Hinde Aboulainine: Scaling Cisco Co-Sell Across the Globe

Chip Rodgers  0:00  
Hey, welcome everyone. Welcome back. Chip Rodgers CMO at works, man and we are here at Cisco Live, the Cisco cosell partner, cosell booth behind us, and I am so excited to be joined by Hind abelinan Hind, welcome and

Hinde Aboulainine  0:15  
welcome. Thank you, Chip. Thank you for the opportunity. So

Chip Rodgers  0:20  
Hind is a global lead for partner cosell execution lead. Did I get that right?

Hinde Aboulainine  0:27  
That's right, yes.

Chip Rodgers  0:30  
So we were just chatting a minute ago, and I was really fascinated by the work that you and your team are doing globally. You're based in Portugal and but have a responsibility for a lot of GEOS, and it's really about making doing the blocking and tackling and getting people the partners together to co sell together with Cisco and resellers. So now I'm telling a story. You tell the story. Tell me a little bit about what's going on with you and your

Hinde Aboulainine  1:04  
team. Yes. So I have a team that is spread all across the globe, that is regionally based. It's a team of six business development manager. Those are SMEs. That are experts in CO selling with our ecosystem partners, meaning our ISV, digital solution integrators, industry partners, and the Cisco traditional channel that we call also resellers and together with Cisco. So essentially, what we do is that we really focus and start the heart of our work always start with the ecosystem partner. And the best way to describe what we do is in three things. We activate our partners, we accelerate them, and then we scale their solution and capabilities.

Chip Rodgers  1:57  
Activate, execute and scale. Activate, accelerate, accelerate, okay, and so let's sort of dive into each one. Tell me a little bit about how that how each of those steps works.

Hinde Aboulainine  2:09  
Yeah, absolutely. So activation is all about prepping that ecosystem partner so that we do have them ready to articulate and pitch and enable and train our sellers within Cisco. So we start really with understanding what the solution is about what kind of business outcome it delivers to the customer. And then we create what I call Minimum Viable contents, which essentially is an enablement package that is going to be delivered to our sales team. So we really work closely with the VU at Cisco and with our ecosystem partners to build this content, and after that, that content is set up and built, then we are ready to train our sellers and our specialist team. So we ask our ecosystem partners to train directly our sales team, so they know how to pitch and articulate that solution to their customers. So that really is essentially what we do from an activation perspective,

Chip Rodgers  3:20  
and and. So that includes this, the Cisco sales team. So it's the, it's the ecosystem partner, Cisco sales team, and then also resellers as well.

Hinde Aboulainine  3:28  
Yeah, good, good. That's a good call out. So the reseller comes in play in the acceleration phase. So the activation is all about. Let's spread the ecosystem partner. Let's enable our sales team at Cisco. And once this is done, then we're ready to accelerate. And the best way to accelerate is our channel, reseller community. So this is where we do ecosystem to partner events that we call P to P connection events, partner to partner connection events. Those events can be physical. They can be virtual. We do webinars, but essentially, the objective is to present the solution, have the ecosystem partner present their solution to the reseller community, and enable also the reseller community.

Chip Rodgers  4:14  
So, so then you've got, you've got all the the enablement content you've done training, you get the resellers going, and now you're ready to then scale and really interesting stories you were talking about earlier as well, where it doesn't, you can't just sort of let it go, right? Because you have three part three or four parties that might be working together to go bring something to market. You have to keep track of it. So you have a sales desk. Tell me about, tell me about tell us a little bit about

Hinde Aboulainine  4:43  
that part. Yeah, absolutely. So after we have done the matching between the reseller and an ecosystem partner, we know that those two companies want to work together with Cisco on delivering a differentiated solution and business outcome to the customer. We do not stop here, right? The. A ton of work to be done in terms of in terms of sitting together and establishing mapping out, the account that we want to address, mapping out, also the opportunities, establishing role of engagement, and all of that is done in a cost workshop. So the Scotia workshop are very much structured. There is a full framework that my BDMS are actually facilitating and leading, and at the end of this workshop, eventually we identify net new opportunities, and those opportunities are obviously tracked into work span, monitored and tracked into work span, but then there is a lot of follow up and follow through to be done, because, as you said, it's really not easy to bring multiple companies, three, sometimes four, sometimes five. You might have a digital solution integrator into the deal, plus an ISV, plus an industry partner, probably a reseller, and the Cisco team. So how do you bring five or multiple companies together in one single deal with driving still driving accountability and making sure that nobody is dropping the ball. And quite frankly, it's been a challenge. Work span has been very critical for us, obviously, because the platform is monitoring and tracking all the business that we are doing. But most importantly, we also have the support of a sales desk. And so the sales desk are also regionally based. There are five people right now. We are looking at expanding that team, and essentially they help us follow up and follow through the opportunities that we have tracked in work span together with the rest of the entities or companies that are participating in driving this deal. That's

Chip Rodgers  6:47  
that's phenomenal. So you're managing, you know, a bringing these partners together, many times, multiple partners, the P to P sort of activity, but they're managing a shared pipeline and at the account level, and then at the opportunity level, and bringing it all together and making it happen right, closing those deals, that's

Hinde Aboulainine  7:07  
correct. So the business development managers in my team drive the strategy conversation. They lead those P to P matching. They lead the CO sale workshop, where everything is discussed at an account level, and then the sales desk is following the execution layer, if you will, really at the tactical level, following up and follow, following through those deal until those deals are closed. That's

Chip Rodgers  7:33  
fantastic. And thank you so much for I we were talking. I'm like, we've got to tell the story. I just so thank you for taking the time and and you have a big job, but it sounds like things are going well and and appreciate you taking the time and sharing, sharing the story.

Hinde Aboulainine  7:49  
Absolutely, it's exciting. Thank you for the partnership.

Chip Rodgers  7:53  
Thank and thank you all for joining, and we will see you later today for more here from Cisco Live. Thanks and thank you.

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