Cisco Commits To Championing Small Businesses In The UAE

In an aim to help local organizations grow, Cisco is renewing its commitment to small businesses, with a multi-year awareness campaign and increased partner investments in the UAE to capitalize on the opportunity.

Cisco is also expanding its simple, secure and flexible portfolio of solutions designed with small businesses and their digitization agendas in mind.

Today, small business is big business. It represents millions of individual companies representing two-thirds of the global GDP.  Now more than ever, small businesses are facing a pace of change unlike ever before. Small businesses must address an increasingly savvy customer base who expect digital experiences, amazing customer service and simple user interfaces.  With the increased utilization of cloud and web-based applications, a strong and secure network is the essential life blood of any small business.

Collected under the Cisco Designed for Business brand, the newly launched portfolio delivers the right products at the right price for small businesses to thrive. To accelerate growth, Cisco is doubling partner investments for this market and creating an easy and frictionless experience for both partners and smaller customers with faster response times and immediate access to expertise.

“Businesses around the world are having to rethink how they operate to stay ahead of the competition. At Cisco, we believe in helping small businesses leverage disruptive technologies to accelerate their growth, providing a more equal playing field in which businesses of all sizes are afforded the same opportunities to realize their digitization agendas. In doing so, organizations in the UAE can spend more time focusing on improving their products and services to increase customer engagement and retention,” said Hani Raad, General Manager of Small Business at Cisco MEA.

According to the UAE’s Ministry of Economy, the SME sector represents more than 94 per cent of companies operating in the country[1]. With the SME market across the wider Gulf region predicted to be worth as much as $920 billion by 2023[2], it is clear just how important small businesses are to the local economy. While small businesses in the UAE and neighboring countries continue to embrace the latest technologies and practices, they are also struggling with how to manage the complexity this can bring.

Cisco is now responding and supporting small businesses faster with the new Virtual Demand Center (VDC). VDC generates and satisfies the demand generated by Cisco marketing activities with a low or no-touch sales motion. For partners, the VDC provides actionable opportunities that are ready to engage and, for customers it delivers faster response times and immediate access to expertise.

Cisco is also getting behind partners who understand the small business market by significantly increasing its partner investments to scale and improve partner profitability. By initiating new programs, incenting partners on growth, streamlining the deal approval process as well as enabling partners to seek out new small business customers, there has never been a better time for partners to double down on small.  

New offerings and key changes to the partner programs include:

• New ‘Perform Plus’ incentive: A new global performance incentive that rewards partners who focus on Mid-size and Small business customers, with a quarterly cash rebate. Cisco is also increasing the investment in partners who demonstrate targeted growth behaviors, but may not be able to capitalize on other incentives. This incentive launches in Cisco Q3 FY20.
• ‘CMSP Express’ Program : A redesigned Cloud and Managed Service Program to address Managed Services Providers (MSPs) selling to Small Business customers.
• X-Sell available globally: A sales community created via co-investment with partners that includes Cisco-led training and joint selling to scale to the Small business opportunity.
• Streamlined Deal Registration: Significantly accelerated approval time for deals under certain sizes allowing partners to act quickly in the fast-paced market.

Lastly, Cisco has a curated portfolio of products – including some new product developments - specifically designed for small business. Cisco Designed for Business will offer solutions that enable small businesses to connect, compute & collaborate, securely.  New additions to the portfolio include Cisco Business Wireless Access Points, a new Meraki Go full stack and the new Catalyst 1K switch, an affordable entry point to the world-class Catalyst range of switches for small business.