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Rodney Clark Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®
I was delighted to welcome Rodney Clark, Senior Vice President of Partnerships and Small and Medium Business at Cisco, to Ultimate Guide to Partnering. Rodney and I worked together at Microsoft, and he was a guest on this platform while leading Microsoft’s Industry-renowned Ecosystem.
This distinguished technology sector leader is bringing his expertise to shape Cisco’s market evolution, specifically the future of partnerships and co-selling to drive innovation and growth.
Throughout his career, Rodney has played a key role as a global leader in technology, fostering collaborations that empower businesses of all sizes. His insights into how companies can leverage technological advancements have made him a respected figure in the industry.
In this conversation, Rodney and I delved into his new role at Cisco and his vision for the future of their partnership, go-to-market (GTM) approach, and sales strategy. We highlighted the crucial role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping the future of technology, the importance of maintaining a customer-centric focus, and how significant shifts driven by hyperscalers—such as cloud commitments, marketplaces, and co-selling—are influencing his plans and strategy.
He believes businesses must adapt to this new environment and offers a roadmap for how organizations can thrive. This is a must-listen episode of Ultimate Guide to Partnering. I hope you join us for this thought-provoking leadership discussion.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
- Customer-Centric Focus: Rodney emphasizes the shift in customer behavior and the need for businesses to adapt. [00:00:00]
- Rodney’s Role at Cisco: Discusses his journey at Cisco and the focus on connecting partners and industries. [00:01:11]
- Shift in Buying Behavior: Transition from a vendor-channel model to a customer-driven, ecosystem-centric approach. [00:04:15]
- AI’s Role in Cisco: Cisco focuses on networking, security, and AI integration for customer outcomes. [00:06:55]
- Importance of Marketplaces: Rodney highlights Cisco’s collaboration with hyperscalers and the role of marketplaces. [00:10:49]
- Partner Enablement and Success: Cisco aims to empower partners through AI training and incentives. [00:13:00]
- Future of Cisco’s Partner Ecosystem: Cisco’s vision is to help partners grow through networking, security, and collaboration expertise. [00:32:10]
- Co-Sell and Growth Opportunities: Cisco’s growing co-sell business with hyperscalers and its success in driving revenue. [00:38:31]
- Cisco Partner Event Theme – Forward as One: Rodney teases Cisco’s October partner event and its focus on partnership-driven growth. [00:40:39]
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Transcript
Keywords:
partner, buyer, microsoft, marketplace, talk, year, company, customer, buy, achieve, partnering, partnership, number, ecosystem, moments, thought, inflection point, aws, money, product
Transcript (provided by Descript)
[00:00:00] Rodney: It’s important that all of us put the customer at the center of this is because it is the Customer buying behavior or the shift in, in, in customer expectation that has created the need for all of us to rethink our models.
[00:00:15] INTRO: Microsoft’s purpose is in service of your purpose. And again, 2024 is the year that partners come out on top.
[00:00:22] INTRO: As the leading edge of the spear on finding this buyer intent, you show up to every meeting and demonstrate why you are relevant
[00:00:31] INTRO: every day. I have to force myself to make sure that I’m taking one step ahead in terms of my own learning.
[00:00:36] INTRO: That flywheel success is where you will build momentum and that momentum will continue, and then you feed into the other systems to say, this is what we did.
[00:00:45] INTRO: This is how we did it together.
[00:00:46] Vince: Welcome to the ultimate guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione your host. And my mission is to help leaders like you. Achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. Today we have a very special podcast for you. We’ve been talking about the tectonic shifts we’ve been seeing in our world, in our lives, the change in dominance of the hyperscalers, the role of the ecosystem and the changing in buying behavior that we’ve been seeing.
[00:01:11] Vince: And I’m excited to be joined by a friend and leader here at Cisco’s Global Sales Conference. My good friend, Rodney Clark, is the SVP of Partnerships and Small and Medium Business at Cisco. Rodney, I’m so excited to have you here today.
[00:01:26] Rodney: Vince, Thank you for being here, and thank you for joining our 20, 000 Cisco employees and splunkers at our Global Sales Exchange.
[00:01:34] Vince: Such a small, intimate event.
[00:01:36] Rodney: Just a small, intimate event, but it’s so good that you can pop in and spend some time with us.
[00:01:37] Vince: Well, thank you for accommodating me and making me so welcome here today. Of course. I’m excited to be here. I’m so excited to spend time with you. I’m gushing a little bit.
[00:01:49] Rodney: There’s that word again.
[00:01:51] Vince: I got to spend a little time with your leadership and your team last week. And this is such an exciting time. So you and I are good friends. We both worked at Microsoft for a number of years together. You’ve been a guest on the podcast. Yes, I have. As a leader of Microsoft, as their channel chief. And, uh, back again today and so excited for your new role now.
[00:02:12] Vince: So I was hoping we could spend a little time. Cisco has been a tech giant. I mean, yes, defines the word tech giant. Yes. And, uh, excited for what your plans are and what you’re looking to do. So why were you hired to Cisco? Let’s start right, let’s start right, let’s go right into it. Like,
[00:02:28] Rodney: I’m not really sure why I was hired at Cisco.
[00:02:30] Rodney: I’m sure there’s a lot of people. Wondering the same thing. No, it’s, it’s so good to be, uh, first off here at Cisco. Uh, it’s so great to be in a role where we’re connecting different companies, uh, and, and, and connecting different people of all walks of life, uh, as well as companies in different industries to, to come together and deliver customer value.
[00:02:55] Rodney: Uh, Cisco is a large tech behemoth, a large tech company with a huge responsibility to continue to drive innovation for our customers. And part of me joining and why I’m here was that I have a chance to work with our partners. Cisco as a partner led company and ordained partner led company and helping all of our partners participate in this experience with us.
