Over the past five years, digital transformation has evolved from just a buzzword to a high priority for business leaders in every industry. As I talk to more and more of our partners about the impact of digital transformation, I’ve been blown away by the fresh perspectives and innovative ideas that are emerging every day. In one conversation, the team sat down with partner ACP IT Solutions to learn how they drill down to the best digital transformation strategy for each of their customers. In other conversations, we’ve seen how digital transformation means different things to different people, and how each individual company’s goals should inform their journey.
The opportunity ahead is vast and growing every day. In its most recent Worldwide Semiannual Digital Transformation Spending Guide, IDC “forecasts global digital transformation spending to reach $1.18 trillion in 2019, an increase of 17.9 percent over 2018.”
With over $1 trillion dollars at stake, what will set those who succeed apart from those who fall behind? I believe those who succeed will have an intense focus on delivering business outcomes for their customers AND will have a deep understanding of the technology needed to power those outcomes.
Three of our Cloud Partners of the Year are doing this with Citrix Cloud. They’ve each done incredible work transitioning their customers to cloud, and each has an intense focus on delivering business outcomes and having an impact on the bottom line for their customers. A few of them shared their strategies for cloud success.
Softcat helps a manufacturing company become more proactive in the face of inevitable change and meet previously impossible demands
Softcat, one of the UK’s leading IT infrastructure providers and a Citrix Platinum Partner, has found great success in making both Citrix and Microsoft a key part of their strategy, helping them win Northern European Cloud Partner of the Year.
When evaluating the business outcomes of the cloud, Softcat believes there are three distinct pillars of success — risk mitigation, cost control, and innovation — and that striking a balance among the three is crucial.
- Risk Mitigation: Adam Harding, Chief Technologist for End User Technology, Softcat, credits Microsoft and Citrix for giving them the ability to de-risk an investment.“If you can have superpowers like Microsoft and Citrix actually take on the risk of the security architecture for you, why wouldn’t you? Make those investments and you only need to pay a small amount to get an enterprise global-ready solution.”
- Cost Control: While risk mitigation is a top priority, Softcat also emphasizes the cost control customers can take advantage of as a result of the flexibility the cloud provides. Harding explains how the expenses and rigid parameters of on-prem solutions are not issues in the cloud. “A lot of people get distracted by the scalability of cloud, where it’s actually more about flexibility,” Harding says. “Most organizations will benefit by being able to flex down when they’re not using Azure resources. They’ll experience cost savings by scaling back if you give them the right visibility to understand when they’re not using those services.”
- Innovation: The final pillar of Softcat’s cloud strategy, innovation, was integral to a recent customer’s success. Softcat’s manufacturing customer previously struggled to keep up with the pace of change. Their traditional, top-notch IT crew worked within the organization for 15-20 years. However, increasing pressure to not only keep up with rapid upgrades and updates, but also stay ahead of the curve and evolve their services, led to mistakes, burnout, and inefficiencies that bled into the rest of the organization. It bubbled up, reaching a final breaking point when the customer could no longer attract the right talent or even find the specific skill sets they required — they were drowning.Luckily, Softcat stepped in and threw them a life preserver: Citrix Cloud. Moving to Citrix Cloud resolved their issues and enabled them to not only keep up with the pace of change but to be on the forefront of innovation within their industry. Harding explained, “By elevating up the management plan, the control plane, the data plate, by allowing people to run that infrastructure for them, and to continue to evolve at the pace that Citrix can go was a real win.”
Shoe manufacturer, Wolverine, cuts their time to market by 200 percent with Coretek and Citrix
Coretek is an industry-leading IT professional services and consulting firm headquartered in the U.S., as well as a Platinum Citrix partner recognized as the North American Cloud Partner of the Year. When talking about Coretek’s cloud strategy, Ron Lisch, Coretek’s CEO explains, “The ROI on the cloud has come to a point where, if you’re not doing it, you’re not heading in the right direction. Twenty-four months ago, a cloud strategy was something was nice to have. Today, if you don’t have one, you’re not in the game.”
What are organizations missing out on by not moving to the cloud? For Lisch, “There’s always going to be on-prem stuff, but the cloud’s going to be where you get the real security and real scalability, in a cost-effective manner.”
This security and scalability helped Coretek’s customer, Wolverine, more quickly share data with their offshore Chinese suppliers, eliminating the need to physically ship drives back and forth. Resolving firewall issues with Microsoft Azure enabled them to start moving data virtually. Coupling this with Citrix Cloud made the application tangible and actionable within the cloud environment. And it paid off. Lisch explains, “We’ve been able to help them cut their time to market by 200 percent. In a shoe manufacturing environment, that means everything.”
Learn more about Coretek’s story with Wolverine:
Teba Group saves a telco company $280k off the bottom line and 2.5 FTE headcount
Another partner who has hit their cloud stride is Teba Group, an industry leader in virtualization, a Citrix Platinum partner, and our Australia/New Zealand Cloud Partner of the Year. Teba’s cloud strategy is an interesting one in which they don’t dare utter the word “cloud.” As Craig Stones, National Practice Manager, Teba Group explains, “You mention cloud to a lot of customers, they start freezing up like they’re in front of a camera. We talk about it as a centralized control plane with central management and then they are instantly more at ease and relaxed with it.”
From there, he works with them to pick one segment at a time and over time they roll out the full solution. Using this strategy, Teba helped Telstra, a large telco in Australia and long-time user of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops on-prem, move to Citrix Cloud.
“We looked at what savings they would get over their four data centers. We were able to take 28 servers out of the equation by putting them into the actual control plane.” Craig details, “They saved $10,000 a server — the equivalent of $280,000 off the bottom line. Then looking at the overhead for those 28 servers and the administration, we were able to save a two-and-a-half FTE count on their administration.”
Learn more about Teba’s story:
The most exciting part? The telco’s massive cost savings is just the start of their digital transformation journey. Stones already sees the potential benefit of moving them into Citrix Secure Browser and other applications.
Tackle the Cloud Conversation with Confidence
By focusing on delivering real business outcomes and impacting their customers’ bottom line with cloud solutions, these Citrix Cloud Partner of the Year winners are shining examples of how to successfully tackle the customer journey to the cloud with confidence.
Here are three ways you can continue learning about how to navigate the cloud journey:
- Citrix Cloud Services: Read more about how Citrix Cloud services simplify the delivery and management of Citrix technologies, helping you to extend existing on-premises software deployments or move 100 percent to the cloud.
- Future Proof Hybrid Multi-cloud Sales Kit: Leverage these resources to help customers capitalize on the growing trend of using a hybrid multi-cloud architecture delivery model.
- Cloud Business Transformation for Partners e-Learning: Participate in our series focused on the transition to the cloud happening NOW with YOUR customers and the business transformations successful partners, like you, have undertaken to capitalize on this evolution.
What are your strategies for navigating cloud conversations? Do you have a cloud success story? Please share below!
Stay connected!
Follow the Citrix Partner Network on LinkedIn, Facebook, and at @CitrixPartners on Twitter.
Learn how to become a Citrix Partner – or build your Citrix Partner business as a Citrix Specialist – today.
Looking to implement a world-class digital workspace, networking, and analytics solutions? Find a Citrix partner in your area.
