partnering with cisco for smb engineers (1)

This course is designed to help Cisco partners understand the Small and Midsize business customer and how Cisco solutions and services best meet the needs of these customers.

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Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

Describe the Cisco service offerings for small and midsize business customers Identify the appropriate Cisco service offering to match the customer’s needsAndIdentify the appropriate Cisco tools and resources to use in the sales process

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The learning objectives will be covered in the following modules:Cisco Services for Partner EngineersandCisco Tools for Partner Engineers

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This module covers the Cisco service and support offerings for small and midsize business customers and helps partners present the business value and benefits of Cisco services.

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Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:

Discuss the Cisco service offerings and their value for Small and Midsize business customersDescribe the appropriate Cisco services to offer depending on your business model as a partnerIdentify the appropriate Cisco Smart Services offering to match the customer’s needs andDescribe Cisco Branded and Cisco Collaborative services

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The learning objectives will be covered in the following sections:

• Business Value of Cisco Services for Small and Midsize Business Customers• Cisco Services Overview for Small and Midsize Customers

And

• Selling Cisco Services for Small and Midsize Business Customers

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This section will help you understand the business value of Cisco services for small and midsize customers, and especially the value of proactive services like Cisco Smart Care.

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In today’s demanding business environment, we’re seeing customers recognize the need to effectively engage with their extended enterprise in order to thrive in a rich era of engagement. We see a number of trends that reinforce increasing dependency on leveraging this extended enterprise to cope with change. At first glance, these trends might not seem like anything new.

Organizations still face the same pressures to innovate, to respond to changing demands, and to meet expectations. But technology now gives organizations new tools with which to meet these challenges.

We see:

Networks Have Become EssentialThere is no longer any doubt that networks have become essential to the operations, growth and profitability of almost every business. Without their network, many companies would simply fail. Technology is making it possible to deal with the evolving business pressures and opportunities that customers face.

We see pressure from Market VelocityWhere markets have shifted into a higher gear. Product development cycles have shrunk dramatically. And market uncertainties cloud decisions. Organizations are pressured to deliver new ideas, better and faster than ever before. Technology allows organizations to leverage their ecosystem to anticipate and quickly respond to market changes, minimizing risks along the way.

We see the rise of the Internet of EverythingWhere at the same time, the rise of the Internet of Everything Connecting people, machines, and processes dramatically increases the importance and value of the network — turning information into actions that create new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented economic opportunity. Organizations must invest in borderless networks to reap significant gains in the scale, speed, and cost of innovation that the internet of everything brings.

And

We see Financial pressuresOf course, everyone is being tasked to do more with less. Owners and investors seek sustainable growth— while keeping costs in check. They are looking to technology to enhance and extend services as a way of offsetting already constrained resources.

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RST4 Customers need to grow their business to increase valuation, but tight credit makes financing difficultSteve Tennant, 8/1/2013

Technology is the foundation of business processes and it is moving very fast. Major technology shifts are also affecting business models, including the following:

Mobility. In North America, AT&T reported a 20,000 percent jump in mobile data traffic in the last five years.

Worldwide, mobile data traffic is projected to double every year through 2017, and is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 66% between 2012 and 2017.

Cloud and Virtualization. Forrester has noted that over 25% of software will likely be purchased on a hosted basis over the next five years.

Video. Is in a market transition as organizations use a variety of video applications for teleconferencing, training, surveillance, meetings, digital signage and more.

Video is creating massive IP traffic. The Cisco Visual Networking Index forecast indicates that by 2017, the various forms of video will exceed 80% ‐ 90% percent of global consumer traffic. Today, at Cisco, 50% of network traffic is video.

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In light of the dynamic business environment and the demands of your customers, partners are looking for solutions to their own business challenges.

These include finding ways to drive growth, addressing the pressures from your competitors, and increasing profitability.

There are strategic steps partners can take to deal with these concerns.

Amazon Consulting has found that over 40% of the partners they interviewed said that entering new markets and adding emerging technologies to their portfolio were key strategies in fostering growth and stability in today’s market.

In the area of addressing competitive pressures, recent partner interviews performed by Mindwave Research found that driving innovative service capabilities was key for partners when it comes to differentiating themselves from competitors.

and

At Cisco we have found many of our partners substantially reduce costs and maximize productivity by leveraging Cisco automated tools and processes.

Increasing profits is not just about making more money, it's also about creating a more sustainable business that can serve your customers successfully, so that you have a delighted client base and a business that thrives years into the future.

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A typical service gross margin for a Cisco partner running a successful services business is as high as 25 percent—an attractive alternative compared to product margins that are typically low to single digits.

The services business offers even more than immediate high margins—it extends the scope and reach of your product‐led engagements.

