Goodwin: Cisco Needs $20 Billion in New Channel Business

HEIT, a Cisco silver partner that specializes in solutions for banks and credit unions, is one such partner. "I've tried it. Three out of four times, it hasn't worked," said Daniel Holt, CEO of the Fort Collins, Colo., company, on his experience teaming with other channel partners.

Culture clash has been the primary reason such partnerships have failed for HEIT, he said. "You come to the table with a solution and there's one salesman that's a car salesman and one that's a solutions salesman. Then there are questions about who closes the deal, who gets the upsale. It's a challenge."

Still, other channel partners, such as the 28 solution provider members of the 1NService partner network, are able to close their skills gaps and expand their geographic reach by working together, said Paul Cronin, CEO of 1NService and vice president of Atrion Networking, a Cisco Gold partner in Warwick, RI.

Goodwin pointed to the results of a recent study conducted by Cisco as evidence that partners benefit by working with each other. Solution providers said 31 percent of their revenue comes from partnering, according to a survey of 473 worldwide channel partners. Among partners who collaborate with other solution providers, 78 percent said they win larger projects as a result, while 75 percent said it has enabled them to win new customers.

Goodwin exhorted channel partners to embrace and use collaborative technologies such as wikis and WebEx within their own organizations and to look for opportunities to collaborate with each other.

"We're using technology to take partner-to-partner collaboration, which is already happening today, to a new level," he said.