[00:03:18] Rodney: And so it’s been eight months now that I’ve been on board and it’s, it’s been an absolute blast getting to know. The channel in the ecosystem through a different lens. Through a different relationship as well as quite frankly, you talked about the tectonic shifts helping a company like Cisco, you know, evolve and redefine what it means to be a trusted player in the channel.
[00:03:41] Vince: Yeah. It’s funny because I always think of Cisco when I think about the traditional channels, the vendor channel relationships that we always see. Referred to in our industry and Microsoft was always around partnering and I think about Microsoft really built the first ecosystem Yeah, Bill Gates. I mean it spurred 500, 000 companies into that ecosystem and This I’ll call it the sparking of the ecosystem that we’re seeing now this change in buying behavior Where we’re seeing a real change from vendor to channel customer.
[00:04:15] Vince: the customer actually pulling and completing a solution amongst a group of vendors, bringing those together, bringing the solutions to market together. And Cisco is so well poised in this area. I’d love to dive in a little bit more, but bringing the complete networking solution observability. We could talk about a I would talk about all these other components, but bringing it all together for the customers.
[00:04:37] Vince: It’s just this unique opportunity that you have in your role.
[00:04:40] Rodney: You hit on a few key words that I like to use when I describe our journey. You know, in 1994, we started out as a company that needed a channel, needed a channel to get our core networking products into the hands of customers. And a big part of our strategy then was transactional.
[00:04:59] Rodney: I think it was for most companies that started programs back then. And you mentioned Microsoft kind of evolving to this ecosystem. Well, I think. The entire industry is involved to this notion of ecosystem where we need a fairly significant set of skills in order to complete and drive customer outcomes.
[00:05:17] Rodney: It’s not just the transaction anymore. It’s the value that the collection of companies, it’s not just one company anymore. It is the combination of two to three to seven and ultimately what they bring in the overall solution in our portfolio. has grown since 94 and since those early days. And we have one of the largest portfolios in the industry.
[00:05:39] Rodney: If you look at it from networking and edge point technology to routers and switches all the way to security through collaboration, IOT, and it definitely requires an ecosystem of capable partners in order to deliver on the customer promise.
[00:05:55] Vince: And Cisco has been building out its portfolio, hundreds of companies and now parting or part of the Cisco portfolio I refer to.
[00:06:03] Rodney: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. Not, not just, uh, you know, I look at those, those companies is, is not just companies that do we do business with from a, from a, from an ecosystem perspective and from a day to day perspective, companies that we’ve had to acquire to help make us better as well, looking at it from both sides.
[00:06:20] Vince: So I want to dive in on this buying behavior change, right? And I’ve been talking about this tectonic shifts being about five years ago with COVID, right? So we’ve been talking about transformation, you and I. I’ve been talking about transformation for decades now, right? And it was happening at a pace, I’ll call it a slow pace, a predictable pace.
[00:06:40] Vince: And then COVID happens, changing, changes everything. Everything accelerates. Satya Nadella says, we saw two years of transformation in two months. We probably saw seven years of transformation in seven months. I clicked my phone three times and boxes show up at my front door. Healthcare is delivered differently.
[00:06:55] Vince: Education is delivered differently. We don’t even think about those changes that happened. Buying behavior started to happen differently and the persona of the buyer also changed, right? So no longer do people want to be sold to they nobody picks up a phone and here’s an SDR BDR Anymore, it’s really about the trusted relationships.
[00:07:15] Vince: Yes, and we all learn that right? We we make the same type of decisions about buying technology that we do about buying a vehicle Absolutely, where we talk to the seven or eight seats at the table our friends our trusteds And this is why partnering is so important now and ensuring that all those seats at the table are your trusted as well.
[00:07:35] Vince: Those are the organizations that you go to market with that are surrounding your customers. I want to talk about that now and how, how you’re viewing this. I know you know about this and you’re bringing in infusing it into Cisco.
[00:07:46] Rodney: Yeah, well, it’s important that all of us put the customer at the center of this is because it is the, Customer buying behavior or the shift in customer expectation that has created a need for all of us to rethink our models.
[00:08:00] Rodney: And at the end of the day, it’s no longer point product. There’s no one thing that we sell anymore that is going to solve a problem at the customer. Data and AI is driving a lot more sophistication in terms of what companies need. And the more that companies invest in data and AI, they need the assurance that things are going to be connected, protected, uh, and secure.
[00:08:26] Rodney: And so for us, what we’ve been looking at is how are customers buying and how are they ultimately making decisions today? It’s not even the traditional, uh, you know, IT buyer. It’s line of business decision makers. Uh, it can be the marketing department making decisions on something like a demand gen. Uh, you know, data repository that then connects back into some I.
[00:08:48] Rodney: T. System that they didn’t use to connect it to their overall commerce cloud. It could be a number of things. But for us, it’s Cisco. It’s how are we enabling our programs to adjust to those buying patterns and needs? How are we enabling partners to connect to other partners? I was in a conversation yesterday with our good friend J.
[00:09:10] Rodney: McBain from countless. And we talked about the number of organizations, like a midsize organization typically has seven plus or minus partners or companies that are engaged in helping them sustain their outcomes. When you get into large enterprises, it can be anywhere upwards of 20 to 25. And so for us, as we look to manage and map to those, our program has to evolve and will evolve so that we’re making those logical connections and creating a scenario where we’re basically.
[00:09:42] Rodney: serving up those seven entities, those seven companies that are going to go deliver outcomes, or we’re facilitating the connection of more. That’s a really significant shift from years past.
[00:09:52] Vince: Yeah, it’s a significant shift, but it’s a natural shift for Cisco, right? I started thinking about this holistically.
