Major Enhancements Coming to Cisco Partner Experience Platform
Cisco is adding more AI and automation to PXP and a cloud-native platform with APIs for partners.
September 14, 2021
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The focus of PXP is to simplify, digitize and personalize the partner experience using AI and machine learning to ensure information is directed to the right person within a partner organization, according to José van Dijk, VP, partner performance and Global Partner Organization operations at Cisco.
For example, “if we do these massive email campaigns, and we just shoot them out and it doesn’t go in the right hands of the partner, it’s a waste of time,” she said. “We ’re going to make sure that all of the information gets in the right hands.”
Cisco estimates that on average, partners rely on 180 different tools. Van Dijk said that hinders partner productivity.
“We’re on this mission to retire at least 50%” of those tools, she said. So far, PXP has helped reduce roughly 32% of those tools, she added.
CLaiR is an analytics and recommendation engine developed internally by Cisco. It uses AI and machine learning against 10 years of customer data, which includes purchasing patterns than can help predict opportunities by segments, renewal dates and enterprise categories, according to Van Dijk. It will enable partners to automate sales campaigns and researching opportunities, with the goal of improving sales cycles.
IPP provides a consistent partner plan designed to improve alignment between Cisco partner teams and partner executives. It will provide ongoing performance ranking and KPIs.
“It leverages all of the data that we have in PXP,” Van Dijk said.
There are improved views of topline opportunities across the various sales motions as well as visualization of performance of sales and service metrics. Also, new booking and benchmarking information will let partners see how they are performing relative to their peer groups.
This is a feature in PXP that identifies and matches partners together. It proactively looks at existing or potential partner connections and then aligns industry use cases with partner capabilities. Partner Connect is initially only available via invitation.
PX Cloud aims to address the longstanding issue that Cisco has lacked a unified platform that connects all of its different products, many of which the company gained through acquisitions of other companies.
PX Cloud is a cloud-native platform that uses telemetry gathered from various sources and applies AI and machine learning to provide context. For example, a partner with hundreds or even thousands of customers, all in different stages of implementation of various products, could send targeted marketing messages to each client based on where they are in their deployments.
PX Cloud also is built with an API platform that partners can leverage. This will appeal to larger partners, and those that are cloud-native or digital-first, according to Cisco’s Tony Colon, SVP or customer and partner experience engineering. With these APIs, partners can integrate the PX Cloud experience into their own systems.
The PX Cloud portal interface will let partners track engagement with customer offers, monitor their portfolios including renewals and bookings. It also has an enhanced views of contracts, making it easier to identify expiring contracts and asset details.
PX Cloud will also enable a more contextual approach to disseminating emails, webinars and sessions, ensuring more relevant distribution of learning content.
PX Cloud will also enable a more contextual approach to disseminating emails, webinars and sessions, ensuring more relevant distribution of learning content.
A year after launching its Partner Experience Platform (PXP), Cisco is readying significant enhancements, including the new PX Cloud. Cisco now has revealed new PXP capabilities which the company plans to launch this fall.
The upgraded PXP features will debut at the Cisco Partner Summit, a virtual event in November. Cisco is adding AI and machine learning capabilities to PXP that will provide “actionable insights and recommendations,” the company said. PXP will also gain enhanced partner planning tools, simplified renewal management and partner-to-partner collaboration capabilities. PX Cloud will bring PXP to a cloud-native architecture designed to integrate legacy systems tied to different products and services.
PXP’s Focus
PXP is the outgrowth of a major effort by Cisco to simplify customer and partner engagement with a unified interface. The core focus of PXP is to reduce complexity and improve partner productivity, therefore making them more profitable. Now that partners must support multiple routes to market, Cisco channel chief Oliver Tuszik emphasized that simplicity is key to profitability.
Cisco’s Oliver Tuszik
“Where in the past we had to manage one route to market, we now need to manage four or five different routes, which means also for our partners, life is getting much more complex, and complexity is the one thing that is destroying their profitability,” Tuszik said.
Other than customer satisfaction, Tuszik said that partner profitability remains his organization’s primary priority.
“When we look at profitability, this is a thing that we can actively influence,” he said. “We’re not talking about the front-end sales profitability; we are talking mainly about how to transact, how to find out where the business is going, and how to drive activities within the partner side, to drive your back-end profitability.”
Cisco’s José Van Dijk
Tuszik emphasized this priority isn’t new — he prefaced his announcement at the last live Cisco Partner Summit two years ago. It was at that event in 2019 that Tuszik signaled the development of PXP.
During a briefing with media and analysts, José van Dijk, vice president, partner performance and Global Partner Organization (GPO) operations, outlined the four new features coming to PXP. Tony Colon, SVP of customer and partner experience engineering demonstrated the new PX Cloud.
Cisco’s Tony Colon
A breakdown of key new capabilities to PXP and features of PX Cloud is in the slideshow above.
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