Services offer a recurring revenue stream and the opportunity to provide complete and innovative solutions that offer greater business value while increasing customer loyalty.

A big trend in IT that Cisco partners can take advantage of is the shift from providing reactive “break/fix” support to more proactive support.

Let’s look at the automotive industry. Rarely today is it acceptable to wait until your car breaks down before you take it in for service or maintenance.

Manufacturers prescribe regular service intervals to check the fluids, air pressure, and oil as well as perform regular maintenance. As cars become increasingly connected, more vehicles are sending notification to their owners when maintenance is scheduled or the system detects a problem. The goal here is to keep your car running with no surprises, especially a $5,000 maintenance bill for something on your car you were not expecting to replace.

Cisco Smart Services avoids this sort of problem by delivering proactive support.

The service is similar to performing preventative maintenance to avoid breakdowns and it includes proactive notification of problems to help avoid surprises and control costs.

Partners would do well to focus on positioning services as a way to avoid problems when selling to customers

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In the same way that reactive car support has migrated to proactive support, so too must technology support.

Since computers and networking first arrived in the workplace, tech support has been provided on a reactive basis, meaning that when someone had a problem with their device (or server, or network) they called a tech support person to fix the problem. The tech support person or company would then troubleshoot the problem to try to determine the cause of the problem, then work to find a solution that would get the system up again as quickly as possible. So the customer was happy until the problem reoccurred or another problem arose and the process would be repeated.

This reactive tech support model typically results in a constant “fire‐fighting” approach to dealing with computer problems, along with extended down time and service interruptions. It’s also very hard to react to multiple fires at the same time and keep customers happy. This approach also encourages the tech support providers to find the quickest and easiest solution to patch the problem and get the system up as soon as possible, rather than to find the root cause of the problem and apply a permanent fix that prevents the problem from recurring.

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As network “uptime” has become critical for even the most basic business functions, most small and mid‐sized businesses are now moving toward a much more proactive approach that increases IT uptime while providing better value for each dollar invested in tech support. These proactive services provide more predictable IT expenses and include more real‐time or near‐real time monitoring, alerts, and install base management which reduces surprises. This results in higher employee productivity and a better customer experience.

For partners, the benefits of this model include‐ A high quality, loyal customer base that appreciates your ability to keep their business

running smoothly ‐ A predictable, recurring revenue business model built on a foundation of professional

services‐ And fewer “fire drills” and “on call” disruptions during off hours, so that you can better

control your own staffing expenses

We’ll see how Cisco partners can leverage proactive service next.

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Cisco’s proactive service portfolio is called “Smart Services”. “Smart Services” refers to a family of intelligent, proactive services that helps partners avoid issues before they become a problem. Cisco’s Smart Service capabilities are at the center of the value Cisco and our partners deliver. Smart capabilities are included in several of Cisco’s service offers to help our partners be more proactive in supporting customers.

These are automated, software‐enabled capabilities…which collect diagnostic data…which is analyzed and compared to cisco’s deep knowledge base …to provide insights that you can take action on.

Smart services software runs a series of diagnostics; think of it as checking the air pressure and oil level of the network. This would be comparable to checking the oil of a car while it was running at full speed down the road.

The automated software sends the data to Cisco where it can then be correlated against what Cisco knows about networks – our deep knowledge base.

This deep knowledge base includes the network data we have on over 50 million installed network devices and 6 million customer interactions each and every year. For example, you could tell a customer someone changed a device to a configuration no one has ever seen work successfully at Cisco – and you can recommend they change it to a standard configuration before it causes a problem?

No other vendor has as large an installed base or as extensive a collection of reference information upon which to analyze your customer’s network – this provides an unmatched capability to proactively identify and resolve customer problems.

Partners and customers get the information they need to address all aspects of the customer network – areas like network compliance, configurations, support coverage, syslog records, device problems, and security risks.

The outcome is that you are better able to proactively optimize network performance, improve operational efficiency, simplify and automate ongoing operations, while helping customers avoid surprises and control costs.

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For customers who want more information on the value of service, here’s an illustration based on examples taken from real Service Requests.

It shows that if a customer had a product that was still covered by warranty, it could take up to 10 business days to fully resolve their issue.

During which any ill effects or productivity impacts that this issue is causing will continue, with potential cost consequences.

On the other hand, a customer with a service contract and a next business day service agreement can be up and running at full efficiency by the next business day, thereby avoiding the same consequences.

Not only do Cisco services provide peace‐of‐mind in knowing that Cisco will be there to quickly resolve customer issues, they can also provide cost and time savings well in excess of the relatively small cost of the service agreement.

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This section will help you understand how Cisco services are provided and will explore details of the key services for small and midsize business customers.

