Cisco Partner Evaluation Checklist: 10 Questions to Ask
Before You Sign

Before you sign with a Cisco partner, put the same ten questions to every name on your shortlist and score the answers side by side. They cover Cisco 360 designation, engineering depth, references, lifecycle ownership, migration risk, SLAs, licensing, pricing, delivery reach and exit terms, the areas where a genuine partner and a box-shifting reseller diverge. 

Most enterprise IT partnerships are still chosen on price and a familiar logo. Both are weak signals: one in six IT projects runs 200% over budget. A switch refresh or a security rollout runs for years, and the partner you choose owns the risk for every one of them. These ten questions belong in every shortlist conversation — and on the scorecard below. 

1. What is your designation under the Cisco 360 Partner Program? 

In January 2026, Cisco retired its Gold, Premier and Select tiers. The Cisco 360 Partner Program replaced them with portfolio-specific designations, scored by the Partner Value Index across four categories. Networking, Security, Collaboration and Cloud and AI are each assessed separately. Ask which designation the partner holds and in which portfolios. "Cisco Preferred Partner" is the top designation and signals advanced technical capability. A partner still citing a "Gold" badge is quoting a status that ended in January 2026. 

2. Who actually does the engineering? 

Ask how many CCIE- and CCNP-certified engineers sit on the partner's own payroll, not a subcontractor's. Then ask whether the team that scopes your project is the team that delivers it. Pre-sales and delivery are often different people. You want that gap named before the contract, not discovered mid-cutover. 

3. Can you show three references in my industry, from the last 18 months? 

A manufacturing OT network and an ITeS contact-centre floor fail in different ways. Generic campus references prove little. Ask for three customers in your vertical, in India, deployed within 18 months, and ask to call them. A partner with nothing recent in your sector is learning on your site. 

4. What do you own after go-live? 

Deployment is the easy quarter. Ask what the partner owns at day 30, day 90 and day 365: optimisation, adoption, firmware, capacity. Get the split between their responsibility and yours in writing. "Lifecycle ownership" on a slide means nothing; a named owner against each task means everything. 

5. How do you scope and own migration risk? 

Across IT projects, only 47% finish on time. For a switch refresh or a cloud-calling cutover, ask for the rollback plan, the maintenance-window model, and the named risk owner if a cutover slips. A partner who has done it before answers in specifics: change windows, fallback states, go/no-go gates. 

6. What is your support SLA, and what happens when you miss it? 

A response-time number with no penalty clause is marketing. Ask for the SLA in writing, with service credits attached, and ask who carries the pager at 2 a.m. Escalation paths matter more than the headline number. 

7. How do you manage Cisco licensing and renewals? 

Industry research puts 30–40% of enterprise software licences as unused. Enterprise Agreements and subscription licensing are where budgets leak. Ask who tracks true-ups, co-termination and renewal dates, and whether the partner flags unused licences or simply processes the invoice. A partner aligned to your cost tells you where you overspend. 

8. Will you commit to a written architecture and a fixed price? 

A partner confident in its engineering documents the design and stands behind a number. Open-ended time-and-materials for a well-defined project moves all the risk to you. Ask for the as-designed architecture as a contracted deliverable, not a courtesy. 

9. Where are your delivery and support teams, relative to my sites? 

For a multi-plant or multi-branch footprint, ask about field-engineer coverage, spares depots and on-site response times in each of your cities. A national presence on a map is not the same as an engineer who can reach your plant within hours. 

10. What happens if we want to leave? 

Ask how documentation, administrative credentials and as-built configurations are handed over at the end of a contract. A partner who builds for portability is, paradoxically, the one worth keeping. Lock-in is a sign of weak engineering, not loyalty. 

How to use this checklist: send all ten questions in writing to every partner on your shortlist, then score the replies against the table below. Specifics beat adjectives; the partner who answers in named owners, dates and clauses has done this before. 

Proactive Data Systems has delivered Cisco infrastructure in India for over 35 years and holds Cisco Preferred Partner status under the Cisco 360 Partner Program across Networking, Security, Collaboration, Cloud and AI, and Services. Put us through all ten questions. 

Here are the ten questions as a ready-to-use RFP scorecard; drop it straight into your procurement process.