EDITOR’S QUESTION
Understanding the value of
specialisation
Frida Kleimert Knibbs, Head of Channels and Commercial UAE region, Cisco Systems Middle
East, explains recent measures to rationalise the regional partner programme based on
technology life cycles, end user expectations, and business longevity of channel partners.
H
ow has your channel
partner programme been
updated to reflect changing
end user expectations, new
technology lifecycles, ongoing
digital transformation, recent
mergers and acquisitions,
and changing macroeconomic
fundamentals, amongst
others
“
The era of the general physician
is over,” mentions Frida Kleimert
Knibbs, who took over as Head of
Channels and Commercial UAE region,
Cisco Systems Middle East, in September
this year, managing five countries including
UAE, Oman, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan.
With the fast changing technology life
cycle dynamics as well IT purchasing
decisions, one of the first initiatives inside
the Cisco partner programme has been to
take a reality check between the number
of certified partners and the market
opportunities and market demands.
52
Market opportunities for channel
partners appear to be more favourable
for those moving towards focus and
specialisation, rather than partners who
share the same qualifications and therefore
end up competing with each other in
overlapping opportunities
Cisco’s current initiative is to get partners
to specialise across a much broader range
of Advanced Specialisations. This gives
partners a two-fold benefit. One they will
tend to much less compete with each other
and the second is they will be able to capture
market opportunities better, if they are more
distributed. Relooking at the specialisations
of partners is also linked to the number
of Cisco partners in each of these partner
programme segments.
“I noticed we had a lot of partners, a lot
of gold and premier partners, hundreds
of select and registered partners. I was
looking for this difference to create a value
for each partner and each customer, and
not having too many of the same and gaps,”
explains Frida. The emphasis is therefore
to convert many of the generalists partners
into specialists so they straddle market
opportunities better and complete less with
each other. Since Gold partners require a
minimum volume of deal opportunities, with
spending budgets shrinking in traditional IT
projects, they are likely to get better returns
in moving to other areas of specialisations
that may not have been tapped before.
“We still have these gaps in the market.
My call to the market is, if you go more
specialised you will not all be doing the same
sort of project and you can add your value as
a partner in the special area,” she elaborates.
In other words, the current effort by Cisco
is to get a better rationalisation between the
capability of the partner, the partners go
to market investment, and the right Cisco
specialisation area. Cisco is itself moving
away from kits and products into services,
recurring revenue, software, and that
requires a level of intimacy, with the industry
and technology solution providers. “So we
are trying to give the right tool box to the
right partner.”
Another disruption in the end user market
is the discussion on business outcomes with
channel partners within any IT project.
Issue 02
INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS