At Citrix, we believe that the future of work is mobile and secure. Every day, we see organisations building competitive advantage by freeing workers from their desks, by making information and applications available, securely, from any device, anywhere.

That approach is important for all today’s organisations, but never more so than in a children’s charity where, of course, information security is essential and where every pound or minute saved means the charity can support more children, more effectively.

Barnardo’s, the UK’s largest children’s charity, took the decision to become a more digital organisation. When we spoke to Michael Fleet, Head of End User Computing, he told us, “Our goal is to leverage digital technology and communications in all aspects of our work to enable us to reach out to and support more vulnerable children.”

With a high proportion of field workers, the charity wanted to enable people to be more productive wherever they were, to have access to the charity’s resources, and be able to exchange information whilst preserving security.

As part of its transformation, Barnardo’s designed its new head office as a hot-desking environment and selected Citrix Workspace to provide users with the information and applications they needed. Michael explained the choice:

“We chose XenDesktop because we needed to deliver a full desktop experience. This was supplemented with XenApp to deliver apps to end users that we didn’t want to install conventionally. With remote access through NetScaler we can also provide the same experience for our staff who are based in local authority offices or are home workers.”

Barnardo’s also tested different mobile management solutions before choosing Citrix XenMobile and Citrix ShareFile. It now has more than 2,900 people using corporate and personal devices, both iOS and Android. Michael explained that, “Our staff can enroll their personal devices. We want them to have remote access and to carry fewer devices. It also means they can manage their own work-life balance.”

Citrix Workspace helps Barnardo’s manage security, too: “We had concerns about transporting confidential data. When it was all paper-based, there was the potential for forms to be lost or stolen.”

And, XenMobile allows the separation of personal and corporate information on people’s devices.

“It was key for us that corporate data couldn’t be leaked between the two environments,” Michael said. “It’s a fantastic, seamless solution for staff because they can work on a document in a Barnardo’s office, disconnect, then reconnect securely either at home or in a local authority office, and the experience is exactly the same.”

Michael concluded our discussion, saying, “We’ve definitely seen the benefit of using the Citrix technology stack to enable mobile and flexible working, helping us deliver maximum benefit to vulnerable children. From talking to other charities, we know we can provide secure access to our information in ways that they are not able to. With Citrix, we’ve been able to support more children, more effectively.”

Read more about how Barnardo’s uses Citrix Workspace.