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There are two categories of services that Cisco delivers to the SMB marketplace

• The first category are services branded as our own, which we call “Cisco Branded Services”. These are sold by Cisco or you, and are delivered by Cisco. What this means is you don’t have to add technical staff or stock more product to sell these. You sell and the revenue goes to the bottom line.

• The second category is Collaborative Services. These are services we sell to partners, who repackage and make available in their own services. Sometimes these are sold to end customers as part of a partner’s branded service.

• By doing this, we offer customers “the best of both worlds,” combining Cisco’s networking expertise, best practices, and tools with our partners’ expertise, knowledge, and personalized service.

• All of this provides for more opportunity for Cisco and Partners, that will open the door for growth, accelerated differentiation, and profitability for Cisco Partners.

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Within the two major categories of service are a number of individual, specific service offerings.

The service offerings that are frequently offered to Small, Midsize, Commercial, and Smaller Enterprise customers are shown here.

Cisco Branded Services include:

SMARTnet which is focused on traditional Cisco products (Cisco IOS operating system) and provides direct access to critical technical resources via the Technical Assistance Center (TAC)

and

Small Business Support Service which is sold with Cisco Small Business products and provides support through the Small Business Support Center.

Moving to Collaborative services we have:

SmartCare which is another collaborative service that adds Cisco Smart Service capabilities.

Collaborative Professional Services (CPS) which provides a suite of Cisco‐provided professional services, knowledge, and tools to help partners expand their professional services practice through the design and planning stages.

and

Partner Support Service is a collaborative service, which embeds Cisco Smart Services, and is sold through qualified larger partners who have their own Level 1 call center support.

Note that ALL of these services can be enhanced with the Cisco Smart Service offering.

Few partners will sell all services. The services a partner sells will depend on the type of business they are in, as we will see next.

With so many services to choose from, how do partners decide which services to sell?

Ultimately partners must select service offerings based on their own business focus, business model and go‐to‐market strategy.

Cisco’s role is to provide a wide range of service options and to support partners in which ever model they choose to pursue.

Some of the common business models partners choose are as follows:

• Resell Business• Professional Services Practice• Support Services Practice• Managed Services Practice

We will look at each of these models in turn and describe the partner business model and the services they would sell under that model.

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Let’s first take a look at the resell business model.

Resell partners may be new partners that are just getting started with Cisco and may not have their own capabilities to deliver services to customers.

It may also be a partner focused on online sales, who wants to rely solely on Cisco for services.

Many partners may have in‐house engineering capabilities and place the support call to Cisco on behalf of their customers.

All of these models work successfully with the resell business model.

For those of you that want to sell support services to your customers, but don’t have the infrastructure of a support service, we have SMARTnet – everything the customer needs in a support contract sold by the partner but provided directly by Cisco.

Likewise, Small Business Support Service is a Cisco branded support service that you can resell to customers who need coverage for Cisco Small Business products.

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Now let’s look at the professional services business model.

Partners who have in‐house expertise on planning and building technology solutions can sell these capabilities as a service to their customers.

We sell elements of our services portfolio to partners, who take our services, combine them with their own, and put their partner branding around it and then sell those services to their customers. It's collaborative professional services.

Rather than invent a completely new service portfolio along with marketing and branding materials, partners can leverage Cisco technical capabilities and Cisco resources to deliver an outstanding practice.

Collaborative Professional Services provides technical support and guidance to Cisco partners

For many years, Cisco has made resources available to partners to help you plan and build technology solutions for customers.

Collaborative Professional Services helps you take our services partnership to the next level.

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Now let’s move into the third category of business, the support services model.

Many of our partners over the last couple of decades have really helped us span the globe by building very strong support services businesses. We really honor that, and we’ve mutually benefitted.

And we’re taking it to the next level: We have two smart offerings for Support Services that support our partners in the support business.

The first offering has been around for a little while—Smart Care—and it actually is a prepackaged offering that is used by partners who sell predominately into the small and medium business space. It is purpose‐built for that space and the size of the network you find in that space, and partners have been using it for years and really benefitting from it in this business model.

The second offering is Partner Support Service. Partner Support Service is a set of capabilities, assets and APIs that allow our larger partners, who already have a tier‐1 support services business practice, to really benefit and optimize their practice with these smart capabilities.

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The final business model is Managed Services, this model in particular has been trending upwards as more and more partners adopt this approach for services.

Managed Services help partners meet customer’s demand that partners assume more responsibility for running their customer’s environment.

Managed Services is really about taking what you do for your clients and taking it to the next level—you’re negotiating a specific service‐level agreement around a technology andan IT process, then delivering on that.

And both of these offerings—Smart Care and Partner Support Service—will help you take that business model to the next level.

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This section will help you understand when and how to position Cisco services with small and midsize business customers, and will also provide you with details on the benefits of these services and how to overcome customer objections to buying services.

