Cisco Wholesale Partners Get Webex Managed Services for 'Low Friction' SMB Experience

Cisco unveiled a Webex managed services offering for its wholesale partners.

Multiple Tier 1 global service provider partners are participating in trials for Cisco Wholesale for Webex. The managed service offering functions as part of the Cisco Wholesale Route-to-Market, which the company launched this week. The program gives participating partners a single commercial contract to deliver Cisco Webex solutions. The company noted that a single contract provides a “low friction” experience for service providers’ downstream SMB customers.

For now, the managed services feature four co-branded technology offerings: Webex Calling, Webex Suite, Common Area Calling and Webex Meetings.

In addition, the wholesale program leverages consumption-based billing with packages based on users per month. It features multiple options for invoices.

Cisco’s Tony Lupresti

“This protects your past investments in your base and allows you to move to an optimal consumption model for the complete Managed Services for Webex portfolio and future enhancements. The commercial strategy makes for a flexible and cost-effective migration of BroadWorks-based customers to the managed services Webex cloud,” Cisco director of product management Tony Lopresti wrote in a blog.

Furthermore, a Cisco success planning team will help partners with sales and technical training. They will engage with the service provider in helping them launch the Webex product, Cisco said. In addition, service providers can access a management portal and APIs.

Managed Services

The managed service offering marks the first feature of the Wholesale RTM solution that Cisco has announced. The company said it will launch other devices and cloud services geared toward SMBs in 2022.

Cisco’s Jeetu Patel

“By tapping into the brand power of respected service providers and combining it with our inclusive Webex technology, rapid innovation and complete collaboration portfolio, we are creating winning partnerships that address the communication needs of small and medium-sized businesses and help them thrive in a hybrid work world,” said Jeetu Patel, Cisco executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration.

Elka Popova, Frost & Sullivan’s vice president of ICT connected work research, said customers get better experiences when service providers control more of the experience.

“That experiences includes design, provisioning, billing and support,” she said.

Frost & Sullivan’s Elka Popova

“This new wholesale model will do just that for Cisco and its partners,” Popova said. “This approach also enables providers to offer SMBs a more complete solution by integrating telco services, such as connectivity, security and mobility, with Cisco’s Webex cloud collaboration services suite and Cisco devices.”

Cisco has encouraged its partners to take advantage of the opportunity for managed services.

“Products that are sold in a managed service model [are] even bigger than our overall [product growth], which by the way is a very important thing because we believe this part will last, but the product type on a pure infrastructure resell might come down,” global channel chief Oliver Tuszik said in March.

Partner Perspective

Reseller Nexgen Australia belongs to publicly traded technology aggregator Spirit Technology Solutions. Nexgen has signed up for the Wholesale for Webex. Director James Harb said his team wanted to give customers enterprise collaboration without complexity and cost.

Nexgen Australia’s James Harb

“When searching for a cloud-based UCaaS solution, Webex was the obvious choice. We are an all-digital shop running high-velocity, high-volume transactions. Offering Webex through Cisco’s new Wholesale route-to-market means we can continue to lead the way helping Australian businesses achieve more through the latest technology,” Harb said.

Channel Futures was on the scene in Las Vegas for the annual Cisco live conference.