Tag: Partner Program

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Cisco 360 Partner Program: Driving Partner and Customer Value in in the AI Era

This blog summarises the key updates from Cisco Partner Summit 2025 regarding the Cisco 360 Partner Program and its impact on partner profitability, customer value, cross-selling, AI specialisations, and new pathways. This new partner programme takes much inspiration from the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme, which has successfully aligned partner incentives with their strategic priorities like AI Adoption, Cloud Transformation and Customer Success (through growth of usage and adoption).

Both Cisco and Microsoft’s programmes now share a common philosophy: simply engagement, reward capability, reward cross selling and prioritise high-growth focus technology areas.

Feature Cisco 360 Partner Program Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program
Launch Date January 2026 July 2022 (ongoing evolution)
Structure 2 tiers: Cisco Partner & Cisco Preferred Partner Capability-based scoring replacing legacy Gold/Silver
Focus Areas Networking, Security, Cloud & AI Infrastructure, Splunk, Collaboration, Services AI Business Solutions, Cloud & AI Platforms, Security
Profitability Model Cisco Partner Incentive (CPI) + Partner Value Index (PVI) Rebates tied to customer consumption & solution areas
Specialisations Secure AI Infrastructure, Secure Networking (Feb 2026) AI Solutions Partner designation + advanced specialisations
Cross-Sell Incentives Yes – portfolio breadth bonus Yes – solution area expansion incentives
Enablement Tools Cisco AI Assistant, Cisco U., Demo Labs Microsoft Learn, AI Skills Hub, Partner Centre
Goal Predictable profitability & AI-driven growth Accelerate cloud & AI adoption with partner-led success

This means new opportunities to increase margins, differentiate through specialisations, and deliver integrated solutions that meet customer demands for AI-ready infrastructure and secure digital workplaces.

Key Highlights from Cisco 360

As we get close to the launch of the new Cisco 360 programme, this post aims to summarise the key changes to the programme which come into effect at the end of January 2026. These are:

Profitability Through Predictability

Cisco Partner Incentive (CPI): A unified incentive structure replacing legacy programs like VIP and Perform Plus.

  1. Partner Value Index (PVI): A new metric that measures partners across four pillars—foundational, capabilities, performance, and engagement—providing transparency and predictability in rewards.
  2. Eligible Offers List: Focused on high-growth areas such as AI, security, campus refresh, and premium services.
  3. Partners can model earnings using the Cisco Partner Incentive Estimator, available post-Summit, to plan rebate strategies effectively.

New Incentives and Bonuses

These are aimed to incentive and promote better partner seller behaviour by essentially driving sellers to cross sell other Cisco portfolio elements and reward partners for doing so- think “bingo card“. These include

  1. Cross-Sell Bonus: Rewards portfolio breadth – encouraging partners to deliver integrated solutions across Cisco’s ecosystem.
  2. Next Generation Specialisation Bonus: These recognises partners that exhibit “deep expertise” in advanced technologies – through certifications, proven install ability (via proof) which in turn will unlocking additional partner rebates.

These bonuses are designed to drive durable growth and ensure partners can earn as more by selling / cross selling more and therefore earning more than under the previous partner rebate programs.

AI-Centric Specialisations

Cisco also re-confirmed that from February 2026, Cisco Partners can earn two new AI focussed specialisations:

  • Secure AI Infrastructure
  • Secure Networking

These are designed to validate partner expertise in designing and deploying AI-ready architectures using Cisco’s integrated hardware, software, and services. Cisco have said that these will unlock “additional incentive bonuses”, making AI a critical profitability lever for partners and also providing revenue (through rebate) back to partners to continue to invest in people, skilling and labs to drive these solutions forward faster.

Enablement and Skills Development

Cisco has always invested heavily in skilling and partner enablement since their partners are key to Cisco growth and deployment capability. This investment has increased year on year and this year, they have announced a refresh to their training and learning paths with:

  • Partner Learning Journeys: These are refreshed role-based training paths for technical, support and sales teams- with Cisco expressing the importance of continuous learning with the pace of digital and AI change.
  • Cisco AI Assistant for Partners: AI-powered access to multilingual content and training resources which can be tailored for specific use cases, scenarios and learning levels.
  • Cisco U. AI Skills Expansion: New investments and content to enhance “practical” hands-on training in AI, data analysis, and API integration to help partners better develop devops capabilities to drive greater value with customer solutions.
  • Advanced Cloud Demo Labs: Updated virtual lab environments to enable partners to showcase Cisco solutions without physical hardware costs and software licencing.

Simplified Structure and New Pathways

The Cisco Partner Programme is now extremely mature and consolidates 22 unique specialisations across 15 different business units into six focused portfolios which make it easier for Cisco and their Partners to explain and market. These include:

  • Networking
  • Security
  • Cloud & AI Infrastructure
  • Splunk
  • Collaboration
  • Services

Cisco re-iterated how this works – with partners now being designated as Cisco Partner or Cisco Preferred Partner, replacing the traditional tiered system (no more Cisco Gold Partner status).

