Goodwin: Cisco Needs $20 Billion in New Channel Business

Cisco Systems channel chief Keith Goodwin has high growth targets for Cisco's channel business, and he's looking to the company's existing partners to scale up to hit them.

In order for Cisco to meet the growth goals laid out by Chairman and CEO John Chambers, the San Jose, Calif.-based company needs its channel partners to contribute upwards of $20 billion in new business over the next several years, said Goodwin, senior vice president of worldwide channels, during a keynote address at the Cisco Partner Summit Wednesday in Honolulu.

"John Chambers has set expectations for us to grow 12 percent to 17 percent as a company over the next three to five years. When I run the numbers on that, it means that over the next three years, I need to build $15 billion to $20 billion of new partner capacity," Goodwin said. "There are two ways to we could do that. We could recruit thousands of new partners, but that's not our strategy. Our strategy is to build it through each and every one of you in this room by continuing to invest in you."

Goodwin pointed to collaboration -- between Cisco and its partners and between partners with each other -- as the means for scaling up to meet the growth targets.

To support that, the vendor at the conference launched Cisco Partner Exchange, a virtual environment where Cisco's 8,500 certified partners can create "booths" to share information about themselves and their skill sets, and then find solution providers with complementary skill sets to partner with.

"It's where you can find other partners and be found," said Andrew Sage, senior director of worldwide marketing at Cisco.

NEXT: Partnership Pains