“Is there going to be some pain in the short term? Quite possibly”
Ian Anderson, Field Chief Technology Officer, Natilik
Has the estimator given you a firm idea of whether you’ll be more or less profitable under 360?
It’s too early to say. But I think we can be cautiously optimistic that financially we will not be materially impacted by the changes, and I think as long as partners embrace change they’ll benefit from the shift longer term.
Why is it too early to say?
The estimator doesn’t do a like-for-like comparison – that’s where we still need a little bit of work to look at it.
The estimator was released about six weeks ago and they’ve just updated it, and now they’ve got a rate card assigned to the new programme. But trying to navigate the estimator, and what you see in PXP [Partner Experience Platform], I think Cisco are probably still getting their heads around that themselves.
Do you feel like you’re almost ready to go for 25 January?
As ready as we can be.
We’ve invested time across all the functions to understand the programme and what’s required to achieve Preferred status.
We’ve achieved Preferred status in the areas we specialise in. The great thing Cisco’s done is commit to honouring that status for the first 18 months of the programme, which takes us through to August 2027. That will give us a bit of predictability around the profit we’ll make while we get to grips with those changes.
It was great that Cisco announced some next generation specialisations in secure networking and secure AI infrastructure at Partner Summit. We were a Master partner across the four main technology areas, and I see this as an equivalent of that old accreditation. Hopefully this allows partners who invest in developing their capabilities to stand out from other Preferred partners.
How much of a blow is the removal of CSPP for European partners?
It’s fair to say CSPP has been very good to us over the years. It’s rewarded our investment in our Global Services team.
It’s not going to be a completely smooth transition, but what the changes do is reward partners who are modernising the way they work.
The Gold partner programme was built for a different era, so it absolutely needed modernising. Our culture within Natilik is built around building lasting, meaningful client relationships and we’ve lived and breathed the land, adopt, expand, renew methodology – which is basically what this programme is built on – for years.
Is there going to be some pain in the short term? Quite possibly. If there is a material impact that’s going to affect partner profitability, I’m sure Cisco will look at that and try and bridge the gap somehow.
“It’s certainly put a huge strain on our business” – see what Ideal’s Moto Shakoori had to say about 360 on the following page…
