The reseller response was strongly favourable to a major shift in Cisco's Asia Pacific channel strategy which saw account managers change their focus from customers to partners.
From the beginning of last month, Cisco account managers in the commercial segment (under 1000 seats) were compensated for the revenue generated by their partners rather than customers.
"It's a fundamental perspective shift," Sara Adams, Cisco Australia's director of commercial business, said. "We don't need to cover the market, our partners cover the market."
Stuart Sharman, general manager of Melbourne-based Cisco reseller, Pepperstorm said the effect was immediate.
"We're really happy with the new model. The account managers now work alongside us and we've seen benefits already in the short time it's been implemented," he said. "Rather than being pulled into customers, we'll be almost pushed into customers. We've already been pulled into a number of opportunities."
Ben Gallagher, business development manager of Elmtree Consulting Services, a Melbourne-based Cisco reseller said Elmtree used to sell "quite a bit" of Cisco products but that had dropped off due to a number of changes in account managers.
"I heard there were some changes. I reckon it's going to get us working closer with Cisco. It hasn't made any difference at the moment.
"There is a bit of confusion as to who we contact now in Cisco. There will be a few teething issues, as I'm sure with everyone," he said.
Goodbye to an unpopular model
Under the old model Cisco had four sales roles; territory account manager, inside account manager, market manager and small business market manager. These were last month merged into one, the territory business manager.
Account managers were given 50 named customer accounts and were paid on the amount of revenue those accounts generated. This often meant they would focus exclusively on the top 20 or 30 accounts, Cisco's Adams said.
The account manager would build the relationship with the customer and then bring in a reseller when an opportunity arose. One consequence of this model was that a reseller could have to deal with several Cisco account managers depending on the customer they were working with.
In NSW, resellers could deal with as many as 10 Cisco sales reps.
Under the new model, Cisco account managers were assigned from one to 30 partner accounts, depending on the size of the reseller. The account manager was expected to help partners build sales pipelines, close deals and make sales, with commissions are calculated on the amount of revenue generated by the partners.
"We view the territory business manager as a virtual sales manager. They will have multiple partners with multiple [sales] reps," Adams said. The account manager might see that one sales rep needed a bigger pipeline and suggest some demand generation, or another needs help closing deals and so might require more training. The role was now much more "hands on", Adams said.
"We used to see our account manager once a month, now he's in our office two days a week. Seriously," Pepperstorm's Sharman said. "Now he gets paid on what we sell and not what his customers buy."
He said Pepperstorm was much better supported under the new model when competing for a deal. Rather than having the account manager choosing between partners, Pepperstorm can rely on undivided attention.
"We feel like we are being supported on the deal with the customer. Rather than multiple partners going in, it's usually just one partner going in with the best Cisco solution with the full support of Cisco behind that."
The cost of doing business with the vendor had also fallen as a result of dealing with fewer account managers, said Sharman. "We used to deal with six to 10 account managers through the course of a half. Now it's one.
"Now we don't have to spread our relationship building time around six or seven different people, it's one guy and we're getting access to more opportunities because of it."
Next: Cisco reduces complexity
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