Instead of hopping on planes this year, we've been hopping on Webex calls. And while working from home, we've been extraordinarily productive. The way everyone is making it a priority to connect and collaborate virtually, knowing that we can't be together physically, has been truly inspiring.

Through it all, we've witnessed how the events of 2020 have unleashed incredible innovation and digital transformation across the business landscape. Forrester predicts this trend will continue: the research firm saysdigital engagement will become the number one driver of customer value in 2021, with digital products and hybrid digital products driving a greater share of revenue.

Within the CX organization, we're seeing more partners embrace the power of digital by joining forces with Cisco to drive profits and achieve exceptional customer outcomes. For example, our data tells us that our partner-led digital journeys help customers get to value 40% faster, with 48% higher usage rates and 33% higher satisfaction rates.

Recently, at Partner SummitDigital(#CiscoPS20), where the theme was Future Ready, we had the opportunity to share our newest CX innovations and strategies in a virtual partner event unlike any other in Cisco's history. Our team spoke to Cisco's CX vision, which is cloud first and built to drive unprecedented digital scale for partners across the entire customer lifecycle. The aim is to accelerate customer value realization while igniting profitable growth for partners, which comes to life through our exciting partner promotions and rebates for Cisco Business Critical Services, Success Tracks and Solution Support.

In case you missed the Summit, here are the important takeaways that demonstrate how Cisco is helping our partners get future ready:

Lifecycle Advantage: Driving Customer Value Realization with Digital

Lifecycle Advantage is revolutionary for the way it bridges Cisco and partners to jointly move customers through important milestones across their product lifecycle. More people are finally recognizing just how innovative and valuable it is. It uses automation and insights to drive retention and growth for partners, and it may be best known for increasing those all-important renewals numbers.

At#CiscoPS20, we announced new features around upsells and cross-sells, digital renewals and digital journeys, including adoption journeys for AMP for Endpoints, DNA Center and the CX Portfolio. We also unveiled new ways for partners to scale and optimize their digital customer success motions across multiple offers. This allows a greater focus on high-touch accounts, empowering partners to leverage digital to maintain relevance with all customers and drive optimal offer utilization. You can find out more here.

With 3,000 partners now using Lifecycle Advantage, it has powered more than 600,000 digital interactions to date to become the ultimate symbol of Cisco and our partners working together. In fact, let this serve as the official announcement thatLifecycle Advantage has gotten so big that it now has its own Community-and that Community is now live. We're excited to connect partners online to share best practices, engage with experts, discuss challenges and successes and learn from one another. Go here to check out the new Lifecycle Advantage Community site.

"Our Lifecycle Advantage program is revolutionary, through digital engagement Cisco and the partner help the customers accelerate through the lifecycle including digital renewals."Maria Martinez, EVP Customer Experience

CX Success Portfolio

We are listening to our partners and evolved our portfolio to be more agile and flexible to adopt to their unique services model needs, from reselling to integrating into their managed services offers. For example, at#CiscoPS20, we unveiled our expanded Business Critical Services portfolio, with a wider mix of delivery models and package and training options to fuel stronger growth and profitability for more partners globally.

PX Cloud: CX Insights That Fuel Partner Growth

Also launched at the Summit, PX Cloud acts as a central CX insights platform for partners, giving them all the data and insights they need to set the stage for digital success with customers. Offering direct knowledge of customers' lifecycle stage and pain points, it enables a multi-tenant view of all their Success Tracks customers' telemetry data and more. These insights allow partners to identify opportunities to extend their services to address specific challenges.

Advanced Specialized Partners can take this approach a step further with the ability to use PX Cloud to create their own content, including Ask the Expert sessions and Accelerators. They can then publish this content directly into their customers' CX Cloud interface in real time (click here to find out how). This improves the partner's brand presence with customers and serves to expedite customers' product lifecycle journey jointly with Cisco.

Partners can also easily track all of their Success Track contracts using PX Cloud to ensure on-time renewals. Lastly, through the Learning tile in PX Cloud, Cisco provides ongoing guidance to partners on the multiple ways to leverage Success Tracks to monetize their offers.

CX is committed to our partners. To be effective at giving our mutual customers an exceptional experience, CX takes the right combination of strategy, tactics and execution. And it takes tremendous scale. With Lifecycle Advantage, PX Cloud and the CX Success Portfolio, we have that powerhouse combination. These offerings pave the way to a future where digital is more impactful than ever for our partners' businesses. It gets better, too. Partners can take advantage of themright nowto shape future-ready customer experiences today.

We ended the event on a high note, knowing that our CX commitment to our partners' profitability and success is stronger than ever. And even though we missed the personal connections that only live, in-person events can bring, Partner SummitDigitalwas a time to celebrate how far we've come this year in spite of the challenges. Most of all, it was an opportunity to envision the promise of a more digital future and get fired up about what we can accomplish together with our partners. The next normal will be here before we know it, and the time to get ready is now.

To learn how you can start driving customer value realization with Lifecycle Advantage, read our new e-book, check out the demo, or visit the new Partner Community.

For partners who are eager to accelerate their Business Critical Services practice, check out new resources under Get Started on the Partner Success Hub.