"As I meet and talk with partners around the world, they consistently tell me, regardless of location, that their top growth issue is attracting, developing and retaining talent," said Celia Harper-Guerra, director of Worldwide Partner Talent at Cisco. "This global feedback is the foundation of our talent strategy, which was validated in a recent study we commissioned in North America. That study identified hiring skilled sales and technical talent as the top barriers to growth in the IT channel."

With more than 80 percent of its annual revenue being sold by channel partners, helping preempt a skills shortage is a major business imperative and one in which Cisco is investing substantial time, money and resources. Cisco invested early on, more than 18-months ago, to work to enhance the validity of its primary route to market. The company's new talent-building initiatives include: 

    1. Partner Talent Network: Scheduled to launch in second quarter of calendar
    2008, the Partner Talent Network sets a new standard in the industry and
    will serve as the foundation for a global Cisco talent solution. Web 2.0
    collaboration capabilities will foster better communication between
    employer and candidate, while the use of interactive video will eliminate
    the need for text resumes and job postings. Replacing the existing Partner
    Talent Portal, the new platform will provide targeted candidate matching,
    interactive talent maps and personal branding capabilities as well as
    career-exploration tools for students and candidates anywhere in the world,
    significantly expanding the talent pools that Cisco can connect its
    partners with.
   
    2. Recruitment Services Solutions: Through this new initiative, channel
    partners that have difficulty finding experienced talent can supplement
    their strategies by using recruitment firms who specialize in IT networking
    talent. Moreover, they can do so at a Cisco negotiated reduced rate. In
    some cases this rate is nearly 50 percent lower than the pre-negotiated
    rate. This talent recruitment solution is currently available in the United
    States, Canada, Europe, the emerging markets and Asia Pacific through a
    variety of relationships.
   
    3. Professional Career Accelerator: Today's employees require a sophisticated
    blend of professional, technical and business skills. This new partner-
    development program provides critical on-the-job training focused on
    professional and business skills aligned to Cisco technologies. The channel
    partner can thus assess employee talent as well as receive guidance on
    creating a development plan customized to an individual's skills. This
    program also uses job-role playbooks, allowing the channel partner to set
    the development pace and cost based on its needs and the needs of the new
    hire.
   
    4. Talent Pool Connections: Expanding the pools of qualified talent to which
    Cisco can connect its channel partners is critical to addressing the global
    IT skills gap. Cisco recently added the Cisco® Networking Academy®
    Alumni Association of more than 200,000 active registered graduates and the
    Cisco Career Connections Web site, which receives roughly 20,000 resumes
    per month, to the list of qualified talent to whom Cisco is connecting its
    partners.

    Study Echoes Global Partner Feedback

The North American study commissioned by Cisco and conducted by the Institute of Partner Education and Development, provider of channel intelligence through world's largest solution provider databank, garnered a 97 percent confidence rating. Thirty-four percent of the respondents said that hiring additional qualified employees was key to growing company sales and capacity with 48 percent ranked the hiring of technical talent and 34 percent ranked the hiring of sales talent as difficult.

"As a company that focuses on delivering technology solutions to banks and credit unions we have very specific talent needs and without qualified people with industry knowledge our ability to grow is hindered," said Dan Holt, co-founder and CEO of Heit, Inc., a Cisco Premier Certified Channel Partner. "Cisco understands this issue because it listens to its partners like no other company in the industry, but perhaps more importantly it is taking action and addressing the issue aggressively with us."

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

Cisco, the Cisco logo, Cisco Systems and Networking Academy are registered trademarks or trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company. This document is Cisco Public Information.

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Write comment