Cisco honours top ANZ partners at Cisco Live
Cisco has tapped a number of partners at its annual Cisco Live event in Melbourne on Tuesday, with the vendor recognising top partners who displayed excellence over the course of 2017.
The awards recognised Cisco's Partners' achievements across 15 award categories, while looking at key criteria of innovation, growth and strategic alignment.
Data#3 was the big winner on the night, receiving two separate gongs for Cisco's partner of the year (for Software and for Services), as well as achieving the Award for Exceptional Growth in Cisco Hyperflex.
"What an outstanding achievement to have five podium appearances, with three gold and two silver awards," says Data#3 executive general manager Brad Colledge.
"I'm humbled to accept these accolades on behalf of the team. The strength of our partnership with Cisco plays a pivotal role in our overall success. Together we help customers to truly transform their businesses in an age of technical innovation.
Outcomex was named Digital Transformation partner of the year, whilst Telstra won the managed service innovation award.
Meanwhile, the Australian and New Zealand arms of Dimension Data were both given 'exceptional growth' awards for Cisco Security.
Ingram Micro was awarded distribution partner of the year and IPTel Solutions was awarded the project delivery excellence award for their work with the University of Queensland.
Datacom Group walked away with the New Zealand Partner Innovation award.
"We are proud to receive Cisco's NZ Innovation Partner Award for 2018," says Datacom Group director Mark Muru.
"Datacom has always taken the long view when it comes to innovation, and we especially value our partners that share that vision. The automation advances and efficiencies that our network, cloud and development teams are realising flow directly through to our customers.
Dimension Data NZ and AU both took home the Exceptional Growth in Cisco Security award.
"Dimension Data is thrilled to receive the Exceptional Growth in Cisco Security award at Cisco Live," says Dimension Data NZ CEO Wayne Yarr.
"We continue to accelerate our investment in our Cybersecurity capability and portfolio offering, and Cisco is a key strategic partner for us in helping protect our clients against cyber threats. Cybersecurity remains a top organisational priority, and we are continuing to see year on year investment in enterprise security solutions from our clients."
Cisco ANZ partner business group director Tara Ridley says, "Cisco is committed to working closely with its partners, and collaborating to create outstanding business outcomes for our customers.
"We revamped the awards from 2016 to recognise and encourage innovation, strategic alignment and a customer outcome focus for our Partners. It has been incredible to see the level of innovation that's taking place in the Australian and New Zealand markets this year.
"I would like to congratulate all of the winners and runner-ups for demonstrating a range of technical excellence, strong understanding of customers and some incredibly innovative solutions, across the breadth of our portfolio," Ridley continues.
The full list of winners for the 2018 Cisco Australia and New Zealand Partner Awards is given below:
Digital Transformation Partner of the Year - Outcomex
Customer Success Partner of the Year - Taleka
Enterprise Networking Partner of the Year - Cirrus Networks
Software Partner of the Year - Data#3
Ecosystem Partner of the Year - Downer EDI Engineering
Services Partner of the Year - Data#3
Exceptional Growth in Cisco Hyperflex - Data#3
Exceptional Growth in Cisco Security - Dimension Data Australia
Exceptional Growth in Cisco Security - Dimension Data New Zealand
Exceptional Growth in Cisco Meraki - Thomas Duryea Logicalis
Exceptional Growth in Cisco Spark - Optus Business
Managed Service Innovation - Telstra
Australian Partner Innovation - GCOMM
New Zealand Partner Innovation - Datacom Group
Project Delivery Excellence - IPTel Solutions
Distribution Partner of the Year - Ingram Micro