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As a partner that is preparing to sell services, the most critical step is to introduce services at the beginning of the sales cycle.

If you do not include services as part of the original solution—or give in to price pressures—you lose much more than just the margin on the services.

Experience shows that after the equipment is installed, you are unlikely to get an opportunity to sell services.

As a result, you will lose the opportunity for a recurring stream of revenue and you risk losing your customers because of lower satisfaction and loyalty. Customers with technical services are more satisfied and loyal customers than those without attached services.

In these discussions about services, you must help customers understand why they should buy the service

Make sure that you are well acquainted with Cisco service offerings, so that you can provide fast and accurate answers to customer questions about features and deliverables.

And don’t assume that they understand the value proposition of a service just because you have described it’s features.

Initially, customers may not fully understand the service value proposition and may offer a number of objections to purchasing the service.

You must be able to understand the underlying business concern in their objections and show the customer how purchasing services is the most effective way to deal with that concern.

Attempting to sell services after taking the product order makes it difficult to introduce the value of services at a later point. It also inaccurately sets customers’ budget expectations, and adds administrative and logistics overhead to your operations. Equally as important, you might lose the opportunity to stay regularly involved in your customer’s business during times of renewal, additions, moves, and other changes.

Let’s begin by understanding Cisco services and the customer benefits of these services.

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As a reminder, Cisco Services includes Cisco Branded Services and Cisco Collaborative Services.

Cisco Branded Services are a sell through product – you sell the services to the customer and Cisco does the rest.

Cisco Collaborative Services are a sell with product, you sell the services to the customer and together with Cisco, the partner is responsible for delivering the service.

Let’s review Cisco Branded services in a more detail.

This will include SMARTnet and Small Business Support Service

We’ll start with SMARTnet.

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Cisco SMARTnet Service is a technical support service that can give your customers’ IT staff direct, anytime access to field engineers and Cisco.com resources to help ensure the fast, expert response and accountability required to resolve critical network issues.

SMARTnet is available only for Cisco IOS devices and not Cisco Small Business products.

By covering networking devices with a Cisco SMARTnet contract, your customers can:

• Experience greater network functionality and availability through access to the latest software versions

• Reduce incident resolution time with direct access to networking engineers at Cisco

• Expedite time to repair and improve operational efficiency with the right parts at the right time to resolve issues quickly

The SMARTnet support service is provide by the team of engineers at Cisco Technical Assistance Center.

We will discuss the Cisco SMARTnet features next.

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Let’s look further at some of the details for SMARTnet and how the team at Cisco TAC supports our customers.

• Cisco SMARTnet Service provides the following:

• Award‐winning technical support with 24x7 global access to Cisco engineers in the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC)

• Extensive technical resources for rapid issue resolution through access to the extensive Cisco.com knowledgebase and online tools

• Premium service options such as 2‐hour or 4‐hour advance hardware replacement in addition to next business day.

• On site installation options are also available

• Operating System software updates and upgrades are included

• Cisco SMARTnet does not cover the Cisco Small Business Product line, customers wishing support for these products should purchase the Small Business Support Service, discussed next.

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Small and midsize businesses are just as dependent on their networks as large enterprises, and equally vulnerable to a network outage, abruptly halting business operations for hours on end. But unlike large corporations, many smaller companies do not have the luxury of a full‐scale IT staff to provide critical support services.

The Cisco Small Business Support Service (SBS) offers customers and partners direct, anytime access to Cisco certified engineers and online technical resources for Cisco Small Business products.

SBS provides easy, cost‐effective network support with great enterprise‐level benefits, including:

• Higher customer employee productivity due to faster problem resolution

• Increased partner technical staff productivity and fewer off‐hours support requests

• Your customers’ customers have better experiences due to higher network availability

• Protects network investment by providing software and security updates

• Lower costs through predictable support costs, elimination of per‐incident support fees, and hardware replacement costs

The Small Business Support Service covers Cisco Small Business products only and support is provided by the team of engineers at the Cisco Small Business Support Center.

We will discuss the small business support features next.

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Let’s look further at some of the details for Small Business Support Service and how the team at the Cisco Small Business Support Center supports our customers.

The Cisco Small Business Support Service provides three years of peace‐of‐mind coverage and includes:

Access to the Cisco Small Business Support Center via Telephone SupportTelephone support is available 24x7 in EnglishandLocal business hours for other languages

Customers receive software updates of major and minor releases

Next‐business‐day advance hardware replacement

and community‐based support via the Small Business Support Community

Now that we have walked through Cisco Branded Services, let’s review Cisco Collaborative services in a more detail.

This will include Smart Care, Collaborative Professional Services and Partner Support Services.

We’ll start with Smart Care.

