Cisco’s executive leadership team this week had a lot to say about Cisco 360, the fully overhauled partner program. They also talked about the company’s transformation as it folds in Splunk.

Cisco’s executive leadership team was out in full force at the tech giant’s partner summit this week in Los Angeles in a clear signal that Cisco is dedicated to its channel, through which the company does upwards of 90 percent of its business.

The topic on everyone’s minds was Cisco 360, the completely revamped channel partner program that will replace the company’s nearly 30-year-old program in 2026. Many of Cisco’s heavy hitters addressed the ramifications of the new program, from CFO Scott Herren emphasizing the company’s profitability plan for partners, to CEO Chuck Robbins sharing the reasoning behind the “why now” for Cisco 360.

Here’s what Cisco’s leaders had to say on the mainstage and in exclusive interviews with CRN at Partner Summit 2024.

Gary Steele, President, Go-To-Market And Splunk General Manager, On Being ‘Really Focused’ On Basics

I obviously got here through the Splunk acquisition, where I was the CEO for the last couple years, and prior to that, I had been running a cybersecurity company — Proofpoint — that I had co-founded, so I spent a lot of time in cyber, and I have a lot of passion for it. It’s great to be in this role running go to market. When I came in, I think there were just a number of things really obvious to me, some of the things that had made Cisco great, we needed to get back to. We’re really focused on those back-to-basics, what made us great will make us great in the future. The other thing that’s obvious is the world has changed, the market has changed, and it’s more competitive than it’s ever been. And to respond to that, we need to make sure that we’re putting our resources against the highest growth opportunities. Finally, we need to move faster. This is a fast-changing market. The investments we’re making in security, in AI … We need to be more agile, more efficient, and easier to do business with. And we want [partners] with us on that journey every step of the way.

Jeetu Patel, EVP And Chief Product Officer, On What Success Looks Like For Cisco

I think next year, we should be a meaningfully different company for the better, and in two years, we should almost be an unrecognizable company for the better, and that would be the yardstick for success. I told Chuck [Robbins] this: One of the things I want to leave as a parting gift whenever I leave Cisco, [maybe] a decade from now — hopefully this is the last job I have — is I want to be second only to Apple in design. The reason I feel so obsessive about design is because when you build a product where you sweat the details, it shows the ultimate respect for customers, that you build something that you actually cared about so much, that even things that customers didn’t see, you sweat the details on, and I think Apple does that better than anyone else right now. I’d like to be the company that’s actually, if just as good — that’s a high bar — or, only second to Apple. But we should be one of those companies that’s obsessed about design, and we want to make infrastructure plug and play. We want to make security completely frictionless. We want to make sure that anything that we do in the application layer, that people actually are just completely enamored with. I think we have some ways to go. It’s not like we’re there in every single area, but we’ve actually shown signs where we know we can pull it off, and now we have to do it consistently across the entirety of the product line.

Francine Katsoudas, EVP and Chief People, Policy and Purpose Officer, On Transforming The Company

The entire ELT, I think we’re committed to making that [transformation] happen. I always think about the fact that we don’t have an ELT that is in it for incremental progress. We want more. I want us to look like a different company [and] part of what that means is that we have to ensure that we have the right people [and] that they have the skills that are required. That in any area of the technology stack, we can get absolute best. And they’re with Cisco, because they see the breakthrough that’s possible, especially on the AI infrastructure side of the house, but it’s across the board, security and in everything we do. I think maybe most importantly, we want people to feel it. I think there’s nothing more exciting for us at Cisco than knowing that we are building technology for this AI era, and while we do that, we’re also a company that’s going to be doing our part to ensure the digital divide doesn’t grow, and that we’re going to be thinking every minute of every day about how we can use technology for good.

CFO Scott Herren On Investing In Partners

Here’s something that I think is really important to everyone in this room: As we evolve our partner programs, this is not about cost savings. This is not about reducing investment. Let’s just be really clear: we’re going to continue to invest at the level we have. And when I say that I mean the level that we’ve been investing in these programs on a percent of sales basis — not an absolute dollar basis. So as sales grow, investment grows at the same pace. I think that’s a fundamental characteristic and it’s a key design principle as we look ahead.

CEO Chuck Robbins On Cisco 360

I have for many years been saying there’s got to be something we should be thinking about doing differently, because nothing stands that test of time for 20 years. So, I think that what [Rodney Clark, channel chief] is doing is well thought out. I’ve said this forever to partners: Whenever we make these kinds of changes, there’ll be things we do really well, and there’ll be things we miss, and we’ll adapt. But I really think the most important thing is to make sure our field sales teams and our partners are chasing the same stuff, and they’re and they’re compensated similarly.