Cisco understand that is a major shift from before, but assured partners that it is still profitable and that overall rebate investment will remain flat or increase, ensuring partners are rewarded for value delivery rather than transactional volume. It’s also about (as Microsoft did back in 2023), ensuring the programme is more transparent and relevant in the world of Cloud Services – where adoption, upsell, renewals and cross sell is vital to both Cisco and their partners and to ensure they demonstrate value to their customer base. Partners that do what works best for Cisco and the customer are naturally rewarded.

What Cisco Partners need do now?

Cisco reminded partners that they can review the Cisco Partner Incentive Estimator which will be generally available from 10 November to model profitability under the new structure. They also advise that partners (with their PAM if they have one):

  • They also advice that partners start looking at and planning for the new AI Specialisations, by aligning technical teams with Cisco Learning Journeys and allowing time for training, studying and alignment with Cisco.
  • Review their own Sales Incentives (Sales and Client Success Teams) to start driving cross-sell opportunities across networking, security, observability and collaboration to ensure the best chance of maximising rebates.
  • Engage with Cisco’s new enablement tools (AI Assistant, demo labs, marketing branding toolkit) to accelerate go-to-market readiness.

Summary

Cisco expects AI to drive the majority of partner revenue within five years. The Cisco 360 Partner Program positions partners like Cisilion to lead in this transformation – offering predictable profitability, streamlined incentives, and the tools to deliver AI-ready, secure, and resilient solutions for customers which leverage the latest technologies from Cisco.

For partners that work in both Cisco and Microsoft, this aligns well as both vendors partner programmes now share a common philosophy: simply engagement, reward capability, reward cross selling and prioritise high-growth focus technology areas.

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Cisco go Beyond Expectation with huge upgrade to partner incentive program at 2023 Partner Summit.

At Cisco’s 2023 Partner Summit this week, Cisco annouced a massive shakeup in their partner incentive programme. I my experience (and from the partners I work with), this makes Cisco’s incentive programme really stand out as top in class, in terms of where and how partners are rewarded.

In short, this new Partner Incentive is based-on three areas.

  • Rebates for one-time sales deals.
  • Incentives for recurring business.
  • Additional rebates for driving customer value services such as driving adoption and increasing subscription volumes (seats).

Inventives aligned to Cloud

Cisco said that they are transforming the partner program to align with its transition to more software and services-based offerings.

The new Cisco Partner Incentive programme is designed to reward partners for selling Cisco hardware, software and as-a-service solutions by aligning the rebates paid, based on total contract value, customer adoption and growth of the subscriptions they have bought. This will help ensure Cisco partners work more closely with their customers (as against one off deals) to ensure their customers buy it, use it and grow it, rather than just focusing on selling product.

This is a similar approach that longer standing cloud vendors such as Microsoft use to drive usage and adoption of their products and services.

The Cisco Partner Incentive is the biggest change we’ve made to partner incentives in more than a decade and is the capstone on the Cisco partner programme evolution started in 2020.

Marc Surplus |VP partner programs|Cisco

The new icentives will also better support their partners to acquiring new logos, for up selling additional cisco products and services and for cross selling into other accounts. Partner that offer and upsell “Cisco Powered Managed Services” will also receive increased rebates.

Skills Shortages driving Managed Service Demand

Cisco estimates that the managed services market for its products is worth $161 billion, and expects 46% of its sales to be sold as a managed service by 2027.

More and more organisations are turning to trusted Cisco Partners to look after support and maintaining their technology and help drive adoption of technologies to increase ROI and usage across their organisations.

New Specialisations to differentiate the top partners

To help partners differentiate in the market and demonstrate their expertise, Cisco is also introducing up to six new solution specialisations within the next nine months. These will cover areas such as cloud, security, collaboration, IoT, data center and enterprise networking.

Cisco is also enhancing its partner experience platform (known as PXP) with new features which include as a new sustainability estimator, that will enable partners to calculate and present their customers with environmental and cost benefits of modernising their IT hardware with the latest technology. This will made available only to environmental sustainability specialised partners.

Cisco is also introducing new Partner Advanced Support for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) along with guided access to API integrations that build on MSPs’ existing services and integrate into their operation and support services platforms such as Service Now.

New partner program starts H2 2024

The new Cisco Partner Incentive is expected to begin in the second half of 2024, and will replace the existing Value Incentive Program (VIP) and VIP Annuity.

Designed for everybody to wins

Cisco says the new incentive will provide more predictability and profitability for partners, as well as more value for customers. This is great news for partners like us (Cisilion) as it helps us drive more value for customers, while keeping prices for product and services low in an ever more competitive landscape.

Rewarding partners for growth and adoption of Cisco products helps ensure customer leverage maximum value and ROI of their investment, ensures partners continue to add value and that Cisco (hopefully) retain and grow their market share across their extensive product portfolio.

Rob Quickenden | CTO | Cisilion.
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Microsoft re-writes their partner program with a distinct focus on driving and building Cloud Services

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Yesterday evening (16th March 2022), Microsoft announced that are evolving the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) partner programme to “delivering what partners need to innovate, grow their businesses and deliver on the promise of digital transformation for customers across organizations and industries”.

