We talk a lot in technology about the power of platforms. Their ability to connect data, technology and experiences. To break down silos. To create new possibilities for customers. And in the AI era, that promise has never been greater.
But I believe there’s another side to the platform conversation that deserves just as much attention: The economics of the ecosystem around it.
Successful platforms don’t create all the value themselves. They create the conditions for others to build, innovate and create value on top of them — and importantly, to invest in building successful businesses.
Those investments follow opportunity and the potential for profitable growth. Thus, platform possibilities multiply with ecosystem profitability.
If the ecosystem can profit, it has a reason to invest. That investment creates new capabilities and customer value on the platform, which in turn creates new profit. It’s a virtuous cycle — and it changes how we think about partnerships in a platform world.
Platform Creates the Possibility
AI is changing customer requirements at a remarkable pace. Infrastructure, networking, security, observability and data are increasingly interconnected. And customers need the flexibility to bring those technologies together in ways that work for their business.
For some, that means an integrated experience across Cisco. For others, it means combining Cisco capabilities with ecosystem solutions — and potentially even competitive technologies — to create a valuable outcome.
That flexibility is the promise of a platform.
A true platform doesn’t dictate how every piece must come together. It provides the foundation that allows technologies, partners and solutions to connect, integrate and create value in an optimized way.
For Cisco, our breadth gives us an enormous opportunity to deliver integrated experiences across our portfolio. But the platform also allows our ecosystem to build on it, extend it and connect additional capabilities to meet customers where they are.
The platform creates the foundation. The ecosystem expands the possibilities.
But a platform is not simply a broader portfolio. Its real power comes from what others can create on top of it.
The book Platform Revolution makes an important distinction between traditional pipeline businesses and platform businesses. In a traditional model, the vendor is primarily responsible for acquiring the customer and delivering value. A platform changes that dynamic.
In a platform model, the businesses building on top of the platform have their own economic incentive to help grow it.
Think about a musician directing fans to Spotify or a creator bringing an audience to YouTube. They have a reason to bring more people to the platform because their own content, services and business models live there. As participation in the platform grows, so does their potential to create and capture value.
The same principle applies to a technology ecosystem. When partners build services, applications and intellectual property on top of a platform, bringing more customers to that platform can grow their own businesses as well.
That alignment of economic interests is what makes platform economics so powerful.
And it’s why ecosystem profitability matters: the more value partners can create and capture on the platform, the more reason they have to invest in it, innovate on it and bring customers to it.
Cisco builds the platform. Our ecosystem expands what is possible with it.
Partnerships Make the Possibilities Real
No single company — or partner — can possess every capability customers’ need in the AI era.
And increasingly, delivering an outcome isn’t about one partner in one transaction. It’s about an ecosystem of expertise across the customer journey — advisors, developers, integrators, managed service providers, ISVs, cloud providers, traditional partners and specialists, each bringing different capabilities at different points.
That creates new possibilities for partners, too.
A partner can choose to invest and expand the roles it plays — building new practices, developing intellectual property, creating managed services or adding new areas of expertise. Or it can orchestrate capabilities from across the ecosystem, bringing in other partners when the customer requires expertise it doesn’t have itself.
The goal isn’t for every partner to do everything. It’s to create an ecosystem where the supply of capabilities sufficiently complements the customers’ demands.
Whether that supply of capabilities comes from multiple partners, or a single entity, each require a thoughtful approach to the economics.
Partners are making real choices about where to invest their capital, talent and time. There has to be a return on that investment. That’s why partner profitability isn’t adjacent to platform strategy. It is an essential part of platform strategy.
And it’s why we built the Cisco 360 Partner Program to support this new model — recognizing partners for the value and capabilities they bring, supporting them as they invest and differentiate, and rewarding the ways they create value across the customer journey.
The more ways partners can build successful businesses around the Cisco platform — whether by expanding their own capabilities or orchestrating with others — the stronger the ecosystem becomes.
And that expands what we can collectively deliver to customers.
At Cisco, we think about that through three One Cisco outcomes: AI-ready data centers, future-proofed workplaces and digital resilience. They bring together the breadth of our platform with the capabilities of our ecosystem to address larger, more complex customer needs.
Cisco brings the platform. Partners build, integrate, customize, manage and innovate on top of it.
Together, we turn platform possibility into customer value.
Profitability Fuels the Ecosystem
This is also why I’m excited about what we’re building with the Cisco 360 Partner Program. As Cisco evolves toward platforms and One Cisco outcomes, our partner model must evolve with it.
We need to differentiate partners that build deeper and broader capabilities. Support those willing to invest in expertise. And reward the behaviors that create customer value — from discovering and defining new use cases to cross-selling, services, adoption and lifecycle value.
A platform strategy can’t simply ask: How do we get more customers onto our technology?
It also has to ask: How do we create an ecosystem that wants to bring customers to our platform because they can build successful businesses around it?
The platforms that lead won’t simply be the ones with the best technology. They’ll be the ones that create the greatest opportunity for customers and for the ecosystem that invests, builds and innovates on top of them.
The Flywheel
That’s the virtuous cycle we need to create.
- A stronger platform attracts more ecosystem investment.
- More investment builds new capabilities, services and IP.
- Those capabilities create more value and choice for customers.
- More customer value drives growth.
- And that growth makes the platform more valuable — attracting even more ecosystem investment.
The platform and the ecosystem grow stronger together.
And that’s why I think we need to broaden the way we talk about partner profitability.
The AI era will create extraordinary platform possibilities. But the platforms that lead won’t simply be those with the best technology. They’ll be the ones that create a self-reinforcing ecosystem — where the platform creates opportunity for partners, partners create value for customers, and that customer value makes the platform stronger.
That’s the economic model I believe we should be building toward.
A healthy platform strategy doesn’t succeed on its own first and then expect the ecosystem to profit second. They grow together.
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