[00:09:58] Vince: And you know, I also talk about the role of the hyperscalers. We can’t discount that role. I think a lot of organizations tend to ignore the fact that these large cloud commitments, right? There’s We’ll use Microsoft as an example. Let’s call it 50, 000 field sellers.
[00:10:13] Rodney: Yes.
[00:10:13] Vince: That are going into these organizations and saying, you know, consume more of our Azure.
[00:10:18] Vince: These decisions are now being made, not in the line of business, they’re being made at the board level. Absolutely. At the C suite level. The CEO is the new CIO in many respects, right? Because they’re really driving a set of different behaviors, which are then in the line of business consuming against. And so their role is important.
[00:10:35] Vince: And I know you’ve been partnering along with with these organizations and you have some thoughts about how to take the company in the future, but we can’t forget that. And the fact that marketplaces are also going to become more significant. Yes, and I know Cisco has a big commitment to marketplace as well.
[00:10:49] Rodney: Yeah, that’s a fairly significant shift for not just Cisco, but the entire industry. And you look at the addressable market and depending on how you look at it or through what lens you get to numbers that are 250 billion. Yeah. Uh, to 85 billion over a certain period of time. And I look squarely at that 85 billion for what we do as Cisco as an addressable market over the next couple of years.
[00:11:11] Rodney: And to your point, these companies are basically making commitments to AWS and EDP, Azure and Microsoft on commit to consume, where they have to basically spend in a certain amount of time on projects that are going to drive more cloud consumption for these hyperscalers. And so for a company like Cisco, it’s, you know, what are we doing to re platform our core assets onto those clouds so that those customers can take advantage of that as well?
[00:11:44] Rodney: Or how are we opting our services, because we are software services and hardware, how are we opting our services so they can also be a part of these broader negotiated terms from AWS, Microsoft, GCP, and others? It’s a massive push for us. We’ve made a pretty significant investment both on Splunk as well as on, uh, at Cisco, where we are driving growth upwards of 40 to 55 percent year over year business with hyperscalers.
[00:12:15] Rodney: And I love to talk about it because we have to remind our partners that there’s an opportunity for them to participate in that as well. It’s not an AWS and Cisco sell. It’s an AWS, Cisco and insert name of partner.
[00:12:31] Vince: So you are speaking my language. I mean, so I got up at the channel partners event this past spring and had a conversation and it reminded me of the conversation you and I had about the cloud with our partner ecosystems back in the day when we were both leaders at Microsoft.
[00:12:45] Vince: Bunch of people that were doe eyed about this marketplace thing and really haven’t embraced it yet. And I think you’re you’re hitting the nail on the head here about getting the partner ecosystem. engaged in this whole marketplace opportunity in a bigger way. Do you want to expand on that?
[00:12:57] Rodney: Yeah, we, we have to get them involved and engaged.
[00:13:00] Rodney: A big part of my business here at Cisco, uh, is in something that we call routes to market. What are the routes to market that are driving customer outcomes? Or how, in essence, are our customers buying, back to your previous question, and what are they buying through? Managed services for our ecosystem is big because, you Our customers are needing and wanting more integration services, especially as they get involved and engage in things like a I a route to market could be a does this do we involve at scale a distributor who goes through, you know, a second tier of reseller to get to a point solution, a route to market could be something like, Hey, the I.
[00:13:41] Rodney: S. V. As the actual primary integrator, you name it. Our focus is on routes to market. And what we’ve really been building out for our partners is a muscle around this marketplace route to market. You know, what are we doing to help them get ready and prepared for that? Some of it is in just the core, uh, uh, you know, relationship building three way between an AWS, Cisco and said partner.
[00:14:07] Rodney: Some of it is in getting our partners really, really. Enabled on our core technology in order to drive something through a marketplace transaction. Transaction. Cisco is doubled down, doubled, doubling down on on networking and security. And so we’ve got to get our partners really, you know, built up around capability so that they can sell secure networking solutions through.
[00:14:32] Rodney: Marketplace. We’ve got to get our partners really enabled on a I s and and what it means to be a Cisco a I partner so that they can participate in this opportunity that is marketplace. So it gets a bit, you know, multifaceted and multidimensional, but it’s all something that’s squarely, uh, you know, a priority for Cisco.
[00:14:54] Vince: Yeah, I mean, it looks like you’re eliminating some of the complexity. From the organization, right? This, this channel complexity and bringing us into this, like, what, what is the, what is the win win here for the partner ecosystem? How do you activate that? How do you think about this broad, not only the broad portfolio, but the broad set of partners?
[00:15:12] Vince: How do you think about the activation?
[00:15:14] Rodney: Yeah, the, the activation is, is, is great. By the way, I’ve got a team that is dedicated, uh, solely focused on marketplace and marketplace acceleration and transaction. That same team, by the way. Is looking at our cloud and hyperscale partnerships as well as our ISV partnerships.
[00:15:32] Rodney: And so the first part of activation is getting us to the point where we’re building out the domain knowledge and expertise from within. Because it’s a route to market, we don’t have a handful of partners that go, Okay, these are my marketplace partners and these are my other partners. It’s just, every, every one of our partners participates in this.
[00:15:49] Rodney: I mentioned our distributors earlier. You know, some of them have their own marketplaces and some of them participate. Okay. In our hyperscalers marketplace, and we want to make sure that we’re supporting every way that we can the front end in terms of how we categorize opportunities and then the back end in terms of how we transact opportunities.
[00:16:06] Rodney: I haven’t talked a lot about that, but a big part of how we support our partners is being able to actually transact on our end. These marketplace opportunities so that they can see the incentive that we offer is Cisco. Nice. So that was a big body of work that we had to do in order to enable that as well.