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Cisco Smart Care combines foundational technical support with proactive network monitoring, assessments and remote repairs to deliver comprehensive network care and continuous network improvement. It is delivered through eligible Cisco‐certified partners via a collaborative “partner‐led, Cisco‐enabled” approach.

With Cisco Smart Care, partners can benefit in the following ways:

• Proactively manage and update assets more effectively through network monitoring

•Partners can differentiate their services business and position new technologies with less risk and lower capital investments by identifying potential issues through actionable intelligence gained from secure visibility into a network’s performance

• Enhance support offered and improve operational efficiencies, by reducing the burden on staff and administrative costs, through network assessments

•Strengthen customer loyalty, satisfaction and retention by focusing resources on high‐value work with simplified support management and, in turn, demonstrate added value to customers

•And best of all Smart Care includes all of the benefits of SMARTnet for covered products.

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The Cisco Collaborative Professional Services (CPS) portfolio of business service offerings provide partners with access to Cisco engineering expertise, smart services innovation, leading practices, and proprietary methodologies which partners combine with their own services and expertise. This service is a project driven and organized around a statement of work with Cisco that defines costs and deliverables.

The whole idea is that the partner is able to combine these deliverables from Cisco with their own healthy and expanding practices to really accelerate their capabilities and accelerate their capacity.

Collaborative Professional Services will help partners:• Penetrate new and existing accounts through scalable smart services capabilities,• Experience faster ramp to revenue through the automation provided in smart

capabilities• Minimize capital investments to grow partner professional services by leveraging Cisco

intellectual capital

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Cisco Partner Support Service provides partners access to Cisco’s traditional support, smart capabilities, and intellectual capital that can then be combined with their own resources and unique capabilities. Advance partner eligibility will be required to participate in this program.

Partner Support Service provides the foundation for partners to cost‐effectively develop personalized solutions with actionable intelligence and proactive support for their customers.

Because of the highly customized nature of this service offering partners will need to work closely with Cisco to design, approve and price this service offering to their customers.

Partner Benefits include the following

• Access to Cisco Intellectual Capital for actionable insight

• Flexible integration options

• Cost‐effective delivery of scalable solutions

Customer Benefits include the following:

• Access to the added value and expertise of the partner

• Proactive support for complex networks

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Partners looking for guidance on determining which service to sell customers can use this table to understand the key target markets and feature differences.

SMARTnet is a support program designed for customers of any size for whom the network is mission critical. It provides a variety of fast and simple hardware replacement options, including a 2‐hour response option and leverages the Cisco engineers at TAC.

Small Business Support Service is only for Cisco Small Business products and provides a 3‐year contract with next business day advance hardware replacement and features support from the Cisco Small Business Support Center.

Smart Care is suitable for all customers. It incorporates a next‐generation, state of the art, proactive remote monitoring service along with the traditional Cisco SMARTnet service. This allows partners to incorporate a more proactive approach into their support offerings.

Collaborative professional services is targeted primarily at midsize business of 100 to 100 employees but can be delivered to a customer of any size. It is comprised of one or more consulting services that provide customer network assessments, guidance on implementing technology, deployment services monitoring of customer systems and knowledge transfers to help accelerate customer’s adoption of Cisco solutions.

Cisco Partner Support Service is targeted at customers of any size for whom the network is mission critical. It combines Cisco’s traditional support with new smart services that include installed base management, alert reporting and device diagnostics.

Regardless of which specific service is most suitable to a customer, it is important that partners be able to express the value of that service to their customer so that they include the service purchase at the initial point of sale.

It is also important for partners to more clearly understand the difference between SMARTnet and Small Business Support Services (SBSS)

The biggest difference is that SMARTnet services are available only for Cisco enterprise devices and are not available for Cisco Small Business products.

Cisco Small Business Support Services on the other hand are available only for Cisco Small Business products.

Once you understand which products are eligible of each service there are a few differences of note that we will point out.

Customers can purchase SMARTnet directly from Cisco if they have a direct relationship but most customers will purchase SMARTnet via a partner.

Small Business Support Services are only available for purchase via partners.

The minimum contract term for SMARTnet is 1 year, although there are options for multiyear contracts while the minimum length contract for SBSS is 3 years. SMARTnet contracts also have an option to provide onsite support services, which SBSS does not.

SMARTnet support is provided by Cisco TAC – a worldwide engineering organization with 24x7 coverage.

SBSS support is provided by the Cisco Business Support Center, while support is available 24x7 in English, it is available in other languages on a local business hour basis.

Those using the service are typically different ‐ for SMARTnet, most users are IT professionals who open cases online. For the Small Business Support Service, 80% of the users are small business owners who are much less technical.

Both services provide software updates and hardware replacements options, although SMARTnet has a greater

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variety of options for hardware replacement.

