Cisco Simplifies Software and Services Buying Program

Cisco has announced a new enterprise agreement (EA) intended to make it easier for partners and customers to buy, sell, and manage Cisco software and services.

“Cisco’s new Enterprise Agreement gives our customers and partners a powerful, simple, and extremely flexible way to buy and consume our great software products,” said Gerri Elliott, EVP and Chief Customer and Partner Officer. “Innovations like the ability to shift investments across the portfolio will help us better serve our customers, push further into our business transformation, and drive higher profitability for our partners.”

The new Cisco EA provides a single set of terms and conditions across five portfolios (Applications Infrastructure, Networking Infrastructure, Collaboration, Security, and Services). The minimum spend threshold to access EA benefits has also been reduced. In addition, the new Value Shift feature allows partners to shift committed spend across Cisco DNA software and Meraki software.

Cisco Enterprise Agreement Pay, a new offer from Cisco Capital, provides extended payments at no cost to customers for select EAs and a-la-carte software. For Cisco partners, the complementary financing option is intended to mitigate credit and currency risk, features billing and collecting through Cisco Capital, and partners are paid upon the start of a customer’s contract.

The new Cisco EA is currently available through select partners with plans to expand partner availability in early 2022. The current Enterprise Agreement programs will remain available to customers and partners while the transition to the new Cisco EA takes place during the first half of 2022.

Channel Impact^®
The changes to the contract are expected to accelerate customers’ digital transformation and fuel software revenue growth with partners while streamlining license procurement and simplifying administration.