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Mobile workforce achieves service agility with Citrix

Geas Energiewacht is an energy service provider in the eastern part of the Netherlands. Its service teams have been helping keep homes warm for more than 50 years. The company conducts 300,000 service tasks a year, from fixing boilers to advising on energy efficiency, with 130 service engineers on the road.

“Our guys need to be able to work from anywhere, at any time,” says John Huitink, Head of IT and Quality, Geas Energiewacht. “To do so, they need reliable access to the right information, whether that’s customer details or technical data.”

By adopting Citrix Workspace, Geas Energiewacht is able to efficiently manage over 400 mobile devices issued to service staff. The Citrix solution replaces an alternative supplier that had failed to deliver the desired functionality – and proved incapable of integrating with Geas’ existing suite of Citrix products.

“By consolidating on Citrix Cloud we’re transforming the way our field engineers manage their workloads and deliver an improved service experience for customers,” says Huitink.

First-time-fix rate increased by 10% 

The most immediate impact of the Citrix solution has been on the first-time-fix rate. By using Citrix Workspace, Geas’ engineers have direct access to the latest technical documentation and applications they need when on site. Even last minute apps can easily be pushed to their devices. This leads to better quality of work, higher customer satisfaction and a higher percentage of first-time-fixes.

“(Citrix) Content Collaboration ensures that all documents are available and that all service staff have the correct version. This is the biggest benefit,” says Huitink. “Teams in the field have the latest information to hand, and head office is updated immediately on the status of a job. And because Citrix Workspace is secure, we know that, even if a device is lost or stolen, the data is secure, and we are still in control. This is very reassuring since the implementation of new GDPR regulations.”

More uptime frees resource to focus on new business initiatives 

IT management for Geas is now also more effective, and more efficient. Huitink says he is spending less time attending to upgrades and downtime:

“I’m carrying out fewer supervision tasks. The more complex aspects of the job are now done automatically by Citrix. We no longer have downtime, any maintenance is carried out by Citrix without impacting our operations. I have more time to spend on new business projects with Geas.”

As a business, Geas aims to become “an innovation centre for new technology” in the home energy sector.

A platform for business agility 

The business is also more flexible. Effective mobile working means it is easier for Geas to scale project teams up or down.

“Previously, when a new project arrived, requiring 20 to 30 new employees, the old situation demanded the start-up of a new project, with a lead time of some weeks or months and the purchase of new hardware and installation of new software,” says Huitink. “Citrix ensures that we can simply re-scale or, if necessary, also downscale. And now we’re talking about an implementation period of a few days.”

Citrix Cloud services simply provides a safe, stable workplace, which is accessible everywhere: at work, at home or while travelling.
John Huitink
Head of IT
Quality Geas Energiewacht

Location

  • Netherlands

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