[00:16:22] Vince: Yeah, because I, again, with the activation component of it, right? How do you, how do you create the there there for them, right? We could, we could talk, you and I could sit here and talk to all the partner community all we want, but until there’s the revenue recognition. the incentives. How am I going to get paid?
[00:16:36] Vince: I’m doing all this for the channel, right?
[00:16:38] Rodney: That’s right. And we spent a lot of time doing that. Now our partners know exactly how they get paid and it’s very similar to how they would get paid in a traditional transaction. And the great thing for us is we’ve also then had to match that to our internal sellers, right?
[00:16:53] Rodney: So any partner out there listening to this, by the way, it’s also marketplace transactions are great. It’s the quickest path to go. You can get paid on it and our Cisco sellers are paid exactly the same way that our partners are paid. And so everybody wins in this. The customer, the partner, and our internal team.
[00:17:11] Rodney: By the way, that’s the hierarchy. Customer, partner, and then our internal team.
[00:17:16] Vince: Yeah, and if you’re listening to this podcast and you’re not as well informed on marketplaces, those customers have already made those commitments to those hyperscalers. Right. So the money is already spent. It’s available. You don’t have to find incremental budget to go get it.
[00:17:29] Vince: So as a seller working with a customer or a partner working with a customer, you just need to ask. That’s it. Who’s your cloud provider? What’s your commitment like? Can we can we can work this through your cloud commitments? That’s the beauty of what we’re seeing.
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[00:18:31] Vince: So we can’t have a conversation today, Rodney, without talking about,
[00:18:36] Rodney: Let me guess. AI?
[00:18:37] Vince: And I feel like every conversation since November of 2022. When Chat GPT hit the ground, that seems like every conversation has embedded AI. I mean, it’s a 158 billion partner opportunity by 2029. That’s Canalys, our friend, Jay McBay’s organization has predicted it might even be bigger than that. Uh, he and I had a conversation. I said, is it, is there hype? He says, yes, there’s a little bit of hype, but I think we’re past the hype cycle now.
[00:19:10] Rodney: Yes. Yes.
[00:19:10] Vince: It’s an exciting time. And I want to hear your view and where you’re taking Cisco in this conversation.
[00:19:15] Rodney: Yeah, well, it is definitely not hype. Uh, it’s definitely forcing A. I. Being it is definitely forcing every organization to rethink how they operate and it’s okay that every conversation is around A.
[00:19:30] Rodney: I. Because it is that important. It’s the next wave. It’s what the Internet was for us many years ago. It’s what the move to cloud was for us many years ago. And A. I. Is here to stay at Cisco. I want to parse this in the two things. One is how we’re thinking about it broadly as a company. And then I want to take separately how we’re enabling our ecosystem to do it, because I think it’s important to cover both of those things.
[00:19:52] Rodney: Uh, you know, events that Cisco, you know, for the last 40 years has been primarily a networking company and really a networking and security company. And that hasn’t changed. Networking is at the core of what we do. And we think networking and the network itself is at the core of the AI opportunity.
[00:20:10] Rodney: There’s really a few ways that we think about how we power AI and how we focus on it from Cisco. The first is powering AI ready data centers. And I’m going to try to double click on, on, on, on each of these, by the way. The second is focusing on what we call future proofed workplaces. And the last thing in that.
[00:20:32] Rodney: That supports it all is this notion and concept of digital resilience. If I start with a data center and we look at the progress that we’ve made or the stalls that we’ve had, you have things like high latency and low efficiency that were very frustrating. And in today’s AI world, it just doesn’t work.
[00:20:50] Rodney: It undermines a lot of the investments. That’s right. And so for us, Cisco is revolutionizing how infrastructure and data connect to protect organizations and allow the facilitation And that means reimagining the data center for increased bandwidth and efficiency, driving cost lower, focusing on things like sustainability.
[00:21:12] Rodney: If you look at our overall portfolio, and I mentioned networking and security earlier, we’re really the only company that brings the power of the network together with industry leading security, observability, and collaboration. So that puts us in somewhat of a unique category. In and of itself, especially today.
[00:21:30] Rodney: Absolutely. Absolutely. And when you look at further on the on the data center and the networking piece today, we have over 31 million networking devices that connect over a billion clients every month and our security suite observes more than 800 billion events per day. So when you look at the totality of the AI ready data data center, we’re really poised to maximize the opportunity for our customers and to help them again and protect them in this AI era.
[00:21:59] Rodney: If I just click on workspaces and workplaces just for a second, and when you hear workplace and you think about it in the context of AI, we automatically go to, you know, Hey, what’s our post pandemic, you know, office plan to get employees back in. That’s not what we’re talking about here. When we talk about workplaces, and when we talk about future proof workplaces, the workplace isn’t just the office where we go to work anymore.
[00:22:24] Rodney: We need secure networking, and we need AI in operating rooms, we need it in cruise ships, we need it in banks, we need it everywhere, and we need to know how AI is being delivered across the networking, uh, excuse me, across the network, and ultimately how we collaborate In that same environment. So again, it’s not just the networking and the security, but it’s ultimately in those workplaces, how we’re collaborating, and that’s key.
[00:22:51] Rodney: And the last thing I’ll touch on is digital resilience, and this is really looking at how all of the things, the two things that I just talk about operate in a company’s own network, and then their non own network and how we’re driving a seamless and secure experience across both of those things. So it’s a really comprehensive approach to AI that we’re taking.
[00:23:12] Vince: And such an important approach. First of all, I want to just touch on the fact this, uh, the investments that are going on right now in data centers. Yes. I mean, I use Microsoft because I know the numbers from their reports. But, 50 billion dollars this year. Yes. Just in build out. Chips in data centers. You need to have a reliable, fast, and resilient network.
