before you've all heard the AI hype now you want ai's help that's exactly what we'll give you Cisco making AI work for [Music] you welcome to our LinkedIn live series on the future of technology Partnerships my name is Elizabeth toer I'm the vice president of the Cisco partner program and I'm really thrilled to kick off this exciting Journey with all of you so today we're going to dive in into a topic that's reshaping our industry which is all about embracing the ecosystem mindset and I'm really fortunate to have three distinguished guests joining me first of all Bob kagaz CEO of Presidio welcome very nice to see you we have J McBain Who's chief analyst at canaly research and then finally of course we have my friend but also my boss Rodney Clark senior vice president of Cisco's partnership and small and medium business warm welcome to all of you very nice to have you um so obviously for since about 94 Cisco has declared strategic intent that was going to go to business partner first partner Centric and since then which is now almost four decades we've been driving together with our partners profitable growth driving co-innovation and shaping the industry so today's market is evolving faster than ever demanding much more Integrated Solutions um that go well beyond what any single company can offer and so this shift requires us to rethink how we were traditionally thinking about par partner to vendor to much more of an ecosystem um design thinking about creating together Innovation and value as we navigate through this complexity our focus on simplifying and evolving our partner program is really critical so in this series we will explore together how an ecosystem mindset can unlock growth and new opportunities for all so I'm really excited to dive into this transformation transformational topic with our guest let's get started so first of all a question for you J so if you think about emerging Technologies like artificial intelligence but also iot or Edge Computing how do you see all of that reshaping traditional Partnerships and what does that mean from an ecosystem perspective yeah absolutely the first thing when you look at these Technologies none of them are a product you don't go to distribution or to a Marketplace and say I want to buy AI I want to buy iot so it's sold in layers it's sold in a technology stack the average artificial intelligence deal today is seven layers the average iot deal is seven layers the average cyber security deal is seven layers so it's not as linear and transactional as it was in the past it's also not in one partner there's a lot of different partners doing different things in every single deal so this is more of a surround strategy to help the customer move through how they see their outcome and have all the right players on the field the right programs the right processes the right people and the underlying technology to make it all work absolutely well thank you Jay so that leads me to Bob because thinking about you right leading a very known big partner business so how do you then think about reconciling bread and depth like how how is the balance then between being really specialized and at the same time still having that breath of Technology how do you keep up yeah I mean that's a that's a great question you know I think when I I'll hearken back a little bit to what you you were just talking about and and I've been in the industry a long time I was in the industry before in 1994 so you've seen all these changes you client server and then you know local area networking and VOIP and the internet and just on and on and on to you know Cloud digital and AI today um and I think the you know the big difference you know you've sort of touched on that we see is that especially if you're looking at it from an oem's perspective Ive um they're not the solution anymore you know if you look at a solution that we might have done 15 20 years ago and it might have been a networking solution it would have been Cisco and then our service is wrapped around that and that's pretty cut and dried um now every solution we do is very much multivendor and multi-service oriented we may be providing all those Services we may be bringing in ecosystem Partners um it's just an ingredient the products that we get today are just an ingredient and we to take a look at the world uh or we started taking a look at this really from an old school OSI model it was okay where do we need certain services and are we going to invest in those Services organically are we going to invest in them through acquisition or are we going to partner uh and so that's how we look at different all different areas new areas we want to get get into from a technology or solution standpoint we'll kind of analyze all that okay okay what what levels of the stack do we want to play in uh what levels do we need to partner in today and will those be persistent Partnerships going forward or will we use those as a try and buy maybe acquire the company or will we invest and create those Services organically and I think you've had to do that a partner like precidio has a little bit of an advantage because of our scale it enables us to invest in depth across multiple Services areas and multiple Solutions uh that's a little bit harder to do for smaller local or Regional Partners so I think an ecosystem approach is even more important for partners that don't have the scale of a precidia absolutely so then that takes me to Rodney so listening to all of this right both from technology trending the platform shift and then what it means for a partner like prido like what do you think we from a vendor point of view need to do in order to help the ecosystem to evolve and that evolving value proposition yeah it's so great to hear these two responses uh prior to mine if I look back to that 1994 reference that you made Elizabeth and Bob reminded of you know Cisco in our early days we were we basically needed a channel we had a certain set of products and we needed a channel to go out and execute on those products sometimes transactions sometimes provide some services and where we've evolved to is where Jay has taken us to is now we need in essence this this ecosystem of capability not even necessarily A Partners but we need this ecosystem of capability be it the multi-dimensional approach that precidio is taking and their ability to support different parts of our portfolio and bring that value to customers or if it's us in our programs facilitating that partner to- partner connection so that each customer as they choose their Solutions they're looking at someone who is deep in networking or someone who is deep in security and so for our role at Cisco it is how do we take this concept of loyalty because we've had this channel that's been with us since 1994 and we've evolved and how do we Leverage The Investments That these companies have made in Cisco in delivering customer value and help them take this leap or bridge over into a broader solution set a broader set of portfolio based Solutions broader ecosystem so that's what I get excited about in terms of hey how do I help uh and work with in partner with prido to realize the vision that Jay just painted no thank you very much rodne and I think it's very interesting to hear that perspective as well so I would like to go back to Bob then and listening to Rodney and what is it you know as we are in