As you jump on your brand-new exercise equipment to celebrate a newer version of yourself in this new year, I'm reminded of this idea of building some new muscle -for ourselves personally and perhaps even as a business.

Moving into 2021, we all find ourselves in a head space of deep reflection, on the year that has past, the successes we've achieved, the challenges we've overcome and more importantly, how we're determined and destined to evolve.

With evolution comes growth and our inherent desire to find ways to improve and evolve our business. What's more is the ability to not only transform yourself butpaying it forwardand transformingothersto offer better outcomes that are mutually beneficial and make us all equally successful.

Taking that first step into the evolution of your business -and the business of others -means asking yourself hard questions: How can I help my customers transformtheirbusiness? How do I automate myowninfrastructure? What are the best ways to integrate my systems to better serve my clients?

The right skills are everything today. Getting the business insights about your customers, securely connecting platforms and data and provisioning multiple devices with fewer resources are the keys to success. When enterprises use programmability and APIs to build custom applications on Cisco technology, it results in better integration with workflows and third-party apps and the design of custom dashboards that help inform your decisions and lead to better business outcomes for your customers.

Since we launched DevNet Specialization in May 2020, we've provided our partners with a path toward a software development practice to help unlock the value of software automation and meet their business growth goals in an otherwise incredibly challenging year.

It worked for these partners because the specialization is focused on a software development practice, with an emphasis on automation and programmability. Working through this past year together, we've helped solve their customer's business problems, while also recognizing them for their expertise with Cisco's technology and APIs.

In other words, a makeover for their customers' business -and their business own as well.

How can you get DevNet Specialized? Clickhere

But don't take it from me. Read more about specific ways being DevNet Specialized has helped our partners Natilik and Comtec in 2021. Learn more about how the two enterprises took these skills to a new level, building new "muscle" into their business practices that led to a transformation.

"Our Customers' businesses are rapidlydigitizing,and their IT environment is becoming more complex. Their requirements have diversified. We've been working on analyzing and consulting our customers' requirements. We now recognize that vendor-provided capabilities alone cannot satisfy this. So we're going to develop new services through a vendor-provided API. We were confident that we could gain an edge in competition only when we could help our customers' business, and we felt the need for DevNet so desperately that we challenged vendor-certified programs and prepared to acquire qualifications to increase our confidence in our development capabilities in the market." -Comtec

"We observed the next shift in technology transformation moving towards programmability and IaC, and as the confident guide to our clients, we strive to continually bring innovation to the solutions we deliver. As a long-standing Cisco Gold Partner, we have always stood shoulder to shoulder as new and emerging tech has entered the industry. It has been exciting to see the evolution and impact of DevNet and we see vast opportunity for our clients and our teams by further building on this great relationship through Specialization. The power and value of incorporating automation into our services and solutions for clients helps differentiate us as a partner and broaden our proposition that we can offer clients, continually maximizing their ROI from Cisco investments." -Natilik

"At Natilik we have a constant commitment to bring the best in technology to our clients and continually innovate with new and existing solutions, resulting in continuous ROI on their Cisco environment." -Natilik

Just like I get inspired for a personal and professional makeover at the beginning of a new year, filled with hope and aspirations that will carry me throughout 2021 with achievable goals, let these partner insights help get you to a place where you too can see the benefits of being DevNet Specialized this year. Here's a snapshot of some of the fantastic benefits you'll receive when achieving your specialization.

API Technical Support -We are here to work with you on everything needed to create a customer solution. Get technical support for your questions related to Cisco API development tasks.

Pre-Sales ConsultingYou can also request pre-sales consulting to help with development -anything from use case clarity and dev tools to advice on capabilities and programmability features of Cisco products and services. Specialized levels receive 20 tickets per year and advanced levels receive 30 tickets per year, with 5