Cisco Channel Chief Tim Coogan On Deal Registration, Memory Shortage And Anthropic Mythos

‘There is nobody who’s done more to continue the commitment to invest in the partner ecosystem than Cisco,’ says Cisco’s senior vice president of global partner sales.

Cisco channel chief Tim Coogan said the current memory shortage is not worse than the supply chain crisis partners faced during the global pandemic.

“I do not think it’s much worse than the pandemic, and I also think that’s possibly not a fair comparison,” said Coogan, Cisco’s senior vice president of global partner sales, speaking about the current memory shortage and the impact it is having on pricing and shipments. “It’s different than the pandemic. We have changed some of our pricing policies around the validity and the extent that quotes are valid from X number of days to X number of days. But the entire industry has embraced changes in that very same way. I think this one is different. It has moved very quickly. It has been highly volatile. But I don’t think that it presents something that this industry isn’t capable of dealing with. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again.”

Coogan made the comments in an interview with CRN in which he addressed the current supply chain crisis, the company’s decision to reinstate compute deal registration, and even the security concerns raised by Anthropic’s Claude Mythos.

Coogan said he was not in a “great position” to predict how long the crisis will last, but noted that it is something the industry must be prepared to “plan for on a horizon-level basis.”

Cisco, for its part, Coogan said, has put an emphasis on communicating with partners and customers with “transparency” with regard to the crisis.

“We are trying to help them understand the value of planning ahead,” he said. “If this was an only-Cisco problem, that would be one thing. This is a problem and an issue and a challenge facing the entire industry, and we’re approaching it with transparency in the best way we possibly can.”

As to the impact of partner profitability and the steps Cisco is taking to help partners, Coogan said: “There is nobody who’s done more to continue the commitment to invest in the partner ecosystem than Cisco. I’ll give you an example. I’ve mentioned it several times. We revamped a 23-year-old, venerable program in order to support our partners in a very unique way and it’s Cisco 360 and we are continuing to invest at scale in matching our partner’s investment and their commitment to us with our commitment to them. And I am immensely proud of the fact that we continue to lean into finding ways to help our partners be profitable. One of the core principles of the company is the ecosystem and the profitability of that ecosystem.”

Below is an edited excerpt from the interview with Coogan.

Why did Cisco rescind deal registration for compute. What was the reason behind that and did you support that move?

I, of course, support the company. I was part of that process. I would never, ever place blame on anyone. I am the leader of the channel organization, and we did it in light of a volatile and dynamic pricing situation inside of the compute piece of our business.

We always look at ways to optimize our go to market, the go to market of our partners. And I think that was just indicative of a volatile time that we made an adjustment. It’s something that we’ve done for the entire 40-plus year history of our company.

What was the reasoning behind taking it away and why did you bring it back?

Because I think we listen. I think we found ourselves in a more stable position with the market moving forward. We consider feedback a gift. At Cisco, I think one of the things we pride ourselves on is being flexible and being a listening organism and mechanism. Our customers and partners gave us feedback, we listened to that feedback, and I think we responsibly put together a program that brought it back on compute in a way that we’re all comfortable with.

What kind of increase have you seen in deal registration for compute since you brought it back?

The response has been incredibly good. I think our partners said, ‘You’ve heard us. You’ve listened.’

I want to be clear partners could always, even in the brief period of time when compute deal registration went away, full stack and portfolio deals were being registered. So even a deal that included compute, while that component may not have been registered, the overall deal was. Again the feedback from the partner community was they understood why we did it. They weren’t happy about it. Of course, nobody is happy with change, and if it impacts profitability, I get that. They are incredibly happy that we brought it back in a way that is meaningful to selling the full-stack Cisco portfolio solution.

How did you change the deal registration now that you brought it back?

Deal reg is back in very much the same format. You can register a compute-only deal now, as you could before. One minor distinction is we didn’t include our legacy products that are end of sale and end of life, which didn’t make much sense anyway. But compute deals, moving forward can be registered independent of other architectures or as part of a full-stack offering.

What was the net economic impact of bringing back deal registration? Have you got any data points on that?

The data point is that our partners know that we listen, and they know that unlike anyone else in the industry, we are deeply committed to listening to our partners and responding to their feedback, as we have done throughout our entire history.

Where do you see deal registration going. It sounds like from your recent blog post you are doubling down on deal registration. Are we going to see a Cisco deal registration tying together security, networking, devices and rewarding partners for selling the complete architecture?