Each service has been designed to provide a mixture of benefits and capabilities that best match the needs and budget of their respective target market and both are fully backed by the capabilities and resources of Cisco.

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Now that we have discussed why customers should buy services and the service features and benefits, we can address overcoming customer objections.

Following are a number of common customer objections, that are really just indications that a customer is seeking clarity on the features and benefits of a service and a better understanding of how that creates a compelling reason for them to purchase the service.

An objection isn’t necessarily a firm no, but a rather a request for better understanding.

Let’s have a look at the first objection.

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Customers sometime feel that they have a product warranty and so do not need a services.

These customers may not be familiar with the difference between warranty and services.

You can respond to this by telling the customer that:

Both Cisco Small Business Support Service and SMARTnet are much more than a warranty. Your product warranty protects only against manufacturing defects. If any issue outside the scope of the warranty does arise, the Cisco service plan offers comprehensive, device‐level protection, as well as access to technical assistance and a wealth of information resources, for complete peace‐of‐mind protection.

Both Small Business Support Service and SMARTnet help customers avoid:• Lost bookings and revenue• Lost customers • Lost reputationand• For IT staff, lost personal credibility with CEO or business leader

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Customers may also feel that: support plans are expensive, their budgets are tight, and they cannot afford it.

These customers may not realize that the total cost of ownership over 3 to 5 years will be less with services, even though the day one cost appears to be higher.


Cisco Support Services provide the maximum return on your technology investment and reduce your total cost of ownership. Even one missed call or purchase from an important customer could be as expensive as a service contract, and every hour of downtime can seriously affect your business revenues and company reputation.

Further, fixing your problems in the absence of a service agreement will likely incur expensive, per‐incident support fees and replacement parts may take longer to arrive, further extending the problem.

Both Small Business Support Service and SMARTnet help customers avoid:• Lost employee produtivity• Additional IT staff resource to fix problems• Lost orders and customers• Cost of damaged reputation ‐ customers who won't come back, tell their friends• Cost of employee frustration because they cannot do their joband• For IT staff, lost credibility in the eyes of management

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Customers may feel that their engineers are sufficiently knowledgeable to handle any problem that might occur.

These customers are focused on just the phone support component of Cisco Services and may not be looking at the big picture.


People are just one aspect of Cisco services, replacement equipment and software updates must originate from Cisco

Our customers and partners rarely manage spares and replacement parts globally, allowing for 2‐hour, 4‐hour or next business day replacement.

And with respect to people, there are few companies that are equipped with in‐house experts that compare to Cisco’s award‐winning engineers. If your customers’ in‐house experts require support without a service agreement, they may experience delays and costly time and materials charges.

Cisco Support Services offer:

• Cisco engineers with the time and resources to quickly address customer issues

• Cisco engineers that are available 24x7, 365 days of the year

• Cisco engineers that have access to more information on Cisco products than anyone else in the world

• Product replacement and software upgrades in addition to Cisco engineers

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For the partner, services present a compelling business model.

• Services offer margins with a significantly greater profit potential than product margins‐‐as high as 25 percent. And those margins can grow rapidly as you increase attach and renewal rates and extend contract lengths.

• Services provide more opportunities to deploy complex network solutions with new and existing accounts, using Cisco intellectual capital

• Services give customers more reason to be loyal to your brand.

• Services help you develop a recurring revenue stream which helps you manage your business more efficiently.

• Services allow you to leverage the Cisco brand and service delivery infrastructure to cost‐effectively increase profits.

• And finally, partners that incorporate Cisco Smart Services into their portfolio can begin moving their customers from a reactive to a proactive approach to maintenance, and in so doing open up additional opportunities to help customers better monitor and manage their network.

Together, these advantages give you more opportunities to meet each customers’ long‐term, strategic needs and build trusted adviser relationships with greater profit potential.

For additional information on Cisco Services, consult these links.

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This section will help you understand the value of partnering with Cisco to address the business challenges of small and midsize business customers.

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In this module we have discussed how:

• Cisco services help address customer business and IT challenges and present partners with a viable business model for improved profitability

• Cisco Collaborative Services enables partners to deliver their own brand of service to customers

• Cisco Branded Services are sold to the customer by the partner and delivered by Cisco

• Cisco Smart Services enable a proactive rather than a reactive services approach and open the door to a wide range of new support opportunities

And

• Partners must understand the Cisco services value proposition, successfully address customer objections, and help customers understand how services can have a direct impact on their own business

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This module covers Cisco tools that partner System Engineers can use to increase revenue and margins while successfully marketing, quoting, and selling solutions to customers.

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Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Identify the appropriate Cisco tools and resources to use in the sales process

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The learning objectives will be covered in the following sections:

• Cisco Partner Plan Tools

And

• Cisco Partner Manage Tools

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This section will provide partners with an overview of Cisco tools.