[00:23:32] Vince: Let’s talk about security. I mean, we’re, we’re hit with threats all the time. Let’s say from bad actors, from criminals, uh, having been on the public side of Microsoft, public sector side of Microsoft, I got to see some of that firsthand. And no one, no one does a better job here than Cisco in driving that.
[00:23:51] Vince: And the observability, and we talk about it, IOT and some of the other areas, bringing it down to the point of use is so important. And, and, and, and. And securing all of that and making sure you have reliable connections and all of that is so important. Yeah. And AI is going to drive more and more usage for everyone.
[00:24:08] Rodney: Yeah, and that’s why we are committed to, uh, the strategy that I just talked about. Because again, it is, it is the network that’s at the center of it. It is. Uh, and again, that’s the core of what we’ve done at Cisco for, for years and years. Uh, and if I go back to the partner piece, because we are here, I want to talk.
[00:24:28] Vince: I want to ask you about that. I’m glad you’re bringing back the partners.
[00:24:33] Rodney: I got to take it back. I’m like, there’s a role that we need partners to play.
[00:24:33] Vince: This is the ultimate guide to partner. So, so tell me, what are the imperatives? Like, what do partners need to think about? What do they need to go differently? Do differently here now?
[00:24:43] Rodney: Yeah, it’s not so much to do differently, but I want to focus on three things that our partners need to really be focused on. Okay. One is to, is to really get educated on the Cisco AI story. And it’s not just the story for the sake of telling the story, but Cisco has been focused on AI for over a decade.
[00:25:03] Rodney: And we really started, uh, introducing, uh, areas and aspects of AI into, uh, silicon based projects, into, uh, different pieces of, of, of products that we’ve been building. We’ve been playing around and, and focused on AI agents For many, many years, and now we have a single AI agent that spans across our entire portfolio.
[00:25:25] Rodney: And so the first is partners getting educated on, on Cisco and our overall approach to AI and what we’ve been doing over the years. The next thing is really leaning in on the networking and the security expertise and capability. We have thousands and thousands of networking partners that are in the market today working on behalf of Cisco everyday and with Cisco everyday.
[00:25:49] Rodney: Thousands and thousands of security partners. How do we get to a point of secure networking and how do those two constituents, those two partners that are deep in each of those architectures work together, or those who already have capability in both really lean in and build on their, their position of strength, because that’s our starting point is Cisco.
[00:26:11] Rodney: So that would be thing. Number two, thing three, I touched on it just a little bit in, in the previous response, but it’s really getting focused on enablement. Like, we’ve made a pretty significant investment in enabling, helping our partners along this journey around networking and security, helping them get familiar with telling the story.
[00:26:32] Rodney: I think we are less than three months in and we’ve got over, uh, 500 partners that have gone through our AI, uh, for fundamentals. Uh, course, which is, which has been awesome, and over 450 of our partners, and we’ve got over 1200 that are, that are signed up today to go through that. So we’re seeing more and more uptick and more and more interest in that today.
[00:26:53] Rodney: And that would be the three things that I direct partners.
[00:26:56] Vince: Yeah. So that enablement and activation, right, bringing them along, having them, you know, cross-trained, I guess is the, is the terminology I would’ve used for that. And then having them show the success of the program, right? That’s exactly right.
[00:27:06] Vince: That’ll build that flywheel. That’s exactly right. So, where are you headed? I mean, you’re sharing so much today, and I’m so appreciative of the time, kind of opening up the kimono with us here at Ultimate Guide to partnering to tell your story and your vision for the future of Cisco. Where are you headed?
[00:27:24] Rodney: Yeah, for us, it’s it’s building, uh, an ecosystem starting. I always start when I say ecosystem at the breath of partners that we have. How are we building up their capabilities? And I’m going to go away from AI just for a second and go back to the to the architecture pillars of networking, security, collaboration, uh, and ultimately cloud and AI.
[00:27:49] Rodney: And what are we doing to go deep? And help our partners really build out their expertise around that. Now, in addition to that, we also have a life cycle that, that we support. How are we enabling our partners to support the usage of our products? Yes, hugely important. And we’re investing in ensuring that our partners are able and capable of doing that, not just going deep in the architecture, but able to support ultimately the life cycle that all of our partners are going through.
[00:28:17] Rodney: And then in this world that we live in today, it’s a competitive world. You know, we want our partners adding new logos and new customers. And how are we enabling that? And so our future is based on going deep in those architectures and then connecting the dots so that we get this platform effect of companies who were invested across multiple areas of architecture for us.
[00:28:39] Rodney: And then it’s building a definition of what a successful Cisco partner looks like across performance. across enablement, across engagement, and those things become our primary push into the future.
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[00:29:48] Vince: You said something here. I want to make sure we dive in a little bit on, or maybe emphasize you said platform and I truly believe we, Cisco is not a product or technology company. It’s a platform company.
[00:30:01] Rodney: Absolutely. Absolutely. And when you start to see the power of networking and security working together, I talked about workplaces and the fact that it’s secure networking and it’s also collab in those spaces.
[00:30:16] Rodney: You start to string those two, those three things together in our portfolio and you start to see them compound. That’s right. And established or in essence, create this platform effect. That’s where we’re taking our Cisco partner ecosystem.
[00:30:31] Vince: And I also think about the partners that I know out there, you and I both know, that are partners with the hyperscalers, that are partners with some of the other ISVs.
[00:30:40] Vince: There are a lot of partners today that are bringing the whole portfolio to the customer. Yes. We’ve had some of them as guests on our podcast. Yes. Some of them are multi billion dollar companies, some of them are smaller organizations. But they also enhance and they bring the capabilities of the Cisco platform along with the other platforms. And they’re already poised for this.
