Fresh managed services push for resellers from Cisco
Vendor hopes managed services offering will help resellers become MSPs
Cisco has made a further play for the managed services space by teaming up with ConnectWise on a platform to help resellers become MSPs.
Announced at the Cisco partner summit in Dallas on Wednesday, the vendor outlined plans to get a slice of the global managed services space, which it states will be worth over $250 billion by 2022.
The ConnectWise Unite with Cisco cloud platform attempts to provide the channel with an offering that combines networking, security and collaboration services when managing business commerce operations. This includes bringing together the likes of Cisco Meraki, Cisco Spark, Cisco Umbrella and Stealthwatch Cloud.
The vendor claims the offering allows MSPs to manage several customers from one interface "to add monthly recurring revenue" and it expects traditional reseller partners to move into managed services with it.
"There is a proliferation of customers turning to MSPs to assist them in managing their IT environments, addressing their expanding security requirements, and helping them create a competitive advantage," said Nirav Sheth, vice president, partner solutions, architectures and engineering for Cisco's global partner organisation.
"Our collaboration with ConnectWise provides our channel partners with an opportunity to drive long-term recurring revenues by rapidly building a managed services practice and accelerating their sales revenues through a suite of Cisco services from ConnectWise.
Sheth claimed that by allowing MSPs to automate billing and solution management processes from a "single pane of glass", ConnectWise Unite with Cisco enables partners to scale their services.
Arnie Bellini, CEO, ConnectWise, said: "Cisco's cloud-managed offerings coupled with ConnectWise's expertise in delivering robust managed services capabilities is a powerful and compelling combination.
"With one vendor relationship to manage in Cisco for industry-leading IT solutions and with one MSP platform from ConnectWise, solution providers can effectively automate and scale across multiple customers.
"ConnectWise Unite with Cisco gives partners the ability to drive greater efficiencies, lower costs, focus on providing customers with great support, and grow their businesses," claimed Bellini.