'Cisco and our partners were built for this moment' - Chuck Robbins on how vendor's channel has adapted to software and services focus

In his keynote at Cisco's Partner Summit, CEO Chuck Robbins praised partners for growing its software and services offerings

Cisco's CEO Chuck Robbins has praised partners for helping aid the company's continued transformation towards a software and services business.

The vendor has used its annual Partner Summit conference, which took place yesterday, to unveil a new enterprise agreement for partners which it claims will make it "easier to buy, sell, and manage Cisco software and services".

And in his keynote speech at the conference, Robbins highlighted the role of partners in growing Cisco's software and services offerings.

"When I started, we had just over $3bn in software subscriptions. We exited last year with close to $12bn with incredible remaining performance obligations and a $16bn run rate software business," he said.

"And this transformation gives more predictability in our business and your business, it gives us more visibility of our financial future, drives more consistency in our collective results, and it's good for our customers.

"You've played a huge role in this transformation, not only helping us as we've changed our offers over the years, but actually delivering our technology as-a-service to our customers.

"You've taken our technology and delivered over 2,000 managed services to our customers. In fact, in fiscal year 21, that resulted in almost $8bn of bookings all based on your own intellectual property and there's so much more of this ahead of us."

Cisco has announced a raft of partner related changes in recent times, including a complete reorganisation of its partner programme into four different categories, launching its partner experience portal and introducing its as-a-service offering Cisco Plus.

Last month, the software vendor's UK channel boss told CRN that these recent changes are making it easier for partners to target the areas they are most suited to specialise in, and advised partners to be clear on what it is they would like to focus on.

A key area of opportunity for Cisco and partners, Robbins said, is the shift to hybrid working, which he claimed would require new solutions in a number of key areas.

He added: "Hybrid work is more than just meetings. Hybrid work is truly about collaboration but it's also about a new security architecture, it's about networking. We have to think about the home, or the coffee shop, as a small branch going forward.

"We need networking there, we need collaboration there, we need security there. And all of it has to be underpinned and powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, and it has to be built to encourage inclusiveness for employees who are working in a very distributed way.

"And as we think about all these transitions, we have to continue to deliver choice to our customers, we have to deliver flexible consumption options. This is why we're delivering more of our technology as-a-service, you're delivering more managed services, the team's launched Cisco Plus with hybrid cloud and network-as-a-service being the initial offers.

"All of this is coming together, and I truly believe that Cisco and our partners were built for this moment."

Robbins also highlighted sustainability as a big focus for Cisco and its partners, with the vendor targeting net-zero emissions for its supply chain by the year 2040.

"We all understand the need for sustainability, so we're innovating for the planet. This is top of mind for all of us and it's also an opportunity for all of us," he explained.

"And because there's so much of an opportunity, we're going to be announcing an environmental sustainability specialisation which will be available in the second half of fiscal 22."