Cisco Offers New Tools and Programs to Help Partners Improve Support Services Capability and Profitability; Cisco Lifecycle Services Approach Applied to New Specializations.SAN DIEGO San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. -- Cisco Systems “Cisco” redirects here. For other uses, see Cisco (disambiguation). Cisco System,Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO, HKSE: 4333 ) is an American multinational corporation with 54,000 employees and annual revenue of US $28.48 billion as of 2006. (R) (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :CSCO CSCO Cisco Systems Incorporated (stock symbol) CSCO Chief Supply Chain Officer ) announced a number of new initiatives today to help Cisco(R) channel partners build and strengthen their services practices. As a key enhancement to the Cisco Channel Partner Program, the Cisco Lifecycle Services approach will be incorporated into all specialization A career option pursued by some attorneys that entails the acquisition of detailed knowledge of, and proficiency in, a particular area of law. As the law in the United States becomes increasingly complex and covers a greater number of subjects, more and more attorneys are training and requirements. In addition, Cisco is introducing a range of partner enablement initiatives, from new tools that partners can use to assess their services business capabilities and conduct technology solution engagement planning, to improved partner technical support access and new service contract quoting tools. "It's vitally important to Cisco that our partners have capable and profitable services practices," said Wim Elfrink, senior vice president of Cisco Services. "Providing our partners with the necessary tools and resources that improve their skills in selling and delivering services, enhance their services portfolios, and expand their services practices will help them make money and help make our customers be more successful with Cisco technology." Integrated Cisco Lifecycle Services To provide channel partners with repeatable, proven processes for selling, delivering and supporting Cisco solutions, Cisco announced it is incorporating Cisco Lifecycle Services into its award-winning channel partner program. Cisco Lifecycle Services training and assessment will be embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. into the new Express, Advanced and Master specializations. As a result, these specialized partners -- Express, Advanced and Master -- will be trained to provide broad, integrated network A network that supports both data and voice and/or different networking protocols. See converged network and new public network. solutions, and partners with Advanced and Master Specializations will have been trained to provide highly specialized solutions. All Cisco Lifecycle Services training for Cisco's new Express and Advanced Specializations is free of charge, and exams are available for a nominal fee. Following the repeatable Cisco Lifecycle Services approach, which includes using Cisco leading practices and intellectual property, helps partners improve their deployment success, customer satisfaction, profitability and growth. Enhancing Services Business For all partners, the new Cisco Partner Lifecycle Services E-Consulting Tool assesses partners' services metrics metrics Managed care A popular term for standards by which the quality of a product, service, or outcome of a particular form of Pt management is evaluated. See TQM. and business processes and provides partners with a gap analysis, recommendations, and leading practices to improve their business results. The tool, for example, gives suggestions on how to achieve high performance in a support organization and provides the key performance indicators Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are financial and non-financial metrics used to quantify objectives to reflect strategic performance of an organization. KPIs are used in Business Intelligence to assess the present state of the business and to prescribe a course of action. to measure that. In addition, a new Cisco Engagement Planning Tool is designed for customer account planning "Account Planning is the discipline that brings the consumer into the process of developing advertising. To be truly effective, advertising must be both distinctive and relevant, and planning helps on both counts. between partners and Cisco. This tool makes it easy to chart the minimum set of activities needed to help the customer successfully deploy, operate and optimize the technology and also defines the unique additional services the partner can provide -- applications or systems integration, for example. "For channel partners, selling lifecycle services successfully requires not only a deep understanding of their customers' current environments and growth objectives but also intense collaboration with their vendor partners," said Cyndi Privett, vice president of Viewpoint Research. "Cisco has simplified some of the most cumbersome parts of that collaborative effort through the Engagement Planning Tool. The 'service map' that the tool creates will not only save partners time and resources during the sales cycle, but will also give customers the information they need to establish appropriate services budget and help partners win additional services business." Improved Technical Support Access for Partners Cisco is also improving partners' interaction with Cisco Technical Support. Cisco understands that partners with Cisco expert-level CCIE See Cisco certification. (R) certifications have engineers whose skill levels align with those of higher-level Cisco support engineers. In recognition of this alignment, service requests made by engineers holding CCIE certification to Cisco Technical Support are now routed to peer-level technical support engineers. In addition, effective fall 2006, engineers holding Cisco CCSP CCSP - Contextually Communicating Sequential Processes (TM) security professional and Cisco CCVP CCVP Cisco Certified Voice Professional (TM) voice professional certifications Professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation, often called simply certification or qualification, is a designation earned by a person to assure that he/she is qualified to perform a job or task. at Advanced Specialized and Master Specialized partners will also be routed to peer-level Cisco technical support engineers. Engineers with CCIE certification can also now use the online Technical Assistance Center Service Request Tool via Cisco.com to open Severity 2 service requests in addition to Severity 3 and 4 service requests. Prior to this capability, Severity 2 service requests required a phone call to the Technical Assistance Center. Also scheduled to be available in fall 2006, enhanced Cisco Bug Toolkit capabilities will provide partners with more accurate, complete and timely software-defect data they need to improve network operations and availability. The Bug Toolkit will provide partners with easy access to a greater number of defects with details including symptoms, conditions and workarounds. Ease of Doing Business In addition, the recent release of the Cisco Service Contract Center's new quoting tool for indirect resellers allows resellers who purchase services through distribution to create their own quotes, which improves partner self-sufficiency during quoting and registration. The time from quoting to contract entitlement has been reduced from more than three days to less than one hour. About Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, go to http://newsroom.cisco.com. Cisco, Cisco Systems, the Cisco Systems logo, CCIE, CCSP, and CCVP are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information. |
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