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by ForgeNEX After 25 years, Cisco has made a strategic shift with its new channel program, Cisco 360, designed in collaboration with its ecosystem after fifteen months of joint work. The initiative aims to reinforce the strategic role of partners in the new era of artificial intelligence (AI) and deliver results that only Cisco and its network of partners can achieve together.
The reality is undeniable: AI is redefining the role of the channel and accelerating the transformation of the technology consumption model. In this context, María Herranz, Director of the Partner Organization at Cisco Spain, analyzes how business opportunities are evolving, the impact of the new Cisco 360 program, and the strategic role that managed services and secure AI infrastructure will play in the ecosystem's growth.
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To begin with, AI seems to have become the top technological priority in the market. How do you see business opportunities for partners changing from Cisco Spain's perspective? María Herranz is clear: "There is no doubt that AI has become the central axis of conversations with our partners in Spain, with our clients, and in virtually every forum."
What they are seeing is a complete shift in the landscape: it's no longer about selling technology, but about helping organizations build infrastructure, security, and processes that make AI adoption meaningful, real, and scalable. And that depends heavily on having a very solid network, where Cisco has a lot to contribute.
Cisco maintains that a significant portion of channel revenue in the coming years will be driven by AI. According to its Global AI Partner Study, 27% of partners expect 75% of their revenue in the next four to five years to come from AI. Not just from AI per se, but from network infrastructure prepared to support those workloads, cybersecurity, and customer experience.
Partners perceive strong demand in network modernization and AI-ready data centers, along with managed security services. This is an area where they have a huge growth opportunity. As Herranz points out, "Partners have always been trusted advisors to clients. The opportunity remains the same: to accompany them."
Organizations want to move forward with AI, but they encounter networks or data centers that cannot support those workloads at scale. And the more AI agents proliferate, the more computing capabilities will need to reside at the edge, close to where decisions are made. Here, the partner's role is crucial in designing and implementing architectures that integrate computing power, secure networking, and storage coherently.
Cybersecurity is now permanently linked to AI. Herranz believes that "it is an obligation for partners to elevate their conversation. That is, moving from a purely technical dialogue to a much more strategic one about risk, governance, and business value." At Cisco, security is natively integrated into the network. All offerings from Cisco One or Cisco Unified Edge incorporate security at the device level, with zero-trust capabilities that extend to access, segmentation, and application protection. This gives partners a solid technical argument to address these conversations.
In this regard, we recommend checking out our article on cybersecurity lessons after the escape of AI models, which delves into the risks and opportunities of security in AI environments.
Another key issue for partners is talent, one of the sector's major deficits. Cisco has a huge commitment through initiatives like Cisco Networking Academy (NetAcad), a non-profit initiative with official Cisco training worldwide. In Spain, more than 500,000 students have been trained, of which 80,000 are women. Additionally, Cisco Spain has launched the Cisco Talent Factory scholarships to help partners attract talent. These scholarships allowed the incorporation of 50 professionals last year and 63 more this year, all with official Cisco certifications at the CCNA level, both in networking and security.
Herranz also discusses Cisco Unified Edge, the announcement made at the last Partner Summit. "It's exactly what I mentioned earlier. Decisions are increasingly made closer to the edge, closer to where the business resides. That's why Cisco Unified Edge is the first market platform optimized for that environment. More than a server, it's an integration of compute, networking, and storage in a single system. And most importantly: it has been co-designed with companies from these data-intensive sectors: retail, services, healthcare, or banking."
To better understand how AI is transforming infrastructure, we recommend our analysis on Model Routers, a new intelligence layer redefining AI infrastructure.
Right now, the channel is specializing in models based on managed services or subscriptions, which is what clients demand. Herranz describes it as "a planetary alignment." The transformation of the consumption model is real: managed services exist because clients want to consume that way. They want to focus on their business and have partners and service providers offer these capabilities.
The new channel program, Cisco 360, launched in January, has managed services as one of its key points, closely linked to the customer lifecycle and customer experience: accompanying the client throughout the entire project, not just in implementation. It reflects how the market is evolving and how the program needed to modernize to adapt to these new needs.
At ForgeNEX, we have analyzed how specialization in managed services can be a growth lever, as in the case of Syvalue, which celebrates 20 years of betting on specialization in HPE and AI.
Herranz highlights that "collaboration within the ecosystem is increasingly necessary. Although they compete in certain areas, in many others they collaborate. The combination of deep knowledge and collaboration adds tremendous value." Regarding alliances with other manufacturers, Cisco maintains very strong collaborations, especially at this time of AI explosion: Nvidia, AMD, among others. "We do not understand the new channel program as an isolated set of actions, but as a model of collaborations and strategic alliances."
To delve deeper into how collaboration with manufacturers like Nvidia is transforming the sector, you can read our article on Nvidia and its DNA model, which explores implications for SysAdmins and business.
Herranz recommends partners not miss the great window to position themselves as references in secure AI infrastructure. "Not in one or two years, but right now. The new channel program has temporary bonuses and incentives aimed precisely at this window and this specialization, which we must take advantage of."
Is AI the biggest growth driver for partners since the arrival of the cloud? Herranz responds: "Without a doubt. I believe the impact is even greater than that of the cloud a decade ago. AI is generating a wave of transformation that, combined with infrastructure, security, data, and strategy, clearly represents a revolution."
To conclude, Herranz emphasizes: "It is not an evolution, it is a revolution: it requires a lot of structure, infrastructure, and constant knowledge to avoid falling behind."
If you want to optimize your organization with productivity tools, don't miss our guide on Microsoft 365 and how it can integrate into AI environments.
Original source: ComputerWorld. Analysis and adaptation by ForgeNEX.