As the world has baked through record temperatures in 2023, Ingram Micro Australia has been teaming with Cisco to speed the deployment of solutions designed with environmental sustainability in mind.
This collaboration aims to prepare partners to respond to customers’ sustainability needs.
This won't be a small feat, noted Rodney Hamill, Cisco Managing Director of Partner and Routes to Market and SMB Sales in ANZ, at the 2023 Ingram Experience event.
“To achieve what we've set out to achieve, we need to activate our entire ecosystem,” Hamill commented. “That starts with the largest partner and the smallest partner, distribution, and our ecosystem partners.”
Earlier this year, Ingram Micro became the first Cisco Distributor in Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China to earn the Cisco Environmental Sustainability Specialisation-CESS certification across the region.
“Having a partner like Ingram being able to step up and be the first to specialise really sets the tone of what we're expecting in the market, what we're looking for from our partnerships,” Hamill said.
“I think that takes courage and initiative to be able to go and get that done to show the market you're committed to sustainability to actually go out and drive it,” Hamill said.
The two companies hope the shared commitment will help reduce the amount of e-waste dumped each year.
“Everyone can talk about sustainability, and what we've seen with the Cisco-Ingram partnership is real action, where we’re driving enablement in the market. For us, this is an important partnership that will really help us scale our objectives,” Hamill said.
Training, enablement and cash incentives
The Cisco-Ingram sustainability partnership integrates training, enablement and cash incentives.
Cisco offers larger discounts for customers and partners who take part in its product takeback program.
“If partners are looking to use these programs in the market, they'll get incremental discounts above and beyond what they normally get from their standard buy price,” Hamill said.
“That then allows Cisco to go and take that back, reclaim all that material and really drive that circular approach to what we're doing in market.”
Ingram Micro and Cisco will donate up to $40,000 to Planet Ark on behalf of resellers who do environmental sustainability or ESG training.
“We're rewarding partners for doing sustainability specialisation training. We're then marrying that effort that they're putting in, with donations to Planet Ark,” Hamill said.
Getting help
Cisco ‘s goal is to achieve net zero emissions across its value chain by 2040. Hamill noted that this “is not going to be easy. We're going to have to coordinate a lot of our partners in the market.”
Distribution is a key to the plan. “We serve probably around about 40 percent of our partners through distributors. If I look at the 1,600-odd transacting partners we have in Australia and New Zealand, we can't reach all of those.”
“Distributors for us provide scale and they provide training and enablement and knowledge and logistics and everything those partners need to be able to execute on our vision. And obviously those partners need to be able to execute on their own vision,” Hamill said.
“Distribution is really at the core of what we're doing in the scale market for us, and Ingram's a key partner in that, being the first in APJC,” Hamill said.
“Ingram Micro globally has a pledge to get to zero emissions by 2030,” said General Manager of Ingram Micro’s Cisco business, Nabil Yaghi. “So really the role of the distributor is to enable partners to build that practice.”
Smaller partners or those just starting on their environmental journey can get help from Ingram Micro, Yaghi said.
“Holding the Cisco sustainability certification allows us to enable our partners to go on their own journey around sustainability certification.”
“Tier two partners don't really have enough resources internally to go on that journey by themselves. So, we will assist them with that journey by holding the certification and enabling their teams.”
“They can leverage our certification to enable them to be able to take advantage of some of the incentives that Cisco has, like the takeback incentive. They can get additional discounts to help them with winning some of this business.”
Products and technology
Hamill also talked about Cisco's focus on designing products, processes and technologies with sustainability in mind.
“Basic things like using recycled materials where possible instead of virgin materials, removing cosmetic features on products that we were using materials to make them look pretty when they don't really need to. A more lightweight design approach.”
“We're looking at what we can do to remove things like oil-based wet paints in our products, and we're seeing that come into our Catalyst 9000 product line , for example, where we've done that.”
“We're looking at things like modular design – how we can make sure that we're actually supplying products where components can be swapped out, upgraded and changed.”
Designing products with disassembly in mind, is another consideration for Cisco.
So is energy consumption. Hamill talked about the use of “smart software on our devices to make sure that the right power is delivered at the right time.”
“Good examples are if a building’s 80 percent empty, we can start to use the software to wind down access points and not consume energy.”
Hamill also described the energy efficiency of its Silicon One products.
Customer demand
Ultimately, customers’ priorities on these issues count. Asked about this, Hamill noted that “many federal government, state governments, councils and large enterprises have sustainable procurement policies in place.”
“We will see that filter down into smaller businesses and they'll have to start to consider partners they're working with and the vendors they're working with, and if they're supporting their sustainable approach to market,” Hamill predicted.
Yaghi also noted sustainability requirements in tender applications. “If you're not on this journey, you could lose a lot of business,” he said.
“I think at some point all of the ecosystem needs to be specialised,” Hamill said, “and Ingram are prepared to step up to the plate and be the first to do it and really lead the way in terms of what can be achieved in the market when you invest in what you believe.”
To learn more about Cisco Sustainability, visit the Cisco web site.
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