Let me talk about deal registration at a high level. Deal registration remains a cornerstone of the way we approach our relationship with our partners. I spent 25-plus years in the field sales organization within Cisco. I’m reasonably new to the partner org, but in my time as a sales leader here part of the value of deal registration is changing the mindset from deal registration being a reward to being an investment. And I am so proud of the progress we’ve made over the last several years with our registration numbers going up and up and up because registration is an opportunity to invest in our partnership with our partner, but I think even more meaningfully to invest with our partners into the success of our customers.

Deal registration rewards being innovative, being creative, being proactive. And I think when we are those things together the registration is immaterial to the fact that we are working in advance to bring value and outcomes to our customers, and registration is the investment in that not a reward. A reward feels like a gift. A registration is not a gift. This is an investment in the mutual success of our common customers.

Is there a change in deal registration going from a reward for registering a deal to an investment the partners have to make?

It has always been designed to reward investment. I’m bringing my sales experience in understanding exactly what that means from a philosophical perspective, but deal registration has always been designed to be an investment in the joint success of our common customer. That remains unchanged.

You have said deal registration is underutilized. What are you doing to make sure it is utilized more by your partners?

We talk about it with our partners. We talk about it with our field teams. We talk about it with sales leadership, but we do it in a way that’s not just, ‘Hey, you should register deals.’ That’s lazy. We do it with when you register a deal, here’s what it enables for our partner, here’s what it enables for our customer, here’s what it enables for Cisco. So again, a program, just telling somebody a program exists doesn’t do me much good. Telling somebody why the program exists, and we’re explaining that registration is an investment in joint success, and that’s what’s driving the numbers.

Are you trying to incent more partners to do more registration tying security and networking together?

Deal registration is not the driver for the portfolio message for Cisco. It is part of the rewards and incentive and investment programs that we have in place. But Cisco has built the portfolio that we’ve built because we believe, without exception, that when a customer comprehends all portfolios that go into providing a solution for their own companies and their customers that buying that from a vendor that can provide it top to bottom, side to side, is immensely more valuable than putting it together one piece at a time.

So everything that Cisco does in the way we educate our partners, in the way we build the Cisco 360 partner program, deal registration as a piece of that which rewards partners and customers that embrace the portfolio as foundational to their deliverable that remains unchanged and isn’t specifically tied to deal registration. That is the core philosophy of One Cisco and the company as a whole.

Are you investing more in deal registration, less or more. What is the 2026 budget for deal registration?

There is no budget for deal registration. Deal registration is a function of how well it is used. We are prepared to register as many deals as fit the qualifications for a reg. It’s that simple. When the work is done properly there is no cap on the number of deals or types of deals that we’re prepared to register.

You said in a blog post: “Security is the entry point. Full stop. When you lead with security, networking follows. When you lead with networking alone, you are leaving the most important conversation on the table. The partners who have made security the foundation of every customer conversation are not just winning security deals. They are winning more of everything.” Does that mean partners and Cisco are losing networking deals when you don’t lead with security?

We are completely capable of winning networking deals on a standalone basis. The point of my comment is that when you lead with security, which is the entry point for leading with the portfolio, that’s where the true value of this portfolio really, really shows itself.

We win networking-only deals every single minute of every single day. When we win those deals as part of a portfolio, think secure networking, we lay the foundation for all of the other things that Cisco brings to the table, and it’s a multiplier effect, no doubt about it. We are prepared to go to embrace our customers on what they need on an individual basis, but we prefer to talk about the value of the One Cisco portfolio.

What are you doing to get more partners to commit to the One Cisco full portfolio? We don’t see that many partners committed end to end to One Cisco, especially when you look at security and networking?

Maybe partners are just being nice to me, but we see partners embrace the portfolio every day. We built the Cisco 360 partner program exactly for what you just described, embracing the portfolio, end to end, top to bottom.

Think about it this way customers don’t upgrade networks for no reason. They upgrade networks to increase the capability and the deliverable to their users, often times in the form of collaboration.

We are uniquely positioned to deliver networking securely that supports collaboration, that supports the development and the growth of AI applications, and we see partners and customers embracing that full portfolio every single day.

Does every partner sell everything that we can to every customer every time? Of course not. That’s why we exist. We exist to get that message out. But the success of the One Cisco messaging, supported by the Cisco 360 partner program, has been indisputably positive.