this evolving ecosystem and we're getting to the ecosystem mindset so what do you expect from multiple technology providers and how do you want them to work with you then um yeah I mean so I think expectations are really important to understand in a specific relationship or in a specific project that you're working on um so we're pretty methodical about how we partner and how we build the ecosystem I mean typically it starts with you know a lot of a lot of learning you talking to each other presenting to each other understanding what they can bring to the table what we can bring to the table and understanding how relevant that's going to be in a specific solution that we want to bring to a client standpoint um you know beyond that you need a lot of the old T's and C's too you got to have a financial terms that everybody agreed to you got to have legal terms you've got to have governance you've got to have a lot of collaboration around either solution design or certainly solution ex execution or project uh management um and there are a lot of ways to to go about it I think one of the you know one of the examples that we kind of point to has been very successful for us is you know we'll partner with an ecosystem partner and then we'll end up acquiring them when we find that it's got really great execution and really relevant to our business uh we worked with a company called the cobal uh Koda Global uh about five or six years ago we had a strategic initiative we want really want to build out our cloud and our digital business um and uh we were partnering with Kota Global on a number of projects they really executed well it's great cultural fit so we acquired them uh that business today is a$ 1.5 billion business it's got our highest margins it's our fastest growing business and I think it's it's been really the most relevant for our clients for a long time um so you know that's one way to approach it and we've got a lot of ecosystem partners that we're not going to acquire them and they don't want to be purchased but you we've done this exercise to really get to know each other and put proper terms in place and proper governance um that we can move from Project to project so setting expectations uh and being really clear about those expectations uh is super important in any of these Partnerships oh thank you for that so Jay maybe if you want to comment a bit further then on what is the market or what are the customers expecting right from both from vendors and partners and any advice there yeah what's interesting if you look back again into the 1990s uh mostly from a vendor point of view we looked at it very transactionally what's to the left of the transaction what's to the right of the transaction Partners have always participated in in the broader transaction we know that there's 28 moments that lead up to a point of sale we know that at the point of sale there's a ton of work talked about the Consulting the design the architecture the configuration pricing quoting there's multiple steps that go into landing but you know today Cisco is north of 50% subscription and consumption absolutely so that's only the first 30 days with with the customer the first year with the customer whatever that contract is now every 30 days forever for a customer for Life partners are participating precidio for example is participating from that very first moment it could be a eBook or a podcast to every 30-day renewal in the enrichment and all of the stuff that goes around that outcome is where the expansion is happening then underneath that there's the technology integration so we're at a new customer now in in terms of Millennials that have technology Integrations is their number one criteria you have the Strategic alliances the business alliances there's so much that a partner brings that is beyond that one point that I think we focused on in the 1990s and now it's a much broader way to look at the ecosystem no thank you Jay and so maybe Rodney you always speak to us about cell to cell with and enable right so can you talk a bit more about what that means because I think it's very relevant listening to this yeah the the important thing and and I spent a lot of time telling my internal teams this and this is more to Jay and Bob is that we have to do three things with a partner among many things that we have to get done but we have to sell to them in other words we've got to convince them that Cisco is the best partner to go to market with across our portfolio and we have to do that every single day we can't take for granted that just because you've been invested since 1994 that you're necessarily going to be invested in 2024 and so that becomes job number one get them excited about our technology and ultimately get them focused on customer outcomes that we need to drive and deliver and the value that we add to our customers the next one is enablement we play a key role in enabling our partners as we've evolved our stack and you talked about us now being 50% you know software subscription driven uh how are we enabling our our partners to evolve in the same way along with us and that's everything from the backend systems that drive the you know your business and their businesses to how they pay their Sellers and so we have to think about that as it relates to enablement not just the certifications and training on things but how do we enable the partners to take on these new business models and then it's a selling to our customers our joint customers I call that selling with uh and so it's a sell to the enable and then the sell with the partners uh represent uh the vast majority of our Cisco business uh and and we call ourselves a partner L company because that third thing around selling with uh and to our partners together becomes a key part of how we drive business as the models have matured it's created uh opportunities for us to participate in with you know Bob and precidio around hey how do we get better is it a build bu or partner type decision and so as we look at this changing landscape you know how are we using our Market insights to help advise Partners along those lines as well going beyond the three things that I mentioned but into okay strategically this is how we can help you and how you can help set yourselves up for future success so that becomes part of our operating model as well yeah very nice thank you so much Rodney so maybe to end this first chapter I will ask each of you to um give a call to action to the audience like how do you Embrace that ecosystem mindset what would you advise people listening to us yeah for me it's um you've got to have Specialties uh we've learned over the past that you can't get onto page one of Google SEO by being a journalist all things to all people all the time you got to be specific in terms of where you're helping the client are you helping them with their job role the sub industry the the geography that they're in are you helping their segment are you helping in all the hundreds of product categories that that Cisco's in for example are you helping them with all the business models that talked about so getting very specific and now in the age of AI now that gets put to the next level how are you viewed in terms of how models pick up what you do every day and as people are running with their co-pilots or whatever else what is the view of Presidio when a customer will frame