Cisco is offering resellers extra discounts on kit if they register potential sales before closing the deal.

The deal registration is meant to stop partners who have invested a lot of time and money in the presales process being undercut by another reseller just before closing the deal.

John Donovan, channel director for UK and Ireland at Cisco, explains: “The Opportunity Incentive Program enables partners to identify and build new prospects. We don't want partners to invest a lot of time and money in the pre-sales to lose the business right at the end.”

The programme is being piloted in France, Germany, Ireland and the UK until the end of July followed by a European-wide rollout.

The online registration process is fairly detailed to stop people registering prospects. Dealers will have to include information about the project specifications, the budget and the person in charge. Cisco will then check it is real incremental business, provided it is then dealers will have six months to close the deal with an increased discount or rebate.

Cisco is doubling the rebate or discount available to resellers of its IP and VPN products.The Value Incentive Program helped increase IP sales by 30 per cent and VPN/Security sales by 40 per cent compared to the first six months.

Cisco has introduced a new category of partner to identify resellers capable of offering truly global services. Four such global players have been identified: Dimension Data, Equant, IBM and NCR. ®

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