Cisco Partner Summit 2023 has kicked off, drawing thousands of Cisco partners worldwide for networking, learning, and celebration. Approximately 90 percent of Cisco’s revenue is channeled through these partners, encompassing tens of thousands of organizations spanning over 150 countries.
The summit unfolds amid significant technological shifts in AI, 5G, cloud, security, and applications, reshaping global industries. In this landscape, businesses are increasingly leveraging technology for transformation, and Cisco, through its platforms, aims to provide simplicity, flexibility, and choice to accelerate digital transformation for customers and partners.
The joint commitment with partners focuses on leadership in AI, security, observability, and sustainability, serving as key drivers for innovation and mutual profitability. Securely connecting everything to make anything possible remains a foundational principle.
Jeff Sharritts, EVP and Chief Customer and Partner Officer, Cisco said, “We are thrilled to host Partner Summit 2023, where our global partner ecosystem will come together to discuss how Cisco and its partners can collectively help customers achieve their business goals. This event serves as a platform to foster collaboration, share insights, and strengthen the bonds between Cisco and our valued partners. Through our collective expertise and resources, we can drive innovations that shape the future of digital transformation and create even greater value for organizations across industries and geographies.”
Panish PK, Managing Director, Partner Business Group, Cisco India and SAARC expressed, “As the digital world becomes a reality, we are excited to share our latest innovations, announced this week at Cisco Partner Summit. In a rapidly evolving landscape defined by transformative technological shifts, our product offerings and enhanced capabilities will empower partners to simplify IT integration of AI, provide simplified and integrated security solutions, and enable organizations to create new modules on our observability platform. Together with our partners, we are steadfast in our commitment to empower organizations in key domains such as AI, security, and observability, as we pave the way for a sustainable and inclusive future.”
Cisco Validated Designs for AI
As organizations worldwide prioritize the effective use of AI, they face challenges with unfamiliar application stacks and infrastructure patterns. IT teams supporting these initiatives encounter complexities. To simplify and scale solutions for partners and aid customers in making their infrastructure AI-ready, Cisco has partnered with industry leaders such as NVIDIA, Intel, AMD, NetApp, Nutanix, Pure Storage, and Red Hat. The collaboration has resulted in Cisco Validated Designs (CVDs) for AI use cases. These solutions leverage proven capabilities and existing IT processes, facilitating a streamlined journey to AI for customers without introducing unnecessary risks or new operational silos.
New Observability Ecosystem for Partners
Cisco’s development partners are recognizing substantial business value in the Cisco Observability Platform, actively constructing modules across key themes: Business Insights, SAP, Networking, MLOps, and Sustainability. This innovative, vendor-agnostic observability ecosystem caters to customers’ specific observability requirements, creating an environment where they can extract value from observable telemetry.
New Cisco Security Suites
As cybersecurity threats continue to rise in both prevalence and complexity, the demand for straightforward, outcome-oriented solutions is on the rise among partners and customers. Cisco is stepping up to address this need by introducing new Security Suites. These suites offer a more integrated, predictable, and cost-effective approach to acquiring and utilizing Cisco’s comprehensive security product portfolio. Focused on three critical use cases — User, Cloud, and Breach Protection — the suites aim to enhance security effectiveness, elevate user experience, and maximize return on investment. They are meticulously crafted to operate seamlessly across multiple clouds, private infrastructures, and ensure interoperability with other tools and systems.
Partner Innovation Challenge
Since its inception in 2018, the Partner Innovation Challenge has granted partners from 96 countries a total of over $3.3 million. This year witnessed a remarkable 68-percent increase in new partner submissions, underscoring the program’s substantial growth and its ability to foster innovative solutions addressing genuine customer challenges, all within the Cisco ecosystem.
The sixth edition of the Challenge introduced a novel Partnering for Purpose award category. This addition provides partners with an extra avenue to gain recognition and funding for innovations dedicated to supporting social causes and environmental issues. Partners were tasked with delivering purpose-driven submissions spanning digital inclusion, employee experience, economic empowerment, climate change, environmental stewardship, crisis response, and critical human needs, aiming to make a positive impact on communities, social causes, and the environment.
Winners of the 2023 Partner Innovation Challenge
- Grand Prize 1st place ($200,000): Ormit Solutions / SplashAccess’ IPSK (Individual Pre-Shared Key), a Wi-Fi solution for universities and multiple dwelling units that delivers a home network experience, enabling network security and user access control, while simplifying the administrative burden.
- 2nd place ($100,000 USD): Long View Systems’ Sustainable and Intelligent Building Analytics, a commercial building management system that reduces high-energy costs, using occupant-centric control from Cisco Spaces Wi-Fi activity data and Webex cameras.
- 3rd place ($50,000 USD): CAE Labs’ Innovation Network Intelligence, a platform that delivers actionable insights, providing customers with complete visibility of their Cisco investments on a simple-to-use dashboard.
Also read – Reliance Jio Unveils JioMotive (2023) to Elevate Your Car’s IQ
Join our WhatsApp News Channel for quick updates – FYI9 News WhatsApp Channel
