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Ray Jaksic, Coretek CTO, was interviewed for this Citrix blog post…
Want to help your customers solve key challenges and streamline their cloud journey?
That’s the bottom line on the Citrix and Microsoft Cloud Alliance, which we’ve built to help you close Citrix Workspace and Citrix Cloud deals with customer workloads in Azure. When you help meet the overwhelming customer demand for Citrix Cloud solutions in Azure, you can grow your business and your margins while solidifying your role as a trusted advisor in the era of cloud and digital transformation.
“For us, our strategy is cloud and moving customers to cloud. When you tie Citrix and Microsoft together, we’re able to solve some unique use cases within the marketplace that you can’t solve any other way. Cloud Alliance makes it incredibly attractive and profitable for us to transition customers to the cloud.” – Ray Jaksic, CTO, Coretek Services
Why Cloud Alliance is great for your customers
Everyone knows how valuable cloud is. You can increase business agility, respond more quickly and cost-effectively to new business needs and opportunities, reduce waste, shift capex to opex, increase workplace flexibility—we all know the script by now. One of the most obvious customer questions to consider is: why aren’t they already running Citrix Cloud services on Microsoft Azure? What’s making them hesitate about cloud adoption? They’re afraid, worried that it’s all or nothing, or that it will be complex and expensive. You can help them understand they can dip their toes in and move at a pace that works for them.
This is the “aha!” moment: there’s no need for them to take their entire Citrix infrastructure and put it in Azure on day one—or ever. We think Azure is the best place to put Citrix workloads, but not every customer can get there overnight. Customers might not choose to put all their workloads in Azure for many reasons, including regulatory compliance, pre-existing deployments in other clouds, or a desire to keep some things running in an on-prem datacenter. The Citrix Cloud management plane lets customers securely manage Citrix workloads in any combination of on-premises and public cloud infrastructure. This puts choice back into the hands of the customer, where it belongs. Particularly when used with Citrix Networking, the Citrix Workspace app allows your customers to seamlessly access all workloads, including virtual, SaaS, and mobile apps, whether the customer wants them in Azure, on-prem, or anywhere else.
How Cloud Alliance helps you close deals and make more money
Cloud Alliance is good for your bottom line in three ways. First, you’ll get training, tools, marketing support, and other enablements at no added cost, helping your whole organization become more effective. Second, you can earn financial incentives from both Microsoft and Citrix for performing value-added sales activities you’re likely going to do anyway. And third, by leveraging the Cloud Alliance framework, you’ll help customers move those Citrix workloads into Azure, leveraging great technologies from Citrix and Microsoft to drive a modern desktop for your customers. Happy customers buy more, which means more billable hours for you as you help them uncover additional opportunities to cloud-enable their business.
You know what slows down most POCs? Having to build the environment: installation, integration with required services, making sure everything works together, and not missing a critical step. Cloud Alliance partners gain access to a pre-built environment in the Citrix demo center; it’s already built for you, with everything working perfectly. You spend less time installing and configuring, and more time demonstrating value. Even better, when you use the demo center to deliver a personalized proof-of-concept to a qualifying customer, you’ll get a $5,000 incentive as well, even before the deal closes.
For one of our most successful partners, Coretek Services, Cloud Alliance further supports what they’re already offering to customers. Ray Jaksic, Coretek Services CTO explains, “Citrix and Microsoft working together is a dream come true. These are our two most strategic partners working together to offer a collaborative solution. Cloud Alliance comes at the perfect time. Our peoples’ time is money. This initiative is going to help support us and allow us to do more Citrix workloads on Azure. As an added benefit, our salespeople will go after pushing this because of the incentives they’ll personally receive.”
When you close the deal, we’ll further reward you with additional training vouchers for any certification course you choose so you can keep investing in your people and their skills and issue an Azure credit to reimburse you for a do-not-exceed amount of Azure consumed during the POC. That’s on top of the normal incentives you’ll get from both Citrix and Microsoft through programs you’re already familiar with. Remember what I said about getting paid twice on the same deal?
Is Cloud Alliance right for you?
Cloud Alliance initiative is obviously a great fit for Citrix partners with experience selling Citrix Cloud on Azure, but that’s just the beginning. For Citrix partners who’ve been selling our traditional solutions but haven’t added Citrix Cloud services yet, this is a great way to stay relevant in a cloud-first world and add new Azure skills to your practice. Microsoft Azure partners who are new to Citrix are also a great fit. You already know everything there is to know about Azure—now you can extend the solutions you offer to address high-value use cases to help your customers.
Ready to make Cloud Alliance part of your business? We’d love to have you! But don’t wait—the Citrix and Microsoft Cloud Alliance is live right now, with resources and funding available to participating partners. Check out the on-demand recording of our Cloud Alliance kickoff webinar and access our Cloud Alliance page on Sales IQ to learn more. Become a Citrix partner and get in-depth training at Citrix Summit this January 7 – 9, 2019, in Orlando, Florida, to accelerate your success. Talk to your Citrix Partner Account Manager today, start delivering the Citrix on Azure solutions your customers need now, and then come celebrate successes with us at Citrix Summit in January!
