Advanced partner programs and engagement driving growth in digitalisation

• CISCO’s B. Raghavendran speaks on partner initiatives in SAARC region

By Darshana Abayasingha 

Leading global provider of networking hardware, telecommunications infrastructure, cybersecurity and other technology solutions, CISCO, is accelerating the proliferation and adoption of digital services in the SAARC region with aggressive engagement across public and private sectors at all levels, and sees immense potential for wanton growth in all markets, avers CISCO India and SAARC Managing Director of Partner Organization and Sales B. Raghavendran. 

CISCO is leading a number of digital transformation programs across Sri Lanka in the public, large enterprise and small and medium business sectors in partnership with its extensive partner network. Raghavendran reveals that the Sri Lankan Government has embarked on a number of large transformation projects, which included connected Local Government offices, and that it has a very clear strategy on what it wants to do with digital platforms to drive and deliver citizen services. “Some of the projects are in the anvil, whilst others have already been deployed,” he says. The Managing Director points to several similar programs CISCO has implemented with the Government of India to deploy smart cities, which have churned good win rates deploying a number of such services. 

Raghavendran’s career with CISCO spans two decades, where he also served as Chief Operating Officer for the organisation in the region. He has also managed internal operational activities of business units and brings a deep understanding of the partner ecosystem. 

In relation to ongoing projects, Raghavendran reveals that most markets in the SAARC region are breaking boundaries with digitisation, not just at enterprise level but across the board. Whilst the individual state of evolution may differ in each sector, everyone is clear that digitisation is the way forward, he adds. As governments use tools to drive citizens’ services, enterprises are focusing on improving efficiencies and revenue, whilst digitisation brings local and global markets closer to small and medium businesses. All of this is driven by mobility, as mobile phones are proliferating in South Asian markets, alongside the growth of mobile broadband with bandwidth costs coming down.

“We are also looking how to drive this further into the Small and Medium business space, a key aspect, technology transformation for companies outside of Colombo; that’s one of our prime endeavours this year. Alongside the promise of the Sri Lankan market place, we have an impressive breadth of partners some of whom are very evolved; but our endeavour is not to say one size fits all. We launched a program called CISCO Star, which goes into SMBs and provide solutions that address their specific market place. SMBs have identified that digitalisation is the way to drive optimum performance in the market place and become more operationally efficient. They are embracing this and some of them have leapfrogged larger enterprises in terms of technology adoption because they are small and agile. We need to treat them differently, and for that we are using our distribution network having identified distributors for this purpose. The SMB space is a market that is under tapped where we see opportunity, and we feel that we have the right types of technology to cater to them. We have an excellent partner network in place and now we will light it up further,” Raghavendran adds. 

CISCO is also investing in its partners to further its solutions alongside digital transformation. Raghavendran stresses the importance of partners’ ability to articulate the value proposition to potential customers, and have implemented the three-tiered Black Belt program to serve this purpose. Under the Black Belt initiative, CISCO invests with individuals within the partner through sales, post sales and support services sectors, providing them with in-depth training of state-of-the-art network and other solutions of CISCO, plus, enhance the ability to articulate these services and what such architecture could do for a customer. The program includes several stages of assessments during the course of its three tiers and certification, enabling partners to also showcase their Black Belt qualified service providers. In addition to sales, the program pays great attention to post-sales and service to ensure a complete facility.  

“Our endeavour is to be an enabler of the digital transformation journey that is happening, alongside CISCO’s transformation journey. How do we enable our partners, because they are our route to market? If I want to ensure that CISCO is reaching and engaging customers in the best way, I must ensure our partners understand our value proposition in order to go execute. For most customers now, the decision-making process has moved from the CIO to the line of businesses. Am I using technology to address a business outcome, or am I using it for the sake of technology? We are also identifying partners in their different evolutionary phase and the verticals they are focusing on, so we can create unique solutions for them,” Raghavendran adds. 

Many partners and customers are increasing focus on cybersecurity, which is constantly evolving due to the difficult and changing types of attacks that take place every day. CISCO provides solution for every need, Raghavendran says, to meet any challenges in the digital sphere as the boundary between the office and the home is blurring.