10 Things You Need to Know About Cisco Global Gold Certification

Welcome to Cisco Global Gold!

For the first time in many years, Cisco is adding a new certification level to its partner program (Cisco Global Gold).

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“The world is changing, and supporting global customers is becoming more important than ever,” said Marc Surplus, senior director of strategy, planning and initiatives at Cisco’s Global Partner Organization. “As software becomes the norm as part of the Cisco portfolio and we begin to drive the Enterprise Agreement (ELA), partners need to drive deployments globally and in a consistent manner across the customer lifecycle.”

Here is a summary of the ten most important things Cisco channel partners need to know about the new Cisco Global Gold certification.

1. Cisco Partner *** Level Certification

Starting May 23, Cisco Global Gold becomes Cisco's top partner certification, surpassing the status of Cisco Gold. The new Cisco certification levels are now ranked from top to bottom: Registered, Select, Premier, Gold, Global Gold.

2. Global Gold Level Certification covers a wide range

If a partner achieves Global Gold certification, the solution provider will automatically be certified at the Gold partner level in any country where the partner is registered.

Marc Surplus said: "A global gold-certified partner can provide its customers with corresponding planning, design, implementation and operation of solutions regardless of the country."

3. Advantages of Global Gold Certification

The Global Gold Certification was created to make it easier for partners to do business around the world with different customers as well as large multinational organizations.

Marc Surplus said: "With this global gold certification, partners' transactions with Cisco have become simplified. They can directly obtain procurement qualifications and have global and regional discounts and incentives. At the same time, the amount of value exchange obtained by Cisco has increased. From a market perspective, partners can provide their customers with globally consistent support to help customers achieve business results, regardless of whether their customers have commercial cooperation with Cisco."

4. Certification requirements

Marc Surplus said Cisco's newest certification is open to any partner who wants to invest in global and local business. He said: "To obtain global gold certification, partners can pass a series of certifications or meet the requirements of the "Center of Excellence" in a specific region. The "Center of Excellence" includes a certain number of CCEIs, Business Value Practitioner Experts (BVPs) and the number of hybrid IT products sold in each region."

“Partners can meet the requirements through national certifications in each of our four regions, or they can choose to meet a number of competency requirements, whether it’s CCIE, Architectural Professional or Business Value Practitioner, which all lead to global gold certification.”

5. Which partners have obtained the Global Gold Certification?

As of May 23, Cisco said it had five global gold-certified partners, but it declined to provide specific details.

Marc Surplus said Cisco is currently in conversations with some "other partners" about becoming "globally gold certified."

6. Global Gold Certification does not mean you can get 100% profit

When asked if becoming a Global Gold Certified Cisco partner is the path to maximum profitability, Marc Surplus denied it.

"This is a business decision that partners need to make based on the customers they support and how they see their role in Cisco's business development. So for partners who are large multinational companies, this certification program is suitable for implementation in the 'business is good' situation," he said. "If you are a local partner, supporting customers in a local market, this path is not likely to be 100% profitable. Therefore, they are a good fit for partners who have a certain investment and profitability."

7. This certification is more suitable for large enterprises

Cisco said the new certification is to help partners who support global business achieve global marketing growth and provide solutions to customers around the world.

"I think large partners who are actively and broadly supporting clients around the world, who are actively involved in enterprise go-to-market around the world, will find this program to their commercial benefit; for local partners who are supporting clients in local markets, it may not be as obvious to them," said Marc Surplus.

8. This certification does not mean giving up regional partners

Marc Surplus made it clear that the new global gold certification is not a sign that Cisco does not value local and regional channel partners.

“We are not reducing our commitment to local partners in terms of registration incentives, some of our other partner programs allow partners to earn benefits globally, and we are opening up more market access,” Surplus said.

9. There will be more new certifications

Marc Surplus hinted at potential new certifications or programs for regional partners.

“We are also looking at ways to help our regional partners to better support local customers, and these partners can do business overseas to meet customer needs,” Surplus said.

"In addition to all of that, we also want to support partners that may not want to make all of the investments, or whose business may not make them truly global in scale, but they include their customers who still want to transact business globally. Cisco will focus on having discussions on this in the coming months to facilitate those traditional gold partners," he said.

10. This certification is part of Cisco's global business model

Cisco said the new global gold certification is part of Cisco's strategic evolution to create a global business model through simple and consistent processes, enabling partners to better support customers around the world. According to Marc Surplus, Cisco's overall goal is to allow partners to expand their customer base and enable sales and technical teams to work across borders more effectively than ever before.

“The key point here is for partners who want to go global, who want to demonstrate their expertise in investing globally – Global Gold Certification can be a good option,” he said. “At the same time, for local gold partners who are trying to support global customers, we are working on making the business process easier.”

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