[00:30:58] Rodney: Yeah, yeah. You said something that’s key. And, and that is that some of them are, are large, and some of them are not. That’s right. In our new world, what we’re building is a capable partner who can deliver on the promise of a customer, right? And so you balance across performance and transaction, and you blend that with capability, uh, and you blend that with a proven track record of, you know, adding customers and managing the lifecycle.
[00:31:26] Rodney: Yeah. And you start to see not only those partners who are already established in our ecosystem continue to grow and develop, but you start to see these boutique partners, I’ll call them for lack of a better term, that start to rise up in significance because they’re either building and, and, and driving to this notion of platform effect or their partner to partner or their partnering strategy has them working with other organizations that are also Similar to them.
[00:31:53] Rodney: And so it’s for our broad ecosystem in terms of how we’re building and designing. And it’s also for our largest and most capable partners. And we’re basically working on both ends of it to ensure that at the end of the day, the customer wins at the end because they’ve got a capable Cisco partner.
[00:32:10] Vince: And the customer makes their decision based on their trusted advisors by the organizations that they have brought along or brought them along.
[00:32:18] Vince: Yeah. And I’ll, I’ll add another point here because without sharing the name of the hyperscaler or the person who told me this, but a lot of the multi party offers the things that are going on now where the hyperscaler is bringing along a transactional or selling partner along to the customer.
[00:32:36] Vince: They’re not the traditional partners of the past. They’re new partners, and they’re surprised by that.
[00:32:41] Rodney: Yes Yes, and that’s what our our future is designed to capture Yes, you know those those those new partners who again I called them boutique earlier You described it much better than I did because boutique doesn’t translate everywhere But hey a partner that maybe has been a niche partner, you know a specialty partner focused on XDRs You know as a security stamp now all of a sudden they have relevance in this Because XDR could be a part of a broader security, um, you know, opportunity, uh, and an outcome that a customer wants to deliver.
[00:33:13] Rodney: And now all of a sudden, they’ve been elevated because of the investments that they’ve made. And so we’re really trying to, to, to rebalance this so that we give, uh, equal footing to that, that, that, that small partner who’s got, you know, a niche area of focus and expertise, but super capable. Working alongside either one that looks like them or even a larger one that perhaps could be an integrator and not necessarily an ISV or the labels that we sometimes put on partners.
[00:33:41] Vince: Yeah. We do that. Don’t. Yeah. So big vision and for partners watching or listening to great opportunities, right. For growth, for continued growth and success. Like organizations, how do I make money today? How do I sustain, how do I survive? During what is still economic headwinds that we’re seeing right now.
[00:33:59] Vince: But that vision requires a mindset. It requires changes to culture and organization. And you’ve, you know, you’re coming here from with a very storied background of another organization and a growth mindset. How do you infuse some of that? How do you make the cultural changes that are necessary to take Cisco into the future?
[00:34:18] Rodney: This one is actually easy. Um, I said it to my team yesterday. The cheat code for me is just using voice of customer. and voice of partner. Our customers have already made the choice. That’s right. The market has already responded. And so it’s up to us to ensure that we stay one step ahead of the market. I like to tell my teams that the pace of innovation at Cisco is like ridiculously awesome right now.
[00:34:49] Rodney: It is, we’re in a really good spot, uh, and we’re building new products and incorporating new capabilities every single day. Our partner ecosystem and our push has to stay one step ahead of that.
[00:35:02] Vince: I love that.
[00:35:03] Rodney: We do 90 percent of our business through our ecosystem And if our ecosystem is not ready to sell the innovation that we’re building Then our customers lose at the end of the day.
[00:35:13] Rodney: So customer voice Market data and insight drives in essence our pace Uh, which has to be again a bit faster than market so that we enable all of our partners to participate in the opportunity.
[00:35:28] Vince: So I’m sure you’re on a listening tour right now, right?
[00:35:31] Rodney: Every day, every day is a listening tour.
[00:35:32] Rodney: Yeah, yeah. Some would say that, uh, you know, not always with both ears, but, uh, but every day is a listening tour. And that’s the, that’s the important thing in this, in this day and age and at the pace of innovation. Uh, we can’t be afraid to, to, to try new things. Yeah. We’ve heard the term fail fast. Yeah, that’s that’s kind of we know what that means.
[00:35:54] Rodney: But for us, we don’t want to fail at the expense of our customers and partners. So we have to take very informed but quick decisions. And that is a cultural shift for us at Cisco as well as our broader ecosystem. But everyone understands why it needs to happen that way.
[00:36:13] Vince: So what do you believe after being on this listening tour every day?
[00:36:17] Vince: What do you believe makes a great partner for Cisco?
[00:36:20] Rodney: We have an incredibly loyal partner base. Vince, I was like surprised. I joined Cisco in January, but I had a two month preview because I, I, I participated in partner summit, uh, last year in November and I walked in and after my first day, I’m like, is, is it just me being here and you know, the partners are being really nice.
[00:36:48] Rodney: Some of the same partners that I did business with in my previous, at my previous employer. And after day three, I’m like, Oh my gosh, like these partners love Cisco and Cisco loves these partners. And so for me coming in, knowing that we already have a loyal partner base was like unbelievable. I can’t describe it.
[00:37:11] Rodney: And I try to, and I never find the right words because it’s not the world that I came from previously. Now the push that I give, and when you are that loyal, you know, Hey, if you’re walking down the street with your best friend. You know, if you notice a hole in the back of his shoe, are you going to tell him?
[00:37:27] Rodney: Well, you got a decision to make, right? So I want to know not only that there’s a hole in my shoe, but I need a new one. And I want to know what kind of shoes I should be wearing. Terrible analogy, but I think we get it.
[00:37:38] Vince: I think you’re right, though. People are afraid to give the unvarnished truth sometimes.