this up into that larger conversation so getting very specific in terms of what you're doing and making sure that everyone in the ecosystem knows what you're doing as well before during and after the transaction and all the alliances and Integrations that I talked about you have to be much more communicative than in the past yeah I guess it's all about that differentiated value proposition more than ever I yes so Bob what would be your call to action or advice yeah well I mean I think the differentiated value proposition is is incredibly important as as part of your decision- making around you how you're going to partner who you're going to partner with and what you're going to partner on um and so I I think you know the call to action is you really understand who you are and what you want to be right what are you good at what are you not good at um can you scale are you willing to make that investment you know a lot of the partners in our industry you know they're they're 99% of their net worth is tied up in this business and sometimes they get to a point where it's like all right I've got to make a big bet organically if I want to grow into this next solution area so do I want to do that now because this is this represents my almost my entire net worth um great idea is to build an ecosystem that helps get you there without having to make those organic Investments so understanding who you are and where you want to be and then seeking out those ecosystem partners that can help get you there and putting good governance around them testing them in smaller projects so that you can get a feel for whether or not you've got a good cultural fit and you're delivering a good outcome for your client uh two it's listen to the client they're going to tell you where they need you to be or where you're not today um is the worst thing you can ever do is go into a a CIO and say what are your pay points you should know that before you get in the meeting so if you're talking to all the folks within that organization they're going to give you that information about what they what they really need the third piece is for um is for Cisco Sellers and from that perspective there's there's two things one you've got to be disruptive with your partner Community just because you have a partner that's been in a client for a long time if they don't have the skill sets or they don't have the ecosystem and they can't provide these more advanced Solutions you've got to have a partner that's going to do that or else someone else is going to walk in you know with with a competitor of yours um and they're going to capture that business so you've got to be really disruptive you got to really analyze your partner base that you're working with and partner with that that that Cisco partner that's going to be able to bring those skills either through an ecosystem or organically to help you deliver that solution and the second piece is you've got to get them engaged early give people the opportunity to sell the value and create the differentiation it's going to expand the sale for you number one number two it's probably even going to reduce the sales cycle for you to get that deal done and the client experience is going to be so much better at the end of the day that your renewal rates your renewal revenue streams they're all going to be better um so pick your partners get disruptive and get people get your partners engaged early I love that I love that and Elizabeth if it's okay I'm just going to go ahead and jump into the response because I think where're Bob's messages to our sellers mine is to our partners on two things and I touched on this concept and notion of loyalty earlier we do have an incredibly loyal base of Partners thank you to each and every one of you Cisco Partners who are out there listening today that continue to invest in our joint success but we can push each other harder we can push each other harder we've been working together for a long time push us to be better push us to be more agile to be more competitive bring the product information that helps make us better and build better products and innovate faster and better help us with goto Market uh information share with us those connections that you have in your broader ecosystem those Partners who you're working with that should be a part of our broader Cisco family that we can help the two your two companies or your three companies or whatever it is develop a stronger go to market push together and the other thing is is just continue to be open and transparent with us as we talk about this journey you know going to this notion of of of ecosystems uh we need all the feedback that we can get and we need it in real time time uh our programs are no longer static they are moving and flexible as we learn more each month around the Dynamics of our market and so we expect that information to be coming from you because you are our primary Salesforce so Elizabeth those would be the the couple of things that I would say can I can I just add to that of course yeah go for it you touched on transparency so transparency and trust between Cisco and their Partners is at a level that no other part partnership comes close to in the industry and I think the key benefit of that has always been that we can be honest with each other yes um and we get to solve problems a lot quicker we we get to resolve issues but we also get to create Solutions and create Innovation a lot quicker too because of that transparency um and I don't know to your point I don't think we take advantage of that enough yes yes uh and that's probably something we're missing in the field something we're missing you know uh further on up the stack as well is really leveraging that trust and transparency has been built for close to four decades no fantastic I really really enjoyed this uh conversation and I think the point about trust transparency and not necessarily knowing it all but having to figure it out together you know the ecosystem is not just this interoperability of different organism let's say but it's also Collective wisdom right so agility and speed and thinking and contining to be very closely connected will be super relevant so I would like to very much thank thank our guests for sh Shing such valuable insights on what it means to embrace the ecosystem mindset we've learned a lot about the opportunities and also some challenges but then also how to overcome those so the conversation doesn't stop here I already said this was a series so please join us for episode two ecosystem Alchemy transforming Partnerships into Innovation excellence and we'll dive a a bit deeper in some of the principles that we started to talk about today so see you there let's make the best use of space and optimize energy consumption for the changing way we work making connections that deliver power and enable automation creating efficiencies that can help the workplace and the planet and freeing teams to work from anywhere while creating engaging experiences thanks to AI driven collaboration tools sustainability initiatives are part of powering an inclusive future for all with Cisco smart Building Solutions we believe all businesses can better optimize their energy use between meeting human needs and a sustainable future there's a bridge Cisco the bridge to possible

2024-09-12 21:22

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