UK IT Channel News | IT Channel Oxygen
  • News
  • Topics
    • Vendor
    • Distributor
    • Partner
    • Indepth
    • Sustainability
    • M&A
    • People Moves
    • AI
    • Tech trends
  • Sustainability
  • About Us
  • Partner with us
Members
Must-Know Distributors
Oxygen 250
No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Topics
    • Vendor
    • Distributor
    • Partner
    • Indepth
    • Sustainability
    • M&A
    • People Moves
    • AI
    • Tech trends
  • Sustainability
  • About Us
  • Partner with us
No Result
View All Result
UK IT Channel News | IT Channel Oxygen
No Result
View All Result
Home Vendor

‘They are stampeding to cloud’ – Cisco makes big SMB partner bet

"We’re going to focus our energy with our partners on those customers that are transforming their business with the cloud," Cisco's Andrew Sage says

Doug Woodburn by Doug Woodburn
19 September 2023
in Vendor
Luxy Thuraisingam, Cisco
Share on LinkedinShare on Twitter

Cisco has unveiled new investments designed to help partners capture more business with SMBs that are “stampeding” towards the cloud.

In an interactive roundtable held today, Andrew Sage, VP, Global Distribution & SMB Sales at Cisco, characterised SMB as “one of the biggest opportunities Cisco and our partners have”.

SMB is growing at double digits for Cisco, but the networking giant can take a bigger slice of the market, Sage suggested.

“We think there’s almost a $30bn opportunity for us,” he said.

Summarising how its SMB strategy for its fiscal 2024 (which began on 30 July) will differ from previous years, Sage said that Cisco will get “very focused” on the technologies that help SMB customers transforming with the cloud, “rather than the sports bars or nail salons”.

“[Sports bars and nail salons] also have technology requirements, without question,” Sage said.

“But I think our technology and our partners’ capabilities are much better suited to that slightly larger SMB that has started to move to the cloud and would react to the value proposition we bring with Meraki and WebEx and cloud security.”

Cisco has announced a new sales coverage model for the SMB segment, where it is exclusively partner led. SMB partners will enjoy access to a territory manager, as well as specialists that can help them in specific technology areas such as zero trust. More than 100 new roles have been added globally in a new ‘SMB sales acceleration’ function.

The networking giant is also making a “significant incremental investment” in marketing to bolster its SMB drive, Luxy Thuraisingam, VP, Global SMB & Partner Marketing, Cisco (pictured, top), claimed, meanwhile.

SMBs ‘stampeding to cloud’

Cisco is pursuing those SMBs that are “stampeding to cloud and SaaS to do digital transformation,” Sage said as he pinned down the vendor’s ideal SMB customer. More generally, Cisco sees SMBs as those that do up to $50,000 in annual bookings.

“Digital transformation isn’t something we’ve always associated with the SMB customer – we kind of [thought] of them as hanging on as best they can,” Sage explained.

“But the truth is that SMB customers are doing things they could never do before with technology. They used to have to buy servers and licensing, and do custom programming that was complex. Now with cloud and SaaS that is no longer the case. They have access to applications to automate every part of their business.”

Some $4.5bn of the $30bn opportunity Cisco flagged up is for partners to go back into existing SMB customers with a broader set of Cisco technology to help them digitally transform, Sage said.

Half of Cisco’s SMB customers will soon want to procure solutions and outcomes in a managed way, he added.

“These customers do not need technology; they need technology outcomes,” Sage said. “The way they get the technology outcomes that are critical to their business is through our partners, and we are seeing a big shift in how our partners are meeting these customers.”

Sage said the new “incremental investment” in SMB has buy-in from Cisco’s senior leadership team, including CEO Chuck Robbins (pictured above).

“We’re going to focus our energy and efforts with our partners on those customers that are transforming their business with the cloud, as we think we have a great opportunity to help them with this journey,” he concluded.

‘Dealing with Cisco was like dancing with an elephant’

On the call, Doug Westervelt, CEO of US Cisco partner Portland Internetworks, remarked that dealing with Cisco “used to be like dancing with an elephant”.

“Now we’re seeing a tonne of change in Cisco’s attitude towards SMB, much for the better,” he said.

“Cisco is beginning to understand the SMB and managed services space.

“So much more of Cisco’s offerings are multi-tenet friendly. There are flexible buying models and things that allow us to pay as we consume or scale up and down as necessary. I’ve never seen the level of engagement and investment from Cisco in the SMB space.”

Doug Woodburn
Website |  + postsBio

Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen

  • Doug Woodburn
    https://itchanneloxygen.com/author/itchanneloxygen-com/
    CDW’s Williams: ‘We’re going to be investing in our services business through organic investment and acquisition’
  • Doug Woodburn
    https://itchanneloxygen.com/author/itchanneloxygen-com/
    ‘Who’s this £25m VAR growing at 75%?’ – Techary CEO on its lightning growth
  • Doug Woodburn
    https://itchanneloxygen.com/author/itchanneloxygen-com/
    ‘To be relevant, we have to scale’ – Doye reiterates £1bn goal following CAE deal
  • Doug Woodburn
    https://itchanneloxygen.com/author/itchanneloxygen-com/
    TD Synnex CEO pinpoints gap in European coverage, claims platform capabilities will become ‘table stakes’
Tags: Ciscofeatured
Previous Post

Cato allots slice of $238m funding to partner expansion

Next Post

Paul Eccleston joins Exclusive’s top table

Related Posts

Sagar Gandi, Nuvias UC
Distributor

Nuvias UC makes techie boast as it hits ‘huge’ migration milestone

10 July 2025
Ingram Micro HQ
Cybersecurity

Ingram Micro ‘grateful for support’ as it restores business operations

10 July 2025
Gordon Thomson, Cisco
People Moves

From account manager to EMEA President – meet Cisco’s new regional leader

9 July 2025
Gavin Bell, Econocom
M&A

Econocom buys an Irish AV firm, just like it said it would

9 July 2025
Guy Hocking, Utilize
Distributor

Give Ingram Micro breathing space, UK partner says after outage briefing

8 July 2025
Mark Lee, Sales Director, NormCyber
People Moves

Former Nasstar duo reunite at NormCyber

8 July 2025
Tom Stephens, Techary
Big Interview

‘Who’s this £25m VAR growing at 75%?’ – Techary CEO on its lightning growth

8 July 2025
Raymond Ma, Alibaba Cloud
AI

Alibaba Cloud lobs $60m at partners

7 July 2025
Next Post
Paul Eccleston, Exclusive

Paul Eccleston joins Exclusive’s top table

Follow Us

IT Channel Oxygen keeps you informed on the UK IT channel and its sustainable transformation. Learn more

  • About
  • Our Team
  • Partner with us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • News
  • Cookie Policy (UK)

© 2025 IT Channel Oxygen

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}
No Result
View All Result
  • Oxygen 250
  • Must-Know Distributors
  • Member area
  • KOcycle Zone
  • Big Interview
  • News
  • Indepth
  • About
  • Partner with us

© 2025 IT Channel Oxygen