More than 50 percent of our business is now recurring as customers demand outcome-led IT, says Cisco’s Ashok Shivashankar

The new Cisco 360 partner programme simplifies incentives and positions partners to capture AI-led opportunities across government, banking, and secure networking.

More than 50 percent of Cisco’s global business is now recurring, reflecting the industry’s shift from one-time product sales to software, services and lifecycle-led engagement with customers.

Speaking to CRN India, Cisco’s managing director, partner organisation, Ashok Shivashankar, said the change is already visible across customer environments in India. “Globally, more than 50 percent of our business is now recurring. We crossed that threshold last year,” he said.

The shift is also driving changes in how Cisco structures its partner ecosystem. The company recently rolled out the Cisco 360 partner programme after a 15-month transition period, which began when the framework was first announced at Cisco’s Worldwide Partner Summit in October 2024.

“We announced it in October 2024 and gave partners a timeline to go live in February 2026. It eventually went live in January 2026, so partners effectively had around 15 months for the transition,” Shivashankar said.

At the centre of the new programme is a Partner Value Index, a scoring framework that evaluates partners across multiple parameters including capabilities, certifications, performance and engagement.

“We calculate a partner value index on a scale of one to ten. That score determines the partner designation and the incentive payouts,” he said.

The new model also consolidates multiple earlier incentive programmes into a single framework. “Earlier, we had different programmes for products, services and lifecycle incentives. With 360, everything comes under one umbrella so that partners have a single view of what they earn,” Shivashankar added.

Cisco simplifies incentives

The company gives weightage to each of these four pillars. Based on the combined score across these pillars, the company calculates the partner’s overall Partner Value Index.

This index determines the partner’s designation, said Shivashankar.

If a partner scores 5 or below, they are designated as a Cisco Portfolio Partner. Once the score reaches 7.5 or higher, the partner is designated as a Cisco Preferred Portfolio Partner.

It also determines rebate payouts and incentive benefits.

Shivashankar said, “Partners who score between 1 and 5 receive other programme benefits, but they do not earn direct Cisco incentives at that stage. Once they reach 5, they begin earning the traditional backend rebates. When their score crosses 7.5, there is an additional accelerator applied to the rebates.”

The key change here is that earlier programmes, such as the Value Incentive programme (VIP), CSPP, and Lifecycle Advantage, were separate.

“In the new structure, everything is integrated into a single framework. This gives partners a unified view of the programme and makes it clearer for them to understand what they will earn,” said Shivashankar.

For existing partners, Cisco introduced a qualification period from August 2025 to the end of January 2026. During these six months, partners had the opportunity to achieve the best possible value index across the different portfolios and architectures.

During the transition period, Cisco took the highest score a partner achieved as their entry score. Even if the score drops later, Cisco retains the highest score and maintains that status for 18 months starting in January.

This launch offers ensured stability and prevented monthly fluctuations in partner status.

“For new partners who join the programme now, they will need to build their capabilities and expertise over time. Based on that, a value index will be calculated for them. Although the index may change every month, we generally maintain it for a quarter to provide some consistency,” Shivashankar said.

However, it is not the same as the transition provided to existing partners, because new partners still need to go through the process of building their capabilities within the programme.

“For existing partners, this was also part of what we referred to as investment protection. Many of them had already built strong capabilities under the earlier programme, and we wanted to ensure that those investments were recognised while they transitioned into the new framework,” he added.

Partner status is not revenue-driven

Cisco evaluates partners based on capabilities and expertise rather than revenue thresholds.

Shivashankar said that even in earlier programmes, partner designations were not linked to booking milestones. The same philosophy continues under the Cisco 360 programme.

For new partners entering the programme, the performance pillar initially carries less weight, as new entrants may not yet have historical bookings, he added.

Partners can still build their overall score by focusing on other pillars such as certifications, specialised skills, managed services and customer experience capabilities.

“If new partners focus on building these capabilities, they can reach a solid starting score within the first couple of months. As they begin adding bookings, their overall score will improve further,” Shivashankar said.

Shivashankar added that the programme also incorporates partner feedback on scaling expectations. Certification and capability requirements have been adjusted to account for differences between large global partners and smaller ecosystem players.

The new framework also allows partners to specialise in specific technology portfolios, including networking, security, cloud and AI, collaboration, services or Splunk.

Partners can build deep expertise in selected areas and still achieve preferred partner status within that portfolio.

AI infrastructure and security are key partner opportunities

According to Shivashankar, over the last twelve months, the company has seen very encouraging developments. The general expectation earlier was that AI-related revenues would emerge more strongly in Western markets. However, even last year within Cisco, India was one of the leading markets in terms of early adoption.

The country is seeing strong demand coming from government and banking sectors.

Much of the demand is on modernising data centre infrastructure and building cloud capabilities to prepare for AI workloads. Government initiatives, including the India AI Mission which aims to enable startups to build use cases on this infrastructure.

In banking, early AI deployments include fraud detection and reconciliation.

Shivashankar said the most investments today are centred on data centre and cloud infrastructure, supported by rising cloud provider investments and government incentives for data centre development, creating new opportunities for partners.

“We are also driving AI adoption through collaboration and productivity tools. For example, within the Webex platform, we have introduced AI capabilities including assistants that can summarise meetings and generate action items. Partners are working with customers to expand these types of use cases as well.”

Customer service environments are another strong opportunity area, he added. This includes contact centres, banking call centres, and even the education sector.

Alongside AI infrastructure, security remains a major focus area for Cisco and its partners, said Shivashankar.

He added that security must be built into the entire architecture, as networking and security are increasingly inseparable. With organisations adopting AI, the focus is also expanding to AI for security and security for AI.

Cisco expects its security strategy to strengthen further following its acquisition of Splunk, as the market increasingly shifts towards security platforms rather than fragmented point products.

“For partners, this creates opportunities to build integrated solutions that combine secure networking, AI-ready infrastructure and advanced security capabilities,” Shivashankar said.

Pushes lifecycle model

Cisco is increasingly shifting towards a lifecycle-driven engagement model as software and services become a larger part of its business.

With more than 50 percent of Cisco’s business now recurring revenue, it reflects the industry’s transition from product-led sales to outcome-driven engagements.

Shivashankar explained that customers no longer buy individual technology components, such as compute or switching, in isolation. Instead, enterprises now expect complete outcomes, service-level agreements and lifecycle support, which has prompted Cisco to redesign its partner programme.

This shift places greater emphasis on the full lifecycle engagement model — land, deploy, adopt and renew.

Shivashankar said in a software-led environment, the first 90 days after deployment are critical. If customers do not see value within that period, renewals become difficult, making adoption and lifecycle services a key area of focus for partners.

At the same time, Shivashankar said the programme is not tied to strict revenue thresholds, allowing smaller partners to participate and grow within the ecosystem as they build capabilities and expertise.

The evolving model is also encouraging partners to invest more in innovation and customer engagement infrastructure.

Shivashankar said many partners are now setting up their own Centres of Excellence (CoEs) and demonstration environments, including AI pods and proof-of-concept labs, to showcase solutions and test deployments closer to customer environments.

“These centres allow partners to demonstrate technologies, enable their teams and help customers experience solutions in real time,” he said, adding that the trend is expanding beyond large partners to mid-sized ecosystem players as well.

As partners move closer to customers with these capabilities, Cisco expects the lifecycle services model and solution-led engagement to play an increasingly central role in the channel ecosystem.