Cisco’s partner program is getting quite long in the tooth. In fact, its foundations date back to 1998. Chuck Robbins, Cisco’s CEO, had only just started at the company back then. It has been modified, of course, but fundamentally it is still basically the same program. So it was about time something was changed about that. That is what Cisco announces during this year’s Partner Summit. It’s safe to say that with the Cisco 360 Partner Program, Cisco is reinventing the partner program.
The announcement of AI PODs and the new UCS server we talk about in an earlier article is important for Cisco and, by extension, for its partners and those partners’ customers. Yet it is not the biggest news from a Cisco perspective at this year’s Partner Summit in Los Angeles. That is, without a doubt, the announcement of the Cisco 360 Partner Program.
The Cisco 360 Partner Program is a big step for Cisco, which brings in more than 90 percent of its roughly $50 billion in annual revenue through partners. We talk about this at the Partner Summit with José van Dijk, who is responsible for the partner side of things for EMEA.
High time, but Cisco doesn’t rush in
Van Dijk points out that the Cisco 360 Partner Program is much more than a new name for an existing program. It is a fundamental change for all of Cisco and also for the partners. That’s why the business units are transitioning one by one. Security is up first, with networking, collaboration, cloud and AI to follow sequentially in March and observability in April early next year. The entire process should be completed by Feb. 1 of 2026. The whole thing will be driven from the Partner Experience Platform (PXP), which could be seen as the first step toward the Cisco 360 Partner Program, a move Cisco made at last year’s Partner Summit.
The innovations in the partner program are really needed, according to Van Dijk: “The program was so complex that you needed a Phd to understand it. That’s also why we came up with PXP last year.” Above all, the revamped program will reward partners better than it does now, she indicates. “We want to optimize and improve profitability,” Van Dijk says. That will be music to many partners’ ears. Cisco also wants to start actively helping partners with the upcoming changes. This is really necessary, because a lot is changing for them as well. Therefore, an investment of $80 million is immediately linked to this new program to help partners with this.
In the Cisco 360 Partner Program, things like lifecycle management and managed services are a very important metric in determining how Cisco rewards partners. In addition, the investments partners make in developing skills and expanding the customer base also play a larger role than they do now. Furthermore, the various partner tiers are being renamed and better categorized, and Cisco wants the new program to better support partners who want to focus on a specific segment, or rather the entire portfolio.
Why wait until now?
The partner program did not suddenly become very complex this year or last year. When we note that and ask why Cisco didn’t do this sooner, Van Dijk says they certainly thought about it before: “But this is not something you just do overnight. If you think carefully about what these changes mean, it’s much more than a rebranding. Changing how you compensate partners gets to the heart of what Cisco does. It’s much more than flipping a switch. Cisco has to fundamentally adapt to it and so do the partners. That takes time.”
In terms of timing, Cisco has picked quite a challenging time for the move to the Cisco 360 Partner Program. After all, with the rise of AI, it’s not easy to predict what impact it will have on this program. “But if we don’t do it now, when will we?”, Van Dijk asks the rhetorical question. The new program is fundamentally flexible, so Cisco can move quickly if things change. “We need to focus on enablement and make everything available for that,” she points out. That’s where all the focus should be. Then this new program and its timing is not a risk, but an opportunity, she believes.
All in all, the Cisco 360 Partner Program is a fundamental update to a fundamental part of what Cisco does. The company’s current focus on the One Platform story from a technology perspective fits seamlessly into this. The ways in which Cisco plans to reward partners are also related to that message. With it, it wants to encourage partners to do more business from that platform angle as well. So if Cisco gets this right, it could work out very well for Cisco and therefore for its partners. One thing is for sure, there are fifteen pretty busy months coming up for both sides of the partner aisle.