What are you seeing in terms of the memory crisis? What are you doing to help partners with the memory shortage and where is the biggest impact on the portfolio?

Compute deal reg was gone for seven weeks inside of a vast deal registration and partner incentive program. Fair enough. I would say this: what we’re doing with our partners is the same thing we’re doing with our customers. We’re communicating with transparency. We are trying to help them understand the value of planning ahead.

If this was an only-Cisco problem, that would be one thing. This is a problem and an issue and a challenge facing the entire industry, and we’re approaching it with transparency in the best way we possibly can.

Partners are telling us prices are changing by the minute and the lead times on Cisco products are worse than they have ever been since the pandemic?

I do not think it’s much worse than the pandemic, and I also think that’s possibly not a fair comparison. It’s different than the pandemic. We have changed some of our pricing policies around the validity and the extent that quotes are valid from X number of days to X number of days. But the entire industry has embraced changes in that very same way.

I think this one is different. It has moved very quickly. It has been highly volatile. But I don’t think that it presents something that this industry isn’t capable of dealing with. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again.

How long do you see this lasting?

I don’t know that I am in great position to predict how long (this will last). If you read some of the things that are out in the paper or out in the press this is going to be with us for a period of time that is not short. It’s going to be around for, I’d say more like quarters versus months. But I don’t think I’m in a position to handicap exactly how long. But this is something that we need to plan for on a horizon level basis.

When the pandemic happened, there were steps taken where Cisco and other vendors made investments to help partners grappling with profitability and customer issues. Are you looking at any innovative things you can do to help partner profitability when partners are getting slammed by this?

I can tell you right now that there is nobody who’s done more to continue the commitment to invest in the partner ecosystem than Cisco.

I’ll give you an example. I’ve mentioned it several times. We revamped a 23-year-old, venerable program in order to support our partners in a very unique way and it’s Cisco 360 and we are continuing to invest at scale in matching our partner’s investment and their commitment to us with our commitment to them. And I am immensely proud of the fact that we continue to lean into finding ways to help our partners be profitable. One of the core principles of the company is the ecosystem and the profitability of that ecosystem.

So has profitability gone up with Cisco 360 for partners?

Partners that embrace the program have, in fact, and will continue to see their investments pay off.

If partners commit to Cisco 360, how much are their profits up?

What I can tell you is that partners that invest in 360 see a return on their investment that has them investing more.

What’s the difference between the Cisco 360 approach and the HPE-Juniper approach?

I’m not familiar with the HPE Juniper approach. I’m familiar with the Cisco approach. What makes our program unique is it incents partners to invest in their own particular expertise, but also the portfolio as a whole. And we think it does it in an incredibly unique way.

What do you see as the biggest changes coming over the next four months as you come up on a year on the job?

What I’m energized about over the next several months, we’ll call it three or four months, is that we are moving from exploring the value of AI to proving the value of AI, and what we’re doing there is helping our partners with use cases and how does the technology enable the investment to pay off for both them and our common customers.

I’m incredibly excited about the role that security continues to play, obviously, with some of the press recently around (Anthropic’s Project) Glasswing and (Claude) Mythos.

I mean, we believe that we’re uniquely positioned to help our partners and customers navigate an increasingly complex cybersecurity environment. Those two things alone, let alone the innovation engine that (Cisco President and Chief Product Officer) Jeetu (Patel) and our product team is continuing to energize, has everybody at Cisco incredibly excited!

We think that we’re positioned for the dynamic nature of the AI environment, cyber security, and our innovation pipeline is as strong as it’s ever been. If you’re at Cisco and you’re not energized, you’re just not paying attention. This is an incredible time.

What is Cisco doing to make sure people are not Mythosed (resulting in a cybersecurity breach)?

We continue to work very, very closely with Anthropic and their team. We are very proud of the work that our security team has done, and we are highly engaged in ensuring that we and our partners and customers can take advantage of Mythos in a way that keeps us all secure.

Can you explain that? Can partners get access to Mythos through Cisco?

They cannot. We are operating under the guidelines provided to us by Anthropic.

There is almost a wildfire fear spreading in the channel on this. What is your message to partners who are worried about the impact Mythos is going to have on security?

I think the message to partners is the same as it is to customers: plan, prepare, be diligent, have a process, use governance and compliance to your advantage. I think it’s the same things that have always been true.

This has certainly heightened the awareness of the importance of keeping your environment secure, keeping it compliant, up to date, properly supported. And I think that we continue to send that exact same message.