5 Surprising Statistics About Cisco's Channel Strategy

3. 300,000 People Are Selling Cisco

The networking giant has a sales force of 17,000, while its more than 60,000 partners have about 280,000 employees. This means the total sales force selling Cisco solutions reaches nearly 300,000.

This bodes well for solution providers as software-defined networking, network function virtualization and services are becoming increasingly more important than simply selling hardware. Cisco has positioned its channel for the future by emphasizing technology expertise instead of sales volume classifying its partners by tier, says UBS.