This post is a bit overdue to be a real “hello world” blog, but I’m going to roll with it. I initially wanted to post something on my first day, but, to be honest, I was so busy adapting to a return from sabbatical combined with our new, all-video-conference world.
I am the new Global Head of Customer Success Partnerships at Citrix. I’ll get into what that role means later, but first let’s discuss the initial part of my journey.
Even during a pandemic, I had high expectations for getting set up and working. After all, that’s what Citrix has been doing with its technology since the early 1990s. My expectations were met and exceeded!
My initial start date was a little sooner than planned, so I ended up using my own laptop on hotel Wi-Fi. Citrix Workspace is based on the production ready control plane running securely in the cloud. Because we drink our own champagne, I was up and running (BYOD) in about 15 minutes, including the time it took to download apps to my phone and laptop. And I mean fully up and running.
I think what is often overlooked in Citrix Workspace is that it is wrapped snugly inside Citrix security technologies. I had no issues using hotel Wi-Fi on Day 1 (it’s long story why my home internet was not yet set up) or connecting from my own laptop to a cloud URL. And I was able to access all the apps I needed, both Windows and web-based, securely and quickly.
What happened next? Meetings. Then more meetings. Then more meetings. I’ve been in information-gathering mode, so I’ve talked to lots and lots of people in my first four weeks. I’ve met with CIOs and their teams, key personnel at major cloud providers, global SI teams, traditional Citrix partners, and lots of excited and motivated Citrites. There appears to be one common thread throughout: Everyone is excited about the technologies and culture at Citrix and is looking to find their way into the new hybrid-cloud world that is continually evolving.
So, what is the Global Head of Customer Success Partnerships? You can Google for hours trying to find a firm definition of customer success (or customer experience/CX). I’ll give you the simple explanation, as I see it.
CX involves working with potential or recently signed customers to identify their business needs, then creating a success plan to help them with their journey. It means mapping the journey to a business outcome, not to a sale. We start with you at the beginning and stay by your side along the customer journey. This is vastly different than the old sales model used by others, where they drop the technology at your front door and you don’t see them again until it’s time to renew your maintenance.
Let me apply it to our organization. A customer is using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and wants to discover how to move to the cloud and use the new Kubernetes tools that get mentioned in every app modernization conversation. Our Customer Success team has folks to help them with value engineering to map business needs to technologies available. Our Value Engineering team helps customers build a solid business case that aligns to the four pillars of value: cost reduction, risk reduction, strategic growth, and revenue growth. From there, we help define a success plan, using our Customer Success Center technology, a combination of AI/ML tools, and a Customer Success Management model to guide and assist the customer every step of the way.
My role is to identify areas where we can explore and expand our various partnerships to support that CX journey. I’m looking to help build out co-innovation opportunities and make the cloud evolution a better CX for all involved. We have a very mature Customer Success program at Citrix, and I get to bring all those resources to the table as we work with our various partnerships worldwide. It could be working closer with cloud providers to ensure our microservices for Kubernetes, Citrix Secure Internet Access (SIA), or Citrix Web App Firewall (WAF) are tightly integrated with the cloud offering. Or perhaps it’s working with global SIs or other app developers to ensure they have the technologies to write and deliver microapps. It could include things like creating global programs that allow our trusted partners to deliver services seamlessly alongside our Customer Success team.
The bottom line? I’m responsible for taking our numerous partnerships around the world and focusing all our efforts toward supporting customer success and CX.
I told someone on a call the other day to be patient with me because I was only on week four. He laughed and said that I’ve been working with Citrix (and others) since 1994. He considered me a 25-year+ veteran. I hope he’s right. I’m excited to see what I can do in this new role, and my virtual door is always open for feedback or suggestions. I’ll respond as quickly as possible.
On that note, if you’ve written (or have had written for you) any microapps, reach out to me. I’d like to learn more about the solutions. And if you’ve moved use cases to the cloud (regardless of which one), I’d like to know more about your journey.