[00:37:43] Rodney: Yeah. And so where we, you know, the, the feedback comes in, it’s like, you know, Hey dude, you got a hole in your shoe. But I’m like, no, maybe I also need some new shoes. Yes. And so the, the point there is that while we have this very loyal partner base and that’s kind of the, the, the charm of our relationship with the ecosystem at Cisco, we, we should be pushing each other a little harder to make sure that we We stay, uh, you know, focused on customer outcomes and that we maintain the share positions and the profitability more importantly. That we expect to see.
[00:38:19] Vince: I want to touch on something here because I do think it’s important like this change from channel to what I’ll call co selling. Yes. And infusing that change in behavior into the organization. How do you see that happening?
[00:38:31] Rodney: Yeah, we’ve done that very successfully. I mentioned our marketplace growth being, you know, upwards of, you know, in the, in the 50 percent.
[00:38:38] Rodney: Yep. Our co sell business, uh, has grown similarly. Uh, co sell is, is a, is, is a bit more fluid for us. Because we can get some of our hardware, uh, uh, components and pieces in there as well as software and services. And so we’ve had tremendous success with Microsoft, with, with AWS and a number of other companies on CoSell, uh, contributing quite a bit, uh, new, uh, new incremental revenue for us over the last 45% Uh, year over year.
[00:39:12] Rodney: And so that becomes, we talked about routes to market, that becomes another way that we partner to get ultimately customers, you know, the outcomes that they’re looking for.
[00:39:22] Vince: What about, are there any challenges you’d like to highlight that partners face that they need to think about addressing?
[00:39:29] Rodney: Not so much that partners need to think about addressing.
[00:39:32] Rodney: I think we have to tackle those things together. You know, for us being a large company, uh, we get saddled with this term of complexity. Uh, and, and it occurred that once or twice, just once or twice. Uh, you and I were kidding, I think last week where I’m like, I haven’t seen a partner program that doesn’t have complexity associated with it.
[00:39:52] Rodney: And then at the same time, uh, the, the onus is on us to, to make sure that we simplify, uh, we want to make sure that we’re driving cost out of doing business as opposed to adding costs. And so that’s been a big focus of our, of ours as well. You know, everything from our back end systems to our incentive programs and how many we manage and ask our partners to manage to our expectations of them in terms of things like co selling or things like deal registration.
[00:40:22] Rodney: All of those are efforts on our end to be. You know, uh, to drive more simplicity. Uh, and we’ve got probably seven or eight different initiatives that we’ll, we’ll share more on in the, uh, in the October timeframe.
[00:40:35] Vince: I was, I was going to bring up October. I know you’ve got your big partner event.
[00:40:39] Rodney: I’m so pumped. So excited.
[00:40:41] Vince: Is there anything you can share with us ahead of time? Or is it, is it…
[00:40:44] Rodney: I think what I can share is, is I’m really excited for our theme this year, which is forward as one forward is one, and that if that doesn’t capture Ultimately, where we want to be with our ecosystem, I don’t know what does.
[00:40:59] Rodney: We talk about, today, this notion and concept internally of One Cisco. Our partners are included in that as well, because they’re such a key and critical part of how we deliver value. And so, Forward as One basically pulls them into the fold. It says, hey, you know, as we march forward, as we pace on our innovation, as we pace on our program evolution, forward as one.
[00:41:22] Rodney: Uh, as we pace on on everything, driving simplicity that we’re doing it with our partners. As one.
[00:41:29] Vince: Forward as one. And what are the dates of your big partner event?
[00:41:32] Rodney: We are October 27 through 30, and someone is going to yell at me in a second that’s here in the, the studio audience and tell me of whether or not those are the right dates.
[00:41:45] Rodney: Uh, but we’re in Los Angeles this year, Los Angeles, and I’m pretty, I’m pretty excited about that.
[00:41:49] Vince: Okay. Well I’m looking forward to being with you.
[00:41:50] Rodney: Yeah, yeah. Looking forward to seeing you there as well.
[00:41:53] Vince: That’s really exciting to be there and for our partners. listening today to be the it’s an exciting time.
[00:41:58] Vince: Forward is one. I love it. So we can’t have an interviewer conversation without me asking this question I ask this, this is my favorite question, I ask this of each of my guests… you’re hosting a dinner party and you can invite any three guests from the present or the past. We had one or two guests actually pick people in the future to be at this amazing dinner party. We can talk about where we’re gonna have this party, too. I love your locations. I know you just came back from Europe, and, uh, I’m about ready to head over that way. Um, whom would you invite to this amazing dinner party and why?
[00:42:38] Rodney: Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Okay, I’m gonna talk a little bit while I build myself into my guest list. All right, great. Um, first off, I love hosting people at home. And I love cooking and in particular this time of year, I’m on the grill.
[00:42:52] Vince: I have seen posts from you.
[00:42:54] Rodney: Yes. Yes. I love, I love to barbecue. And so let’s assume that there’s a, there’s a rib and a beer associated with this, right? Whether or not my guests are going to appreciate that. That’s how it’s going to go down.
[00:43:05] Rodney: So we’re going to start there. Um, yeah, three people. Okay. I’m going to go with, um, This is totally influenced by a recent trip that I took, but, uh, uh, Plato,
[00:43:22] Vince: Plato.
[00:43:23] Rodney: Yeah. And, and not, not the seasoned, you know, hardened philosopher that, that he became later in life. But I want that like fresh 15 year old, you know, uninhibited free thinker, and just really get into the mind of some of that formative thinking.
[00:43:43] Rodney: And, and as I’m, as I’m building my list, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll now start to see and, and just the conversations that, that, that we’d have, uh, let me, let me keep going because…
[00:43:51] Vince: Well, I, I was thinking about it with, with Plato, especially about how he influenced the ages. Yes. Really. Yes. I mean, not just, not just the Greeks, but the Romans and then beyond.