Amongst other things, this will say goodbye to the current silver and gold competencies and strengthen focus on partners attaining Advanced Specialisations

This follows controversial changes to the Cloud Solution Provider program (CSP) with their New Commerce Experience platform which introduced a premium on pay monthly Microsoft 365 subscriptions also aimed, in part, to driving longer term partner-to-customer relations.

“The changes reflect Microsoft’s investments in the cloud as a strategic growth area and the need to align partners with the evolving requirements and buying patterns of customers”, according to Rodney Clark | Corporate vice president of Channel Sales.

The new “Cloud Partner Program”

From October 2022, the 15-year-old Microsoft Partner Network, will become the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program which will be focussed on six key areas:

  • Azure Data and Artificial Intelligence
  • Azure Infrastructure
  • Azure digital and app innovation
  • Business Applications
  • Modern Work
  • Security

The three Azure-related solutions partner designations will also become prerequisites for the Azure Expert MSP from October 2022, creating a bunch of work and certs for existing MSPs to stay “compliant”.

Gold and Silver Partners are no more.

Under the new Cloud Partner Program, Microsoft said that they will be retiring the current Silver and Gold competencies currently to help differentiate and stand them beyond a baseline partner “network membership” status. Instead, the focus will be around Advanced Specialisations, something Microsoft has been banging the drum about for a while – with many partners questioning where these were heading….. now we know

The new two-level program will continue to be open to Microsoft’s current partners — resellers, systems integrators, managed services providers, device partners and independent software vendors, but they are changing the way they categorise them and segment the partners.

New Partner Categories

Microsoft are also changing the way their partners are identified and recognised partner capability with two different “qualifying levels”:

The solutions partner level is a designation that is based on the partner meeting specific requirements across a new partner capability score which is measured across each of the 6 solution areas.

This partner capability score rank partners’ technical skills and “cloud” performance based on KPIs which include their certifications, new customers added, successful deployments and overall growth. The score will be a telemetry-based calculation based on reporting though their Partner Center portal, and partners must earn at least 70 points out of 100 to earn the designation. Partners will be able to access the portal to see their current progress toward that goal.

Specialisations and expert programs (similar to the Advanced Specialisations and Azure Expert programs today), will allow solution partners to differentiate and to demonstrate deep technical expertise and experience in specific technical scenarios under each solution area.

Changes will take effect slowly

Over the next 6 months, Microsoft will start transitioning to the new partner program model which will also change its name from “Microsoft Partner Network” to the “Microsoft Cloud Partner Program.”

Microsoft stressed that there will be no immediate changes to partners’ business or program statuses, including anniversary dates.

Partners have until September 30th to decide whether to join transition to the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program or renew their legacy Microsoft Partner Network benefit status for one last year if they need more time to prepare and transition.

Microsoft have added the new telemetry and reporting alignment for the new solution areas and specialisations to help partners start tracking, measuring, and planning their readiness.

Partner Centre “Solution Partner” competency tracking

Other Changes and Investments

Microsoft stressed in the announcement yesterday that in addition to renewing the benefits that partners already use and rely on, they are making them more customised.

Vital benefits, like Internal User Rights are not going away (something they attempted to remove several years ago which was overturned when partners went into up-roar) but they will now be called “product benefits”. These will continue to include on-premises licenses, cloud service subscriptions and Azure credit and said, “In fact, we’re increasing investment in our program by more than 25%.”

Whilst we are still navigating through the various docs and changes, in short, it means partner investment for internal use and demo/dev environment will increase significantly and these will grow/extend based on things like the number of specialisations held against solution areas.

Closing thoughts

Like any change, people may be quick to judge and critic, but as 11 Competency Microsoft Gold Partner, these changes are good in my opinion and reflect the future direction of digital transformation and the way in which organisations like us want and need to work with partners.

“These changes are good in my opinion”

We have time to adapt (I suspect the program will be tweaked further too, as partners provide feedback). Microsoft is a different beast to traditional hardware partners like Cisco and Dell for example, but for me, Microsoft already give their partners a great amount of commitment, investment, and love. Partner benefits such commercial incentives, training, Internal Use Rights and (as a top-tier managed partner) strategic account and technical development, for us (at Cisilion) make the Microsoft Partner Program one of the best in terms of true partnership.

That said, Microsoft is a complicated beast, with lots of pockets of preferential partners, old operating models, outdated and silo’d systems and fragmented partner resources (Yammer, Partner Centre etc.). We are lucky being a managed partner since our partner manager works closely with us and helps us navigate through these challenges.

The new competency and specialisation driven programs, in my view are more relevant than the current ones and make sense. The increase in internal use rights (especially around Azure) are welcomed also.

The ink is still drying on the announcement, and we are still digesting the plethora of information, this is a good move for partners (IMO) and one we are excited to embrace. My views of course may change as we get to grips with the changes, impact, and the investment we, as partners need to make to transition to the changes.

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