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Cisco provides a wealth of tools for Partner Engineers to support their pre‐sales and post‐sales responsibilities

We have put these tools into two categories, Plan and Manage.

Plan tools help partner engineers prepare to sell Cisco solutions

while

Manage tools help partners manage post‐sales issues as well as, their own skill set and relationship with Cisco

We will cover the tools in the following sections, but they are listed here for quick reference.

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First, we will look at Partner Plan tools.

Cisco has a wide range of planning resources that can help partners support the sales process and build a sustainable practice.

These resources can be grouped into four broad categories:

• Tools that help you learn about Cisco products and services• Tools that help you generate new and repeat business• Tools that help partners scope and design solutions for customers and • Tools that help partners build a bill of materials and quote solutions for customers

We will look at specific examples of each of these tools next.

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The Cisco Product Quick Reference Guide includes brief product overviews, important features, technical specifications, part numbers, and ordering information for many Cisco products.

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The guide serves as a reference for Account Managers or Engineers who need quick access to essential information, including technical specs and features and it simplifies the process of building a Bill of Material by providing a quick lookup for product SKUs.

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The product launch and End of Sale bulletins provide current information on new product introductions and product retirements.

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These tools provide partners with quick access to announcements so that they can be the first to move on new opportunities and also provide proactive guidance to customers who may need to migrate to new products.

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The warranty and service availability lookup tools allow partners to research Cisco products by description, SKU or product family.

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Knowing warranty terms is essential to completing customer proposals, and information on available services allows partners to provide guidance to customers on suggested service offerings.

With accurate and up to date information, partners are in the best possible position to help customers make smart choices.

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Cisco competitive portal provides a single searchable location for sales guidance and technical details that help differentiate Cisco solutions from the competition.

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Account Managers and Engineers will find details that will assist the sales process as well as guidance on product positioning.

Partners can increase their win percentages with these valuable tools.

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The Installed Base Lifecycle Management (IBLM) Program is a sales process that leverages installed base data to drive incremental sales opportunities using a One Cisco approach.

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It leverages Cisco and partner capabilities such as network assessments, and channel incentives.

The IBLM engagement will be part of an account plan that uses a longer term Lifecycle Management approach, leveraging Cisco Capital and Cisco Services.

For partners, this means additional revenue. For our customers, it supports the adoption of a proactive lifecycle management to their network.

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Cisco Discovery Service is a complement to Installed Base Lifecycle Management. It provides a Cisco cloud‐based service that analyzes collected customer data and provides reports.

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Supplementing network assessment tools like NetFormx Designer, a third party tool from NetFormx, Cisco Discovery Service will analyze the collected data and produce reports on network inventory and security alerts.

It can also provide a summary of service contract status and renewal recommendations for Cisco products, and propose upgrade and migration recommendations for old or outdated equipment.

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With an intuitive web browser toolbar, Cisco FindIT automatically discovers select Cisco Small Business products in your network and displays the information you need for management, troubleshooting.

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Cisco FindIt displays device information such as device status, serial number, hardware or software version.

It provides automatic discovery and information display for select Cisco products

It takes a single click to launch Cisco network applications for a selected device

And it includes direct access to the Small Business Support Center

Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox browsers

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Netformx Discovery is a third party tool that provides a complete toolkit to support opportunity identification to proposal development as part of a partner’s IBLM practice.

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Netformx Discovery automates the design, configuration and validation of customer networks

It can automatically identify, inventory and document the network

And then network details can be stored in a cloud‐service, and used to supportcollaboration between sales and engineering

Netformx Discovery integration with Cisco Commerce Workspace, and Cisco Discovery Service makes passing information back and forth between these tools seamless and efficient.

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Cisco dCloud is a next generation platform for customer demonstrations and proof of concepts, that provides self‐service capabilities for Cisco Field and Partners.

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From scripted, repeatable demonstrations to fully customized pilots with complete admin access, dCloud gives you a strategic advantage for any customer scenario.

Partners can use dCloud from a single PC if they are in a customer office or can configure a site to site VPN from their own office, and produce sophisticated demonstrations with realistic network configurations.

dCloud also provides partners with the ability to save their demonstration status and configurations, and log back in at any time to resume where they left off.

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Cisco Validated Designs provide best‐in‐class network designs that help jumpstart apartner’s design phase.

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Partners can increase their productivity and profitability by using pre‐tested, and validated designs that remove the guesswork from building network solutions.

Cisco Validated Designs show you how to specify best‐in‐class network foundations, and how to grow customer solutions using advanced technologies.

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Cisco Commerce Workspace allows partners to create a deal or Quick Quote.

