Built through extended partner collaboration, Cisco’s redesigned framework points to where vendor-partner relationships are headed — and how value will be defined going forward.
After 15 months of development, Cisco launched its new partner program, Cisco 360 — a fundamental re-architecture of its partnership framework and how it operationalizes go-to-market execution through the channel. Cisco positions the program as a response to changing market dynamics and a rebalancing of its indirect strategy. In practice, Cisco 360 represents are set of how partner value is defined, measured, and rewarded, and how Cisco engages partners across the full spectrum of channel business models.
With the launch of Cisco 360, Cisco is completing one of the most substantive overhauls of its partner strategy in more than a decade. The program arrives at a moment when enterprise customers are no longer buying discrete products but assembled outcomes — spanning AI infrastructure, security, collaboration, and lifecycle services — and when partners are expected to deliver value well beyond the point of transaction.
Ensuring relevance in this environment is the central premise behind Cisco 360. Rather than incrementally adjusting rebates or adding new specializations, Cisco redesigned its economic logic, performance measurements, and partner experience to reflect how solutions are now sold, delivered, and expanded across the customer lifecycle. The result is a program intended to be outcome-oriented, portfolio-spanning, and adaptable to multiple partner business models.
What’s Changing
Cisco is not only a market leader in networking and security but also a bellwether for how vendors design and operate channel programs. That position makes Cisco 360 significant, as its structure and priorities are likely to influence broader channel strategy discussions across the industry.
At its core, Cisco 360 replaces a fragmented, incentive-heavy framework with a consolidated, capability-driven structure. The most visible change is the introduction of new partner designations. All participants enter as registered Cisco Partners, with progression to Cisco Portfolio Partner and Cisco Preferred Partner based on demonstrated sales expertise, technical capability, and lifecycle engagement rather than volume alone. These designations are designed to make partner capabilities more transparent to customers using Cisco’s Partner Locator tool.
As for economics, Cisco has collapsed more than two dozen legacy incentives into a single Cisco Partner Incentive (CPI) framework. CPI rewards partners across landing, adoption, expansion, and renewal motions for hardware, software, and services, aligning with Cisco’s shift toward software-led and service-based sales models.
Cisco is also introducing the Partner Value Index (PVI), a multidimensional framework that evaluates partners across foundational capabilities, technical proficiency, customer engagement, and growth. Overtime, Cisco plans to extend PVIs to accommodate different partner archetypes, including developers, advisors, mass-scale infrastructure partners, and distributors.
Supporting these changes is a revamped digital foundation. Enhancements to Cisco’s Partner Experience Platform (PXP), including an AI-enabled assistant, are intended to reduce operational friction and improve partner visibility into performance, incentives, and improvement paths.
