Cisco 360 represents a total revamp of the 30-year-old partner program and a significant departure in the way that Cisco partners earn today. Here’s what partners should know.

Unveiled at Cisco Partner Summit 2024, the all-new Cisco 360 Partner Program is a total refresh of the tech giant’s nearly 30-year-old program. Unlike the programs of the past three decades, Cisco 360 was designed to attract more MSPs and MSSPs with its focus on the value partners bring as opposed to the large transactions they capture. It was also created to vastly simplify Cisco’s complicated program structure that included several different incentive and rebate programs, such as VIP and Perform Plus.

The goals of the new program are for Cisco to drive double-digit growth in the markets it serves while boosting the profitability of partners, through which Cisco does 90 percent of its business. The company is in a different business today than its heritage business, and partners must come along, the company said. Cisco has about 4,000 transaction partners today, but the tech giant wants to also open the door for new partners that perhaps haven’t done—or have done very little—business with Cisco, including MSSPs. But because there are so many moving parts and the program represents a significant departure from how many Cisco partners earn today, the Cisco 360 Partner Program won’t fully transition until February 2026. The company said that the rollout will be gradual, with new elements introduced and piloted to keep partners and distributors informed and supported.

Rodney Clark, Cisco’s senior vice president, partnerships and small and medium business, spoke with CRN exclusively ahead of the rollout and shared the details and the “why now.” Here are five things that Cisco partners need to know about the Cisco 360 Partner Program.

New Incentives

The Cisco 360 program will do away with separate partner programs and incentives such as VIP, Perform Plus and the Cisco Services Partner Program, or CSPP. These will be folded into a single structure called Cisco Partner incentive (CPI), which will mirror the overall value index that will measures partners across four areas: foundational, capabilities, performance and engagement, said Clark.

Cisco 360 will also include the Splunk Partnerverse program, which is being merged into the new program over the next 15 months, Clark said. The integration will also take into account investments that Splunk partners have made, as well as Cisco partners that have already begun to dip their toes into the Splunk portfolio.

What It Means For The Cisco Gold Designation

Clark confirmed that the differentiating and sought-after Gold designation, which has been in place for 30 years, is going away in 2026. In its place will be two designations: Cisco Partner and Cisco Preferred Partner.

“What we are ensuring that we do is to protect the investments of all of our partners, and so if you’re a Gold partner today, you get to continue driving on the investments that you’ve made, and we protect that investment all the way through to our program in 2026. The reason that we’re giving so much time is so that we can be open and transparent with partners around the requirements across the new value index and ultimately what that means in this new Cisco 360 Partner Program,” Clark told CRN. “We’ll be working with all of our partners to ensure that they are playing as high up that value index as possible, and we will be recognizing all the investments that they’ve made.”

Cisco said that current levels, roles and life-cycle practice investments will be recognized until the program is fully implemented to ensure that partner investments are protected.

A Focus On AI And Security

As partners move up the value index, there will be incentives that allow them to dive deeper into networking, security and observability, Clark said. The shift away from a transaction-based partner program gives way to Cisco working with more specialty partners in security and networking, he added.

“It gives way to those boutique partners who maybe, again, are very highly specialized but important to us from an ecosystem standpoint. It also allows us to engage with partners who haven’t traditionally been those transacting partners, but SI [systems integrator] partners, for instance, and ISVs, and so the program designed just by virtue of having this index is actually allowing for us to go deeper with those partners who are uniquely networking or uniquely security or uniquely collaboration and basically brand them as a Preferred Partner in observability, for instance, and they get to participate in the same way that a partner who maybe is deep only in networking, which has been the primary driver of a lot of our ecosystem,” he said.

An $80 Million Investment

As part of the new partner program announcement, Cisco also revealed an $80 million investment that the company said would go toward new partner initiatives to boost skills and provide the tools needed to compete in the market. A majority of that investment—$60 million to be exact—will go toward supporting qualified partners with benefits such as all-access Cisco U. subscriptions for skill development and certification. An additional $20 million will fund Ladder Up, an investment for partners focused on AI, security, observability and networking through self-paced learning, hands-on labs and continuing education credits, according to Cisco.

“We’re really making an effort to make sure that … all investments are protected and we’re giving enough runway and lead time for partners to establish themselves in the new designations,” Clark said.

What It Means For Specializations

Cisco said it will continue to help partners differentiate their market position by developing deep expertise in specific areas or across multiple portfolios by way of specializations. However, the tech giant is going to continue its strategy of moving away from the traditional Architecture Specializations in favor of Solution-based Specializations. Cisco said that it will ultimately move to next-generation specializations that will be accessible to Preferred Partners only.

Alongside the new partner program, Cisco on Monday unveiled its first specialization focused on AI—the Cisco AI-Ready Infrastructure Solution Specialization. The company said the new specialization will position partners as experts in delivering AI-ready infrastructure, security, and observability solutions and services to customers throughout their AI adoption journey.