Analyst(s): Tiffani Bova
Publication Date: February 3, 2026
Cisco’s shift to the 360 Partner Program replaces its long-standing “Gold/Silver/Bronze” hierarchy with an outcome- and specialization-driven structure. This is a concerted effort to compete for partner mindshare and align profitability as AI, managed services, and marketplaces reshape the vendor landscape.
What is Covered in this Article:
- Changes to partner incentives, designations, and profitability mechanics
- New tools, including Partner Locator, Partner Value Indexes, and AI Assistant
- How Cisco is positioning partners to deliver AI-ready data centers, workplaces, and digital resilience
The News: Cisco has officially launched its 360 Partner Program, retiring the decades-old metallic tier system in favor of a new framework built on two designations, Cisco Partner and Cisco Preferred Partner, with specialization tracks tied to technology domains such as security, networking, and AI. The new program is more closely aligned with new-customer buying trends and incentivizes partners for competencies, lifecycle value, and managed services rather than just sales volume or legacy certifications.
Cisco’s “End of Gold”: A High-Stakes Pivot to Skills-First Architecture
Analyst Take: Futurum Intelligence data reveals that 60% of channel orgs expected growth in 2025, but that growth is cannibalized by shrinking margins and the “table stakes” nature of cloud. Cisco is following others, such as Microsoft and HPE, in moving away from hard-coded sales tiers toward a hyperscaler-adjacent model.
Cisco is officially sunsetting the “Gold, Silver, Bronze” era, trading traditional metallic tiers for a model built on skills, lifecycle engagement, and vertical specialization. While the “Gold” badge was once the channel’s North Star, Cisco recognizes that in an AI-driven, managed-services world, status is useless without specialized capability.
The Risk: Alienation vs. Agility
Transitioning away from “Gold” is a non-trivial gamble. For decades, that tiering provided a clear hierarchy for buyers and investors.
- The Squeeze: By removing fixed tiers, Cisco risks alienating “legacy loyalists” who can’t pivot to the higher KPI rigor of domain-based specialization.
- The Vulnerability: With 2/3 of partners planning to expand their vendor portfolios over the next 24 months, Cisco must prove that its new Preferred Partner designation carries more weight than a competitor’s legacy Gold status.
Cisco is effectively “raising the floor.” The new model empowers high-performing, agile partners ready for AI consulting and managed security, the top growth categories for 80% of the channel. The increased complexity of engagement and KPI rigor may disadvantage resource-constrained or smaller partners who lack the scale and may find themselves “specialized out” of the ecosystem.
For buyers and investors, the clarity of partner differentiation may initially decrease in the transition period before stabilizing into new forms of value recognition. Distributors and solution integrators must reassess co-sell motions and vertical focus, as the new model strengthens Cisco’s hand with high-performing partners while potentially squeezing those slow to realign skills or investments. The ultimate success of the program will hinge on Cisco’s ability to reinforce enablement, ensure partner profitability, and deliver on the promised flexibility in ways that motivate real transformation rather than mere relabeling.
However, smaller or resource-constrained partners may find themselves. Success won’t be measured by the relabeling of partners, but by whether Cisco can deliver the enablement and profitability required to move a massive, legacy-heavy channel into the “As-a-Service” future.
Incentives Shift Toward Predictability and Lifecycle Alignment
At the core of the Cisco 360 Partner Program is the Cisco Partner Incentive, which consolidates prior incentive structures into a single framework. Partners will have clearer, more predictable earnings across their portfolios while aligning sales focus with Cisco’s product roadmap. Temporary CPI bonuses tied to One Cisco, including Secure Networking and Secure AI Infrastructure, will remain in place through July 2026. The redesign indicates Cisco’s intent to make partner profitability less dependent on isolated transactions and more tied to sustained customer engagement.
Partner Designations Signal Capability Depth Rather Than Volume
The updated partner designations introduce clearer differentiation among registered Cisco Partners, Portfolio Partners, and Preferred Partners. Cisco Portfolio Partners are defined by proven sales and technical expertise, practice maturity, and customer engagement, while Preferred Partners are positioned as having deeper lifecycle, adoption, and end-to-end delivery capabilities. Cisco and its partners emphasize that these designations are meant to help customers identify expertise rather than reward scale alone. It is expected that Partners will view being measured on value delivered rather than volume moved as a meaningful and long-overdue shift. This structure reinforces Cisco’s stated focus on expertise-led engagement in complex, multi-domain AI projects.
Tools and Measurement Frameworks Reinforce Outcome-Based Engagement
The Cisco 360 Partner Program introduces several tools to operationalize its outcome-based approach. The Partner Locator enables customers to search for partners by expertise across Security, Networking, Collaboration, Services, Splunk, and Cloud and AI Infrastructure portfolios. Partner Value Indexes are positioned as Cisco’s primary measurement framework, with additional indexes planned for Developers, Advisors, Mass-Scale Infrastructure partners, and Distributors. Cisco also launched a Distributor Development Fund and enhanced its AI Assistant within the Partner Experience Platform to improve partner efficiency. Collectively, these tools suggest that Cisco is reinforcing governance and visibility into partner performance, not reducing them.
Partner-Centric Execution Becomes Central to Cisco’s AI Positioning
Cisco repeatedly frames AI readiness as a competitive differentiator, citing its AI Readiness Index and emphasizing the need for expert partner collaboration. The company positions the Cisco 360 Partner Program as a mechanism to ensure partners can deliver secure, agile, and AI-native solutions across the customer lifecycle. The program reflects Cisco’s broader channel strategy shift as enterprise vendors adapt to software-driven and AI-centric environments.
Marketplace Evolution
While the Partner Program structures the rewards, the Cisco Marketplace serves as the destination for curated, ready-to-use solutions.
Partner-Led Integrations: The marketplace now emphasizes “AgenticOps” and pre-built integrations from partners (like ServiceNow or PagerDuty) that extend Cisco infrastructure.
Developer/Advisor Indexes: A new component of the program is the inclusion of Developers and ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) in the Partner Value Index (PVI). This means software-centric partners who build for the Cisco Marketplace are now officially recognized and rewarded within the same framework as traditional resellers.
What to Watch
- Partner adoption of the Cisco Partner Incentive and its impact on earnings predictability
- Customer usage of the Partner Locator for multi-domain AI and security projects
- How Partner Value Indexes influence partner investment priorities and behavior
- Partner response as temporary CPI bonuses expire in July 2026
See the complete press release on the launch of the Cisco 360 Partner Program on the Cisco website.
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum as a whole.
Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process: This content has been generated with the support of artificial intelligence technologies. Due to the fast pace of content creation and the continuous evolution of data and information, The Futurum Group and its analysts strive to ensure the accuracy and factual integrity of the information presented. However, the opinions and interpretations expressed in this content reflect those of the individual author/analyst. The Futurum Group makes no guarantees regarding the completeness, accuracy, or reliability of any information contained herein. Readers are encouraged to verify facts independently and consult relevant sources for further clarification.
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Author Information
Tiffani Bova is Chief Strategy and Research Officer at The Futurum Group.
Ranked for the last six years in the Top 50 Business Thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, Tiffani Bova is a thought leader who Forbes says “reshapes our perception of growth.”
As both a practitioner and academic she offers a unique perspective and has helped lead the tech industry through several evolutions over her nearly 30-year career as Salesforce’s former Growth and Innovation Evangelist, and previously as a Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow at Gartner and a sales, marketing and customer service executive for start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. She is the author of two Wall Street Journal bestsellers: GrowthIQ and The Experience Mindset.
