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Partnering for Purpose

Infusing purpose across Cisco’s global partner community

Partnering for Purpose is a new initiative launched at Cisco Partner Summit in November 2022. It aligns with Cisco’s purpose to help build an inclusive future, and makes it easier for our partners, customers, and suppliers around the world to collaborate with us in order to accelerate and amplify our collective positive impact around the world.

Since launch, we’ve seen it grow into a movement that includes our partners and Cisco sharing best practices and collaborating in different ways to amplify and grow this work together. We’ve seen actions big and small that all help to drive our purpose such as:

  • Cisco and Orange Business partnered to host a Green Day event where subject matter experts from both companies delivered seminars on addressing climate change and environmental stewardship, and explored how technology and our combined expertise could help our customers achieve their social and environmental sustainability goals. The teams ended the day supporting a local farmer and planting various trees to help in sustainable agriculture and together take care of the planet.
  • The UKI partner community joining forces with Cisco to support the literacy journey of primary school children in the United Kingdom and scale the impact of oneon-one reading support to children most in need.
  • The Cisco Vietnam Distribution SE team collaborated with Cisco distributors in the country to launch the "Black Belt for a reason " program, with the goal of supporting partner engineers obtain their Cisco Black Belt certifications, whilst raising funds to help a remote community.

It is fulfilling to see how purpose is playing a significant role in the ways in which our partners drive innovation. The 2023 Global Partner Innovation Challenge incorporated a Partnering for Purpose category and saw a significant increase in the number of partner submissions this year.

As we look ahead, we hope to accelerate how we are partnering for purpose–to engage more of our Channel Partners, and to extend this work to our customers in a more concerted way.