Cisco Partner Velocity, the networking titan's popular channel marketing event, will take place April 16-18 in Cannes, France, CRN has learned.
A Cisco spokesperson confirmed the conference and the dates to CRN following a query and said exact plans are being finalized. It'll remain an invite-only conference for top Cisco partners and should be officially announced early in the new calendar year.
First held in 2007 in Miami, Partner Velocity brings in both internal Cisco and external expert speakers to address Cisco partners on all aspects of marketing, a strength many solution providers typically lack.
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Cisco didn't hold a Velocity event in 2011 following 2009 and 2010 events in Paris and Barcelona, but Velocity did resurface this past year, in Las Vegas in February. The 2013 event marks the conference's return to Europe, and invited partners are hosted by Cisco.
CRN's sources couldn't provide additional details on what partners can expect from next year's event. At the 2012 Velocity, partners could not only attend the sessions and workshops but also elect to receive one of three offers from Cisco: an infusion of joint marketing funds, high-touch assistance with a social media strategy or the opportunity to work with a marketing consultant on an integrated campaign, including a professional audit.
"It's an exceptionally useful conference," said a vice president at a Cisco Gold partner, who said he was told about the 2013 conference earlier this fall by Cisco executives but did not want to betray confidences. "You've seen a lot of other big vendors turn their attention to how to help partners better market themselves and co-brand and all that. Well, Cisco's been all over this for years and is way ahead of everyone else in terms of what they do for the partner base."
Cisco has not yet replaced former vice president of global partner marketing Amanda Jobbins, who departed in August and is now global chief marketing officer at Sage. Jobbins had been in the role since 2011 and succeeded Luanne Tierney, now at Juniper, who had spearheaded the conference from its 2007 launch.
PUBLISHED DEC. 6, 2012
