Wireless Networking- Cisco Reclaimed its Lost Glory

Cisco has bounced back strongly this year to regain its lost position as the #1choice of channel partners in the field of wireless networking. The company has replaced D-Link, once the favorite of channels, with a considerable margin, to reach the spot, in this year's survey.

Scoring high on the diversity of the product range as well as price versus performance ratio, Cisco, which lost the crown last year, has proved there is no replacement of versatility. The company also supports its partners with a variety of marketing activities conducted by a very competent team. Cisco's advertising strategies, point of sales material, allocation of funds for marketing, flexibility in conducting localized promotions, and bringing in innovations in its market development programs have been really appreciated by the channel partners.

Moreover, Cisco's proactive service approach, ability to provide satisfactory repair and replacement services, turnaround time, promptness in stock replacement, presence of its service centers all across the country, availability and competence of its account managers/helpdesk services, and technical expertise to resolve the queries have found deep resonance amongst the partners.

The company has also taken significant lead over D-Link in terms of commercial terms, be it product pricing, back-end incentives and its settlement, credit policy, flexibility in commercial terms, and promptness in communicating the schemes/incentive programs to its partners.

D-Link gave a close competition to Cisco but it seems it could not cope with online support that the latter provides to the channel partners in terms of the richness of the online resources offered, turnaround time/promptness, interactive site for resolving queries, and presence of an effective partner portal. It has, however, managed to pull up its strings in profit margins, and maintaining transparency in commercial terms and policies.

In case of Netgear, its leadership in the technological space and user-friendly and reliable products, and conforming to specifications as compared to its competitors seems to be working well with the channel partners. However, in order to match up with the other big players in the market, the company has to reinstate its focus on the marketing as well as aftersales support that it provides to the channels. All these factors have badly affected Netgear's relationship with the partners, which is very much visible by the scoring (least of all) that it has generated in the overall relationship management.