When we launched Webex Wholesale three years ago, we set out to solve a fundamental challenge: how could we help service providers efficiently deliver world-class collaboration solutions to the millions of small and medium businesses that needed them? Today, as I reflect on our journey, the numbers tell a remarkable story of growth, innovation, and market transformation.
Growth That Goes Beyond the Numbers
In just three years, Webex Wholesale has consistently exceeded our goals quarter after quarter—a testament to both market demand and our partners’ execution. But the growth metrics that truly excite me go beyond the impressive seat additions and accelerating monthly momentum we’re seeing. We’re experiencing exponential growth that puts us on a clear pathway to reach unprecedented scale in the near future.
Our annual order value growth represents more than just strong financial performance—it reflects a fundamental shift in how collaboration solutions reach underserved markets. These aren’t just metrics—they represent hundreds of thousands of businesses that now have access to enterprise-grade collaboration tools they might never have experienced otherwise.
Discovering New Markets, Not Just Converting Old Ones
Perhaps the most exciting discovery has been where this growth is coming from. When we originally designed Webex Wholesale, we anticipated it would primarily help us migrate existing BroadWorks customers to the cloud. While that migration opportunity still exists, 64% of our WebEx Wholesale business has come from net new customers to Cisco—businesses we’d never served before.
This tells us we’re not just digitizing existing relationships; we’re expanding into entirely new market segments. We’re reaching small businesses through service providers who understand their local markets, speak their language, and can deliver the high-touch support these customers need.
Beyond Calling: Building Complete Solutions
What started as a calling-focused platform has evolved into something much more comprehensive. While the majority of our business remains centered on calling services, we’ve successfully expanded into meetings, messaging, and even contact center solutions with our Customer Assist offering. This evolution from a calling platform to a complete collaboration suite reflects how our partners and their customers are embracing the full potential of cloud communications.
The Power of Scale and Simplicity
Our success isn’t just about the technology—it’s about the business model innovation that makes high-velocity, small business sales possible. By eliminating the need for individual purchase orders for each customer and implementing monthly billing in arrears, we’ve removed traditional friction points that made serving SMBs challenging at scale.
The result? Service providers can focus on what they do best—building customer relationships and providing local support—while we handle the complex technology infrastructure behind the scenes.
Partners like ConnX exemplify this approach perfectly. When they needed to migrate a national auto parts retailer’s nearly 5,000 locations and over 43,000 devices to the cloud, Webex Wholesale enabled them to complete the entire transformation in under six months with zero business disruptions. Their success earned them recognition as Webex Managed Services Partner of the Year, demonstrating how the right partner with the right platform can tackle even the most complex enterprise-scale deployments.
Similarly, Gamma Communications in Europe has leveraged Webex Wholesale to fuel their ambitious goal of becoming Western Europe’s number one UCaaS provider. Through strategic acquisitions like Placetel in Germany and BrightCloud, Gamma has rapidly expanded their Cisco-powered offerings across multiple markets, delivering AI-driven Webex solutions to SMEs while building a robust partner channel throughout the region.
Three Key Trends Driving Success
Looking across our partner ecosystem, I see three powerful trends that explain our momentum:
Attacking New Markets: Service providers are successfully reaching SMB segments that traditional Cisco channels haven’t effectively served. They’re bringing enterprise-grade solutions to businesses that previously had limited options.
Recurring Revenue Growth: Partners aren’t just selling one-time implementations; they’re building sustainable, recurring revenue streams while expanding their service offerings to existing customers.
The Rise of Distributed Deployments: Some of our most exciting growth comes from distributed retail deployments— a national pizza chain, a national auto dealer and distributed health care clinics are rolling out communications solutions across thousands of locations. These customers demonstrate how wholesale economics can scale to support enterprise-sized deployments.
The Right Partners for the Right Opportunity
Do we think all partners should be looking at Webex Wholesale to build their Cisco services? No, and that’s intentional. We’ve found our sweet spot with managed service providers who have strong PSTN strategies and high-velocity sales motions in the SMB and mid-market space. These partners understand that success in this market requires a different approach than traditional enterprise sales—one focused on volume, efficiency, and ongoing service delivery.
For partners who fit this profile, the results speak for themselves. They’re capturing market share in segments where they can truly differentiate, building recurring revenue streams, and establishing themselves as essential technology partners for their customers.
For partners serving enterprise customers or those with different business models, Cisco offers comprehensive collaboration solutions through our Collaboration Flex Plan, designed to support various partner approaches and customer needs across all market segments.
Looking Forward
As we look toward the future, I’m energized by the opportunity ahead. The SMB market remains vastly underserved when it comes to modern collaboration tools, and the shift to hybrid work has only accelerated demand. Service providers with the right capabilities and go-to-market approach have an unprecedented opportunity to capture this market.
Three years in, Webex Wholesale has proven that when you combine Cisco’s technology innovation with service providers’ market expertise and customer relationships, you can create something powerful: a route to market that serves customers who might otherwise be left behind in the digital transformation.
The next three years promise to be even more exciting as we continue expanding our platform capabilities and empowering our partners to reach new heights. For service providers ready to embrace this opportunity, the question isn’t whether to get involved—it’s how quickly you can get started.
To learn more about Webex Wholesale and explore whether it’s right for your organization, visit our SalesConnect page or contact your Cisco Partner Account Manager.
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