What's The Score?

By Brian Kraemer

Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., earned an overall score of 78 in the 2008 VARBusiness Annual Report Card survey in the SMB Networking Hardware category. The progress the company made during the past 12 months placed it ahead of some tough competition, including Adtran and Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif., which finished second and third, respectively. According to the channel partners surveyed, the results showed that Cisco's channel commitment proved the company is always working to improve its products, support for partners and channel partner programs.

In each subcategory, Cisco ranked either first or second in the final standings. Forrest May, sales manager for Cordova, Tenn.-based Critical Edge Tech LLC, is surprised only by the fact that more channel partners don't turn to Cisco for SMB networking hardware. "SMB partners don't seem to know Cisco," May said. "For the most part, Cisco partners aren't focused on the SMB market, because it isn't where Cisco cut its teeth."

But that doesn't mean that Cisco isn't creating innovative products that are aimed at the small- to midsize businesses. In fact, May believes that some products are ready-made for smaller customers.

"I sold a customer a product that one colleague said looked like a medium-size pizza box," May said. "It becomes the firewall, the VPN connection, phone system auto attendant, as well as a switch—all in one device."

Cisco is happy to continue offering fresh products but is also looking to augment its best-in-class products with improved benefits for its partners. The unified communications offering is closely tied to Cisco's success in the product innovation subcategory. The areas of marketability and services opportunity are an intrinsic part of the company's UC offering.

"Partners are offering a services-centric proposition to a customer," said Andrew Sage, Cisco vice president of worldwide small business sales. "The UC solution is a true system and solves the communication and collaboration problem that faces many customers. Our partners are able to deliver a rich service offering to customers that includes traditional design and implementation services. This means there is a fair amount of up-front value service providers can offer."

In the support subcategory, the scores indicate that vendors offer great postsales support but lack presales involvement. May, however, believes the lack of presales support originates with channel partners and not vendors.

"We don't want [vendors] involved ... before the sale is made unless we need it," May said. "I want Cisco to be available on an on-demand basis."

Vendors recognize that channel partners believe presales support is lacking and are making moves to increase their available resources.

Kevin Kabat, HP ProCurve Americas channel sales and marketing director, said vendors should offer presales support without being overly involved.

"We give our partners a choice in how to get that support, either online or to call in," Kabat said. "For the partner that needs it, we offer complete design assistance at no charge."

That method enables HP's partners to take the design from the vendor and present it to a potential customer. Once the design has arrived from HP, the partner can label and market it as its own.

"The partner now has the choice to take the design, deliver it ... with own logo to customer ... at whatever price," Kabat said.

As vendors recognize how fast the SMB networking infrastructure market is growing, channel partners will continue to carve out large chunks of business for themselves and the companies they work with. By providing best-in-class hardware and offering continual support, vendors keep their partners happy.

"We're not supporting an enterprise," May said. "A lot of times the enterprise dogs don't want these small accounts, so we're down here by ourselves trying to do a good job."

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