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Partners can quickly enter the details for a customer quote and share it among their team.

They can also quickly and easily attach promotions to deals for the best possible pricing, and if necessary, register deals that can be submitted to Cisco for qualification and approval.

Busy partners with multiple outstanding deals will also appreciate the ability to track deal status to help reduce inactive or missed deals.

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The Quick Pricing Tool is a pc‐based installable application that eases the process of quoting small and midsize solutions.

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It complements Cisco Commerce Workspace by allowing partners to upload deals from the Quick Pricing Tool to Cisco Commerce Workspace.

QPT allows partners to engage with customers regardless of whether there is available internet connectivity.

Its guided ordering process makes it easy for partners to quote solutions in new product areas even if, they are not yet completely familiar with the ordering process.

QPT allows partners to be more productive.

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This section will provide partners with an overview of Cisco manage tools for post‐sales

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Now that the pre‐sales process has completed we move into a post‐sales cycle.Partners will want to support their customers, as well as, support their own learning and enablement.

Here are a number of innovative tools that partners can use to help manage their relationship with Cisco, manage their own skill set and manage any problems that might arise with a customer’s network.

These include:

• Partner Central• Partner Helpline • Partner Education Connection• Cisco Events• Technical Assistance CenterandPartner Support Community

Next, we will take a closer look at each of these tools.

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Partner Central is the main portal through which partners access resources and tools.

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It is a comprehensive, partner only website that contains resources to establish partner relationship, as well as, sell and market Cisco products and solutions.

Most of the partner tools mentioned in this training are available via this web site, which also contains region‐specific resources, and links to country specific promotions and tools.

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Cisco Partner Helpline is the main portal for Channel Partner support for all pre‐sales and post‐sales support needs.

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Partner Helpline Comprehensive set of links and phone numbers for:

• Product and solutions

• Pricing and ordering

• Services

• Sales Tools

• Post‐sales

Help on using partner enablement tools

Links to opening partner support case

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The Cisco Partner Education Connection is a free online training resource for partners.

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It links a dynamic community of Cisco partners with a vast repository of high‐quality training partners to achieve specialization, certification, and greater understanding of Cisco solutions.

With up‐to‐date content, available on demand on many devices, Partners are empowered with relevant, in‐depth knowledge they can leverage to enhance their own value, gain a competitive advantage, improve sales, and strengthen their relationship with Cisco in ways that benefit everyone.

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Locate, register for, and attend partner training and enablement events.

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Cisco Events provides a partner self‐registration portal for attending free Cisco events, both online and in person.

Events are organized by region, architecture, technology, target audience, city and other factors, so it is easy to find a relevant event close to you.

Engineers will be particularly interested in long running seminars like Tech Talk and Voice of the Engineer, which provide a wealth of engineering‐specific information on Cisco products.

Cisco Events also include opportunities for access to Cisco GOLD Labs for hands‐on training on a variety of Cisco products.

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Open, view, and manage technical support cases with Cisco TAC, the world renowned support organization for solving problems with Cisco equipment and software

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The TAC Online service request tools is available to registered Cisco.com users with a valid service contract.

This tool lets you describe the issue in your own words and attach files to the service request, and will route your service request to an appropriate engineer as fast as possible.

For urgent issues it is best to call TAC directly to open a case and then to use the tool to provide additional details

Partners can monitor open cases and follow resolution updates

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Engage, collaborate, create, and share with other experts on any Cisco technology or solution in technical support forums in six different languages.

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• The Cisco partner support community is an online forum where you can ask or answer questions on technical matters

• Partners, customers and interested persons can participate in community discussions

• And download documents and access resources for engineers and technical professionals

There are opportunities for participation in live expert events on technical topicsand all of these resources are free and open to everyone with a cisco.com id.

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In this module we have discussed the following key points:

• Cisco provides partner tools for engineers that help with both their pre‐sales and post‐sales responsibilities

• Plan tools help partner engineers prepare to sell Cisco solutions

• Plan tools include resources like the Cisco Competitive Portal and Installed Base Lifecycle Management

• Manage tools help partners manage post‐sales issues as well as their own skill set and relationship with Cisco

• Manage tools include resources like the Technical Assistance Center and Partner Education Connection

Try the following questions to test your knowledge.

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In this course, we have learned the following:

Cisco services address customer business and IT challenges and present partners with a viable business model for improved profitability

Partners must understand the Cisco services value proposition, successfully address customer objections, and help customers understand how services can have a direct impact on their own business

Cisco provides partner tools for engineers that help with both their pre‐sales and post‐sales responsibilities

Plan tools help partner engineers prepare to sell Cisco solutions

and

Manage tools help partners manage post‐sales issues as well as their own skill set and relationship with Cisco

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partnering with cisco for smb engineers (1)

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