[00:44:00] Rodney: So much influence, right, across so many things from, from, from religion, uh, to taboo topics at the time of things like, like, like sex to, uh, to just general philosophy around, you know, how the world should, should evolve to even sometimes economics for the time, just like really, really incredible breadth of, of influence.
[00:44:23] Rodney: Uh, and so, uh, I’m, I’m just enamored lately with Plato. My second guess, not necessarily in order. Uh, Muhammad Ali. I think he could give Plato a run for his money, by the way.
[00:44:35] Vince: Uh, yes, that would be very cool. By the way. I’d love to have you both in the same room.
[00:44:40] Rodney: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and that’s, that, that would be amazing.
[00:44:43] Rodney: And, and, uh, although I, I knew you were an gonna ask a similar question, but I really wasn’t prepared to think about it until just now. But, um, obviously a hero for, for many of us who grew up in that era. Uh, not because of his athleticism, but because of the stances that he took, uh, both from a, a political standpoint, uh, the piece that he tried to drive and create, uh, within his life, and just the, the, the figure that, that, that he was.
[00:45:07] Vince: Challenged, the status quo in so many areas.
[00:45:09] Rodney: Yeah. Yeah. And can I cheat and go four?
[00:45:12] Vince: Absolutely.
[00:45:13] Rodney: Okay. So, um, you know, the fourth is, uh, it’s hard to ignore what’s happening in the U. S. right now, uh, and, uh, although I don’t want to politicize our conversation, uh, but wow, I would love to have Kamala on the day, Kamala Harris on the day that she found out that she was going to actually be in, you know, in, in run for the nomination, right?
[00:45:38] Rodney: Uh, and, and, and just really get that fresh thinking and perspective based on today’s issues. And then that conversation. And I’m gonna round it off with a fourth, which is my Dad. Uh, who’s no longer with us. Uh, but, uh, one, we’d laugh to no end. At the conversation that would happen between the other three.
[00:45:58] Rodney: Uh, and then too, he, he, uh, he was a bit of a philosopher himself and I think he can give both Plato and, and, and Muhammad Ali a run for their money.
[00:46:07] Vince: Well, and I know a little bit about your dad from our previous conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was an executive at IBM.
[00:46:12] Rodney: That’s right. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. So that would, that would round out my, uh, my dinner table.
[00:46:16] Vince: That is an amazing, do you mind if I come along? I can bring dessert. What a conversation. I just, I’m just thinking about this conversation now. Like Muhammad Ali riffing with Plato. Can you see it? Maybe challenging him a little bit on some of his philosophy.
[00:46:32] Vince: Kamala come in. I want to hear what happened. I really want to hear that conversation that Sunday.
[00:46:39] Rodney: succulent ribs.
[00:46:40] Vince: I love it. I love it. And your dad and rainier beer, right? Rainier beer and your dad along for the conversation as well. Well, that’s a fascinating group.
[00:46:49] Vince: And I’m excited to join you for that dinner. So I want to thank you for that. Um, before we leave today, I want to ask you one more question. Um, we are getting towards the end of the year. You’ve got a lot. You’re going to share in the near future. Yes, sir. This leaning in for partners. I want to I want to maybe ask you to give the partners watching and listening today.
[00:47:08] Vince: A lot of them might be the first time they’re listening or watching ultimate guide to partnering because they’ve been Cisco partners and not hyperscaler partners. What advice would you give them for setting up for success going into the new year?
[00:47:21] Rodney: Yeah, it’s a good question, and we’re going to spend a lot of time on this in the next month.
[00:47:25] Rodney: And, you know, we’re talking about Cisco is a company that has a core in networking. And security. I touched on that a couple of times today. Very intentionally, you know, success for us is aligning to our priority architectures, of course, of which networking is one security is one cloud and A. I being one collaboration being another.
[00:47:47] Rodney: We want to work with our ecosystem to build that platform effect that we talked about, and we need partners to go deep in each of those so that we can start connecting all of these dots together to bring this value. And so it’s Go deep from a certification standpoint from an enablement standpoint in each of those areas and then work with your PAMS Work with your partner account managers to really understand what it means to support Cisco engagement across the lifecycle and with that will come the addition of new customers and logos And so really our whole conversation has been that blueprint of really what I’m asking partners to do But now more than ever We need to really harness the moment.
[00:48:32] Rodney: And this week, by the way, our theme is meet the moment. I almost went into script, so I’m going to do it because I’m already there. We really need to meet the moment and make sure that all of our partners are focused on those things.
[00:48:43] Vince: Yeah. I think what you’re saying resonates so well with me, hopefully for our viewers and listeners too, and these platforms coming together.
[00:48:50] Vince: And I have a, I’m of a firm belief by the way, that there’s going to be consolidation. Of these platforms over a period of time, we are no longer going to be stitching together thousands of different SAS solutions over a period of time because the security risks are so great. That’s right. We’re going to start to see this consolidation and Cisco is so poised to be part of that.
[00:49:11] Rodney: Yeah, I think we are. Yeah.
[00:49:13] Vince: So great to see you, my friend.
[00:49:16] Rodney: Good to see you. So great. Thanks for having me on the, uh, on the podcast.
[00:49:18] Vince: Thank you for hosting me here in beautiful Las Vegas, Nevada for our ultimate guide to partnering episode. Rodney. So great. Thanks. Thank you so much. Yeah. Appreciate it. And thank you for watching.
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[00:49:51] Vince: Hopefully this episode and all the episodes we’ve recorded are helping you better align your partner strategy to achieve your greatest results. So I want to ask you something. Have you implemented everything you’ve been learning? And are you now achieving the growth and revenue objectives that you hope to achieve?
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