Summit Preview: How Citrix and Its Partners Ushered in the Future of Work—“New Normal” Version

Posted By Jon Lavietes, Thursday, March 4, 2021

On any given day, ASAP members are hard at work accomplishing critical company objectives on behalf of their employers or clients—increasing revenues, producing new feature sets or suites of products, expanding into new geographies, or creating innovative new business models. However, sometimes alliances are counted on to do even bigger things that impact entire industries or society as a whole. While the spotlight has shone brightly on pharma over the course of the last year—and for good reason—the IT industry has had to shoulder a tremendous responsibility of its own: the world has counted on it to enable us to keep our professional and personal lives going in a remote world.

This St. Patrick’s Day, attendees of the 2021 ASAP Global Alliance Summit will be the lucky ones treated to the story of how Citrix, one of the original remote workforce pioneers, leveraged its partner network to help workers, students, private companies, nonprofits, governments—basically, every segment of our society—shift to a virtual work and learning environment. In her keynote “A New Market Dynamic: The Citrix Partner Ecosystem,” Bronwyn Hastings, senior vice president of worldwide channel sales and ecosystem at Citrix, will regale ASAP’s virtual crowd with the story of how Citrix and its partners were called upon to keep the business world working when everyone was effectively siloed from one another.

A Different Future Than Anticipated

Less than two months after Citrix kicked off 2020 by unveiling its vision for “The Future of Work”—“any device, any place, anytime,” as Hastings summarized—the onset of the pandemic challenged the company to put theory into practice as Citrix’s technology “became, not a nice-to-have, but a need-to-have,” as Hastings put it.

How did the Citrix ecosystem pull it off? Agility was a primary factor. Hastings will enlighten listeners on how Citrix and its partner network’s versatility enabled them to meet customer requirements securely and effectively in whatever technological environment clients preferred, be that traditional on-premise infrastructure or some type of public, private, or hybrid cloud.

“A lot of channels don’t have that. They are very single dimensional in a product or in the mode of operating that they are in,” she explained.

Adjusting to Constant Camera Focus

While Citrix was helping customers survive and thrive in the pandemic, it was doing the same for its employees internally.

Hastings will reveal in her keynote what measures the company took to use connectivity and the aforementioned “any device, any place, anytime” philosophy to give its workers a small sense of freedom in a setting where it can be easy to find yourself boxed in—“literally, 12 hours a day, camera on, and not moving,” said Hastings.

Multiplying Social Good

But Citrix and its allies did more than just help rescue the business world. They used their positions to drive social change at a time when everyone needed connectivity but not everyone had the resources to procure it.

Hastings will share a story of how Citrix worked with Google and other partners to get a Baltimore school up and running with secure and remote Internet access so that its students, 90 percent of whom had no access to technology, wouldn’t miss a beat in their learning. She will also illustrate the “multiplier effect” created when partners collaborate on initiatives for social good.

“Every company has their social responsibility drivers, but when you join forces on those drivers it makes a significant difference to the purpose of the partnership and the way the results are derived,” she said.

New Technology Categories Blur the Lines Between Partners

Summit registrants will also hear about how the ecosystem model is blurring the lines between channel, technology, and integrator partners, particularly in the context of new technology categories.

“All play a role in this ecosystem of technology to create the future of work,” said Hastings.

Don’t miss the March 17 “A New Market Dynamic: The Citrix Partner Ecosystem,” along with more than a dozen more presentations, roundtables, and networking events at the 2021 ASAP Global Alliance Summit, March 15–17. There is so much knowledge to gain, so register today!