“Tell me about Topography Builder.”
“It’s Topology Builder,” replies Director, Systems Engineering Jason Angelus in the nicest way possible.
Right then, I knew this was going to be my favorite kind of interview. One where I arrive clueless and leave clued in.
Thanks to Jason and Director of Platform Engineering James Doran, I now understand why the sales community is buzzing about Topology Builder.
James explains, “It’s like the difference between ordering something online and hoping it fits, versus trying it on in the store and knowing it does.”
I got it. Topology Builder helps build customized demos that fit each customer’s specific use cases and unique environments. When a customer can experience that fit, it leads to a better experience. Which means more sales and license renewals.
Let’s get some basics out of the way
Topology in networking refers to how the various nodes and connections are arranged.
“It can include switches, routers, and things like virtual machines, networking telephony, and security,” explains James.
The way everything is configured is key to network performance. So it’s not a stretch to imagine that before a customer purchases Cisco technology, they want to see how it fits in their environment for their specific needs.
That’s where Systems Engineers (SEs) come in. Their role is to understand the outcomes the customer is looking for and translate our technology into solutions they want. Demonstrating the solutions goes a long way in selling the technology.
Building a demo is more complicated than a diagram with devices and lines
15 years ago, if an SE needed a demo, they spent a lot of time in the lab. Just like Jason did.
“First, I needed to find some gear or buy it. Then I would spend weeks or even months putting it all together in some sort of solution. Then configure it, practice on it, and then maybe deliver that presentation to the customer,” explains Jason.
“The cost was around $2,000 each interaction.”
There had to be a way to reduce complexity and costs.
And there was. It was called dCloud, launched over a decade ago.
It’s the demonstration platform used by the SE community of more than 6,000, over 20,000 folks in Cisco Sales and Business Development, and around 100,000 sellers in Cisco’s partner community.
“We deliver well north of XXXX administrations off the dCloud platform and at a cost of less than $20 per customer demonstration,” says Jason.
If it works on dCloud, it will work in real life
Each year, dCloud improved by adding more demonstrations and growing the catalog to over 500 solutions.
But if an SE wanted a highly customized environment for their customer, they still needed to work with the demo engineering team to build a personalized one that ran properly.
dCloud recently moved to the Cloud, introducing more flexibility. “But the SEs still wanted more customization,” explains Jason.
“We needed to reimagine it completely.”
Topology Builder provides customization at scale
“We launched a new tool, called Topology Builder, which basically allows you to come in and build your own demonstration using a drag-and-drop web user interface,” says Jason.
In a matter of minutes — without touching a piece of gear, rack, or get a demo engineer involved — an SE can create their own demo.
The tool is open to Cisco teams and partners, too.
“It allows them to go in and build something themselves that is suited for their customer’s specific use case and unique outcomes,” says Jason.
The response has been very positive as evidenced by the rapid adoption and an active Webex space. Users are sharing their templates and collaborating on solutions.
“For example, there’s an SE who is really strong in enterprise networking and another in collaboration,” explains Jason, “We are seeing them break out of their architecture silos and build these really dynamic solutions environments.”
Great for pre-sales. Awesome for recurring revenue.
“We’re also working closely with CX as the platform allows us to build something once and use it across the customer lifecycle,” shares James.
“There are sometimes situations where a product was purchased, but the customer may only be using 10 to 20 percent of its capabilities. Topology Builder allows them to go, ‘Oh that’s recognizable as my environment.’”
The customer can easily see and experience how leveraging the unused features and functionalities can improve their outcomes,” explains James.
“This helps drive further adoption of the licensing and makes it easier to sell any new products.”
What’s coming up next for this self-service model?
“Today, Topology Builder is primarily grounded in Cisco hardware and software,” shares Jason. “Soon we’ll be adding software as a service capability into it, like Duo or Umbrella. We’ll also add public cloud services.”
“It's not just showing a single product. It's showing an entire solution: All Cisco products, plus potentially some third-party products as well,” adds James.
Looks like Topology Builder — not to be confused with Topography Builder even though it is changing the sales terrain - will continue to be a welcomed addition for some time to come.