Cisco’s upcoming overhaul of its go-to-market partner program is going to rely heavily on the vendor’s ongoing AI push that is targeted at more rapid service innovation, a bold target for Cisco’s approximately 60,000 channel partners that are coming off of a very lucrative and long-standing channel program.

Tim Coogan, SVP of global partner sales at Cisco, during a press briefing ahead of this week’s Cisco Partner Summit, explained this approach as “the agile partner ecosystem,” which revolves around a pair of concepts.

“First, it centers around the fact that we must continue to react and adapt both quickly and together,” Coogan said of that first concept. “The marketplaces in which we are operating require incredibly fast adaptation to the changes in the marketplace.”

Coogan then explained that the second concept is based on a “continuous innovation cycle.”

“The traditional method of discrete investment in innovation cycles can no longer adapt to the dynamic changes in the industry,” Coogan said. “So this continuous innovation cycle is absolutely critical, and we believe now, even more deeply than before, that our ability to scale efficiently through both platform and ecosystem is absolutely critical to our ongoing success.”

Those concepts are expected to feed what Cisco claims its channel partners have been craving. Coogan pointed to “three very simple but sometimes very complicated things to deliver in unison.”

The first is the profitability that Cisco sees embedded in its portfolio. This leads to providing channel partners with the ability to tap that portfolio to “enhance their profitability,” and in a “predictable way, a way that allows them to plan for the future, and it has to be rooted in growth,” Coogan explained.

“We know that nearly 90% of Cisco's revenue comes from our partner ecosystem, and we are eager to show how Cisco 360 partner program enhances that ability to see a return on that incredible partnership,” Coogan added. “So whether it's networking or security, observability, whether it's AI or digital resilience, we believe that the platform has paired our portfolio with the capabilities of our partners in a very unique way that does allow for profitability, predictability, and growth.”

Coogan later also attempted to assuage concerns over the upcoming demise of Cisco’s long-running “Value Incentive Program” (VIP). The VIP program has been in place for 23 years, with its current – and final – VIP 46 iteration set to be the most lucrative to date.

“We look at Cisco 360 partner program, not necessarily as a movement away from VIP to something totally new, but a modernization of one of the most enduring incentive and rebate programs in the industry,” Coogan said.

Cisco partner program plans

Cisco’s new partner program will see the vendor streamline its partner evaluation from 22 specializations across 15 business units down to six focused portfolios: networking, security, cloud and AI infrastructure, Splunk, collaboration, and services.

The new program, which is set to go into place in February, consolidates multiple existing incentive programs – including VIP, Perform Plus, Lifecycle Incentive, and the Cisco Services Partner Program (CSPP) – into a single Cisco Partner Incentive (CPI) structure.

Central to the new-look Cisco 360 is the introduction of a Value Index that measures partners across four pillars: foundational, capabilities, performance, and engagement.

Elisabeth De Dobbeleer, SVP for Cisco’s Partner Program, previously explained in a blog post that this new framework moves away from traditional transaction-based metrics toward a more holistic evaluation of partner value delivery.

“The Cisco Partner Incentive simplifies incentives into one framework that rewards partners across land, adopt, expand, and renew,” De Dobbeleer wrote. “We’re increasing transparency, predictability, and speed – delivering rebates earlier than ever.”

Partners will be designated as either "Cisco Partner" or "Cisco Preferred Partner" within specific portfolios, replacing the current tiered system that includes the “Gold” designation many partners have worked years to achieve – and are upset about losing.

Coogan added more color to that explanation, noting Cisco was still evaluating the exact number of partners that will qualify for the new tiers and what investment the vendor has planned for the program.

“We are targeting essentially a flat to growing rebate and incentive overall,” Coogan said. “While we recognize there could be [a] shift between which partners based on their investment see rewards and benefits of the new program, the intent of the program is not to diminish the amount that we invest in our partners through their investments, but to at least level-set or increase.”

Partner program progress

Cisco’s motives appear similar to what Broadcom has done with its VMware channel partner changes.

Broadcom initiated the program changes shortly after it closed on the VMware acquisition, which aligned legacy partner activities more with Broadcom’s own programs. Kris Prasad, SVP and GM for Broadcom’s VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) division, captured the essence of those changes in a blog post earlier this year in stating that the vendor expects “that our partners will go all-in with us on helping customers unlock the full value of VCF.”

“Partners that are not committed to investing in and evolving their businesses to help customers adopt and succeed with VCF will struggle to find a place in the Broadcom partner ecosystem,” Prasad wrote. “As we head into the second half of 2025, we intend to put greater emphasis and focus on these value-based solution providers. We believe this is the right path forward, not just for Broadcom, but for every customer who relies on VCF to run their digital infrastructure with speed, agility, and security.”

Broadcom made a concerted effort to tout partner success at the recent VMware Explore event, where it hosted a partner panel populated with participants who applauded the changes.

“What I love about it is the focus, one platform, one solution,” Stephen Moss, SVP of managed services at Insight and partner panel member, said of the new VMware platform structure, later noting that it was superior “versus the kluge, Band-Aid together 20 different products that were not built to work together.”

“And if you look at the partner program, the way it's structured, how you have a very clear goal-based system for certifications, if you're looking to build and become a VMware partner,” Moss added. “If you're not, it's a great opportunity because it's very well structured. There's great options for getting your team skilled up. If you're not, there's all this training available.”

Despite the internal acclaim, equity research firm William Blair noted in an “Enterprise Tracker” report earlier this year that some enterprises and go-to-market partners were continuing to look for ways to decouple themselves from Broadcom and VMware. The report stated that value-added resellers (VARs) had noted “customers are actively strategizing how to get off VMware, and the broader ecosystem (VARs, OEMs, ISVs) is moving away from VMware.”

That last point was bolstered by the research firm noting “newfound disillusionment from partners about Broadcom squeezing them on margins,” with a specific “partner that historically could expect to make 10 to 15 points of margin on reselling VMware is now making only five to six points.”