I live in the city of Phoenix (cacti everywhere!) which is part of Maricopa County, Arizona, USA.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maricopa County was the fastest growing county in the U.S. in 2017. Over 70K people moved in last year -maybe this is why it seems I am complaining about the traffic a lot lately!  With all this growth, it seems like whenever we are out driving and running errands we see new construction.  When I see new building projects, I'm always a little bit excited -I can't help it!  I want to know if some new super-cool thing is coming to my neighborhood.   I'm sure you feel the same way when you see a new building going up -maybe you're hoping for a great new restaurant, or maybe a new clothing store that will solve your fashion dilemmas.  When you drive by you look up  to check on the "Big Reveal" -to see if they put up the sign and you know what is moving in!

At Cisco, we always have many new "building projects" that are under construction.   Of course, Cisco is a high growth global technology company. This means that a lot needs to be built to support the digital transformation requirements of our customers across industries (Shameless Plug Alert -I want to highlight we invest a ton on R&D!!!). Cisco's partners are also "under construction."  As partners team with Cisco in our mutual growth and transformation areas, you are supporting new technologies, services, and go-to-market sales motions for our joint customers.

One of the top areas partners are growing and transforming with Cisco is in the Internet of Things (IOT).  This growth we are both seeing is fueled by our mutual customers who are also "under construction." Customers are digitizing the way they build and provide products and services to remain competitive.  Competition is driving transformation (I think most of us have heard the Uber/taxi analogy by now.)

For Cisco partners that catch the wave of customer digital transformation, this is another opportunity to connect things (devices, machines, locations) that were never connected before.   Often these "things" are not in traditional office or network environments but may be in warehouses, distribution centers, roadways, outdoor deployments and other use cases that are determined by the needs of customers -both large and small.

Several months ago I shared a blog about the Cisco IOT Extended Enterprise that gives Cisco partner salespeople a simple strategy to sell more in less time -you gotta love that!  You just extend your customer's network into new areas -places like outdoors (fresh air!) and harsh environments (bring a jacket, hard hat, etc.)  You sell in these places with Cisco's ruggedized portfolio of products.  The good news here is that new IOT endpoints are being brought into traditional IT -the buyer you already know!  This means that together with Cisco you can leverage your strong customer relationships to cross-sell and connect the extended network to the enterprise.

Partners are really happy with the growth they are seeing with the IOT Extended Enterprise business.  This is pulling through additional network "building projects" that fuel incremental revenue streams from network upgrades, network security projects, automation, and services.   Most of these Extended Enterprise deals are driven by business requirements.  This means partners can leverage IOT opportunities to initiate activation and adoption of the software and network services that support delivering IOT business outcomes.  BTW -This is$4B market so we are not talking pocket change.  And I don't think that that bringing new "things" on the network is slowing down anytime soon.  Just sayin' J.

THE BIG REVEAL

I am re-visiting this topic of IOT because the IOT BU, the Cisco Global Partner Organization, and other teams at Cisco have been working on some building projects, and since you are not able to do a "drive-by" in person we want to give you a virtual "heads up!"   There are many exciting building projects that are "under construction" for partners that will help accelerate partner revenue from the IOT ruggedized portfolio and Kinetic (Cisco's IOT Software platform).

We have our "Big Reveal" coming very soon, and we will share with you what we have been building. It will be like when you see a new building in your neighborhood, and you find out that your favorite -fill in the blank -is coming to town.  Let me share this story -earlier this year I was driving by an outdoor mall very near my house and saw they were remodeling one of the stores.  Every time I drove by I would check for a sign to see what the new store would be (I admit I am pretty nosy!)  Finally, one day the construction team installed the sign and I found out that one of my favorite restaurants from far across town was opening in my mall -this is the kind of thing I am talking about with our IOT "Big Reveal," but even better!

I think you are going to want to see what we have been building and learn about our IOT selling strategies.  We will be sharing these at Cisco's Partner Summit in Las Vegas November 12^th-15^th, 2018.   I can't give away too much or it would not be a BIG REVEAL."  To make sure you are the "first to know," check out Cisco's Virtual Partner Summit.  View the Impact Session 12 called Cisco IoT is the Name of the Game: We're In It To Win It!

Get ready to grow your sales and win with Cisco in IOT!