Helping partners achieve the most out of technology investments

A top line priority for Cisco in 2024 is to ensure customers have an agile and secure environment to capture the benefits of the technology transitions the industry is currently facing.  

This includes enabling customers to use software-defined environments to provide agile networks and ensuring these are designed to provide security from the ground up.  

“Partners play a role in helping customers achieve their business outcomes all while helping them choose and deploy technology and what can sometimes be a very crowded and confusing market,” Cisco A/NZ managing director of partner and routes to market, Rodney Hamill said.

“As a partner-led business, Cisco relies on partners to ensure our customers get the best of their technology investments.”

Strategic key focus areas for Cisco remain within the AI and cyber security landscape.  

Hamill said AI will increasingly play a role in the way partners and customers interact with technology.

He pointed to one example in the launch of Cisco’s AI assistants across much of the Cisco portfolio.

The aim here is to access an unmatched breadth and scale of data to guide and inform decision-making more intelligently.  

“AI innovation like this will transform the way technology is used and managed,” he said.

“Partners need to start thinking about the role AI will play in their business model and how they will assist their customers in achieving the best out of AI technologies.

“This technology has the ability and promise to revolutionise the way we operate network infrastructure and secure and manage the ever-increasing cyber threat landscape.”

In the realm of security, Cisco is seeking to revolutionise the landscape with AI-native security for data centres and the cloud through Cisco Hypershield.

Hypershield is an AI native security platform that will redefine how businesses safeguard their infrastructure, data and digital assets in the era of sophisticated cyber threats. 

As a diamond sponsor for Dicker Data’s TechX roadshow this year, Hamill said the two companies have maintained a long standing partnership, helping to deliver technologies, market-wide.

“Cisco and Dicker Data maintained a long-standing partnership that helps our partners deliver the best-of-breed technologies in the Australian market,” Hamill said.

“Dicker Data has made significant investments to align Cisco in driving portfolios such as security and focusing on how our partners can grow in the Australian market.” 

Cisco’s acquisition of Spunk, which was completed in March this year, set the foundation for delivering visibility and insights across an organisation’s digital footprint.

Hamill pointed out this was also a key area in which partners should start to consider and understand the opportunities ahead as the power of Cisco and Spunk comes together. 

“Cisco offers the most comprehensive partner-led GTM program on the planet,” Hamill said.

“Coupling this with the breadth of our portfolio, our value to partners is unrivalled. By choosing Cisco as a key vendor, partners can address many of their customer’s needs and truly help their customers transform their business.  

“From ensuring they can operate an agile and secure network environment to ensuring application performance in hybrid and cloud environments and to having the best collaboration technology to engage with their staff and customers.”