Kathy Gibson reports – As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes a business imperative for companies, channel partners have to ensure they are ready and able to assist their customers.
Jose van Djik, vice-president: EMEA partner sales and routes to market organisation at Cisco, points out that every organisation in the world wants to employ AI to work smarter, enable more business or increase their profitability.
“But this also brings risks for the foundation is not ready: if they don’t have secure networks, reliable data and skilled people,” she says.
Van Dijk points out that, in South Africa today, 96% of organisations want to use AI, with 44% of them expecting AI agents to work alongside employees within a year – but only about 18% of them are ready today.
“That is why Cisco is working with key partners to ensure their readiness, get them the right training and give them the resources to help their customers achieve their goals.”
And that goal is to join the small group of AI Pacesetters that consistently outperform their peers in achieving value from AI, according to the third annual Cisco AI Readiness Index that polled more than 8 000 AI leaders across 30 markets and 26 industries.
The combination of foresight and foundation is delivering real, tangible results at a time when two major forces are reshaping the landscape: AI agents, which raise the bar for scale, security, and governance; and AI Infrastructure Debt, the early warning signs of hidden bottlenecks that threaten to erode long-term value.
Cisco’s research outlines a consistent pattern among these leaders delivering real returns.
They make AI part of the business, not a side project – Nearly all Pacesetters (99%) have a defined AI roadmap (versus 59% in South Africa) and 91% (versus 37% in South Africa) have a change-management plan. Budgets match intent, with 79% making AI the top investment priority (versus 23% in South Africa) and 96% with short- and long-term funding strategies (versus 49% in South Africa).
They build infrastructure that’s ready to grow – Their architect for the always-on AI era. Seventy-one percent of Pacesetters say their networks are fully flexible and can scale instantly for any AI project (versus 18% in South Africa), and 77% are investing in new data-centre capacity within the next 12 months (versus 41% in South Africa).
They move pilots into production – Sixty-two percent have a mature, repeatable innovation process for generating and scaling AI use cases (versus 16% in South Africa), and three-quarters (77%) have already finalised those use cases (versus 26% in South Africa).
They measure what matters – 95% track the impact of their AI investments — almost three times higher than others — and 71% are confident their use cases will generate new revenue streams, almost double the local average.
They turn security into strength – Eighty-seven percent are highly aware of AI-specific threats (versus 59% in South Africa), 62% integrate AI into their security and identity systems (versus 44% in South Africa), and 75% are fully equipped to control and secure AI agents (versus 52% in South Africa). For them, trust is part of the value equation.
Pacesetters achieve more widespread results because of this approach: Ninety percent report gains in profitability, productivity, and innovation, compared with 71% overall in South Africa.
The Index shows 93% of organisations in South Africa plan to deploy AI agents, and nearly 44% expect them to work alongside employees within a year.
But, for the vast majority of companies, AI agents are exposing weak foundations — systems that can barely handle reactive, task-based AI, let alone the autonomous systems that think, act and learn continuously.
More than a third (31%) say their networks can’t scale for complexity or data volume and just 18% describe their networks as flexible or adaptable.
Pacesetters are again the exception. Their disciplined, system-level approach has already laid the foundations they will need to scale.
Van Dijk believes that partners have a key role to play advancing AI maturity, and this means Cisco needs to help resellers expand into new areas, or bring on new partners.
“The solution portfolio is changing and expanding, and we want our partners to change with us – and with their customers’ changing needs.”
In this new world, AI is not so much levelling the playing field for partners, but ensuring that smaller companies are no longer at a disadvantage, she explains.
Cisco introduces Cisco 360 Partner Program
Cisco has launched a new partner program that radically simplifies how it works with resellers. The Cisco 360 Partner Program does away with complicated tiering, rather giving partners a score based on their specialisation and skills level.
South African partners have increased their training hours by 29,8%, partly in response to the new Cisco 360 Partner Program requirements, but also to ensure they are fully equipped to help their customers on their digital transformation and AI journey.
Van Dijk points to the Cisco EMEA FY26 Growth Strategy:
C – for core
I – for infrastructure
S – for security
C – for customer
O – for opportunity
The Cisco 360 Partner Program will launch globally in February 2026. It allows partners to specialise in the areas they prefer, and offers a higher degree of flexibility that the traditional partner tiering model.
Van Dijk explains this means SME partners will no longer be at a disadvantage compared to the bigger partners. “Now every partner will have the opportunity to grow in the areas they want to grow.”
Importantly, Cisco 360 Partner Program has been kept simple, and there is full transparency on the partner experience platform.