Cisco announces 'Race to Rio' program for channel partners

Great efforts deserve great returns – continuing on that credo, Cisco today announced a new incentive program for its distributors & channel partners in India and other SAARC nations, including Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives & Bhutan. Titled ‘Race to Rio’, the program offers partners a chance to win an all expense paid trip to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, in February 2012 corresponding with the Rio Carnival. The program, which is currently underway, will go on till January 20, 2012 and is aligned with Cisco's growth strategy to motivate partners, especially in upcountry markets to accelerate sales and widen geographical reach for Cisco. 

Arun Dharmalingam, Vice President, Partner Led, Velocity Sales, Cisco said, “Cisco is a partner-driven organization and it’s important for us to recognize and reward partners who have demonstrated their commitment consistently to Cisco and more importantly, to the customers at large. All our unique incentive programs have been well received, with previous initiatives helping to increase partner coverage exponentially during the program period. This accomplishment has prompted us to consistently increase our investments in channel promotions and enablement programs; we expect ‘Race to Rio’ to exceed our expectations and become a bigger success.” 

The products included under Race to Rio program are Cisco UCS C Series, Cisco Small Business product portfolio and specific Cisco Switching and Routing products. Apart from the trip to Rio for the top performers and runners-up, other partners can accumulate points upon selling participating SKUs and encash them for exciting rewards such as Bose Home Theater Systems, Canon DSLR Cameras, Samsung Galaxy S2 Phones, etc. During the first month of the promotion which coincides with the festive season (September 29, 2011 to October 26, 2011), the top performers and runners-up in each category have a chance to win a LG 32” HD 3D LED TV and a Sony HD Camcorder respectively. Details available at http://www.ciscoracetorio.com/.  

Factors like heightened business activity, increasing job opportunities, rapid urbanization and increasing internet, PC and smart phone penetration are transforming tier II and upcountry markets, this coupled with growing investments and commercial activity are pushing sales for Cisco’s Small Business product line. As a part of its ‘go-to-market’ strategy, Cisco is strengthening its channel engagement efforts in tier II and upcountry markets and has introduced a series of training and incentive programs and ‘Race to Rio’ is the most recent incentive program. Prior to this, Cisco successfully rolled out ‘Kick-Off’ incentive to coincide with the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the ‘Grand Slam’ program for the Australian Open and the ‘F1 Overdrive’ to watch the German F1 race at Nurburgring.