A 100% channel driven company, Citrix Systems has shown nothing but strong commitment to its channels in the Asia Pacific region. The company is known for its dedication – always fine-tuning its channel program in order to ensure it continues to give its partners good growth as well as revenue opportunities.

The core of this lies with the vision and mission to constantly improve value for their partners. It therefore comes as no surprise that the company is in the midst of honing its Partner program and working on modifying it.

The cornerstone of Citrix’s channel strategy and its worldwide network of partners is the company’s Access Partner Program. The global network of Citrix partners consists of three categories:

·          Citrix Solution Advisor
      At the core of the Citrix Access Partner Network are approximately 4,400 Citrix Solution Advisor companies that deliver and implement strategic enterprise access solutions for end customers worldwide. They are an elite group who make investments in helping customers achieve business goals.

·          Citrix Global Alliance Partner
      The program is designed for industry-leading companies which provide solutions that complement, leverage or add value to Citrix access solutions within the access infrastructure marketplace.

·          Citrix Certified Education Professional
      Provides education and training on Citrix products and technical support.
Partners are segmented according to the Partner Program as well as the type of partner i.e. by the value of their Citrix business and how focused they are on Citrix. The other segmentation they use is by partner species, everything from value-added resellers (VARs) to network integrators, system integrators (SIs), management consultants and ISV type partners. In addition, Citrix is now segmenting its channels more and more along product lines.

The company has 6,200 channel and alliance partners worldwide that deliver and implement strategic enterprise access solutions for end customers worldwide. In the Asia Pacific region, it has a network of 650 Solution advisors to-date and is looking at growing the partner network to 750 partners in the next 12 months or so. Greater China, India and ASEAN are especially fast growing. Citrix is looking to add about 150 partners in this region alone. About two thirds will come from the Application Networking space, 50 will come from Greater China, 30 from India, about 25 from ASEAN and the remainder from Australia, Japan and Korea.

Wesley Allen, channel director, Asia Pacific, Citrix Systems describes the Partner Program as designed to enhance the vital link between Citrix’s access platform solutions and their partners to create a strategic advantage to help them better serve their customers.

“Our focus is on developing both value and volume partners and helping them decrease the cost of doing business, increasing market reach and rewarding partner influence and specialization through certification and training, awards and providing funds for marketing related activities,” explains Allen.

Citrix has been focused on SI programs for the last two years and while it will continue to do so in a balanced way for both SIs and ISVs, with a new program out for this group in Q4 this year, the Citrix Access Program will now start to look at and address other points and opportunities as well.
Citrix’s Access Partner Program is now being adapted to suit the company’s new business strategy and products. Calling it a “process of evolution”, Allen says that the Program was previously one size fits all but is now being sculpted into a much more balanced program based on value, focusing on both volume as well as value partners. “Our current strategy is all about maintaining a deep relationship with our partners, to grow our partner program from a ‘one size fits all’ to a product specialization, and evolve this further into multiple streams that a partner can then select, choose to invest in and then be able to predict a fairly good return on that investment,” he elaborates.

Allen adds, “Whereas maybe two-three years ago, Citrix had a single product focus in the channel program, we now have multiple product specialization areas that our partners can take. We are going to announce the next stage of that in February next year with a roll-out of the program simultaneously in all regions (except Japan due to the need of translations and a slightly different channel model). This next stage is our Competencies program, which supports partners specializing in certain groups of products that add value to customers as well as those who write solutions with these products.”

Competencies are categories that define Citrix solution advisors’ business focus as they align with specific Citrix products. The company now has more than a dozen products so Allen says that it is inevitable for partners to realize their area of expertise and choose products from the Citrix suite that best complements their business interests.

“With technological advancements, it becomes imperative for channel partners to keep themselves up-to-date with the changing trends. The Citrix Competencies Program will allow channel partners to communicate their Citrix expertise to customers,” says Allen.
The new partner model will be built around the following Competencies:

·          Application Delivery
·          Application Networking
·          Application Security

Allen notes that all Citrix solution advisors who fall under Gold, Silver and Platinum categories will be eligible to earn competencies.

However, partners should meet certain minimum qualification standards in order to be able to understand products contained within a competency. “I would like to highlight that Competencies are an enhancement of the existing Citrix Solution Advisor program, not a replacement,” he stresses.

·          Citrix Solution Advisors will be able to align their business focus with relevant Citrix product or marketing strategies.
·          Citrix will formally recognize the Citrix Solution Advisor as a specialist in a specific Citrix product or solution category.
·          Solution Advisors will be better able to promote their status as a Citrix reseller through Competency designation.
·          Solution advisors’ core skills in relevant, specific areas will thus be expanded.
·          mycitrixonline, Citrix’s partner portal, will be updated to incorporate all the modifications/additions to the program.

Customers of Citrix will also benefit from the new Competencies program. It will be easier for them to find a partner for a specific product and/or need, and in addition, Allen notes that the system ensures that partners are now more than able to meet the unique needs of their customers.

The remodeling of the program fits in with Citrix’s goal of realizing a billion US dollars in profit in FY06 as well as continuing the company’s growth momentum worldwide. In the Asia Pacific, their goal is to achieve US$100 million in revenue in FY06, and continue the growth next year and beyond.

According to Allen, in order to ensure they meet their business objectives, Citrix needs to get three things working properly as far as their channel strategy is concerned. He explains:

·          We need to change our ‘one size fits all’ channel program into one which allows our partners to specialize in various products and industry solutions that we now offer – like the acquisitions we have made in the area of WANScaler, NetScaler and other products.

·          The second thing we must have is more enterprise capable partners. Today, our base consists of a lot of partners who are able to sell and service our enterprise customers, but not enough to take us to our revenue goals. This means building programs for partners like system integrators (SIs) and other major value added resellers (VARs) that we can leverage to achieve our goals.

·          The third key area that is important to us is leveraging our alliance partners to build solution ecosystems to make sure that our partnerships work and pay off for us. Partnering with best in class vendors has helped Citrix tremendously and we have many “shining lights” in our alliance partnerships such as Microsoft, HP and IBM. For example, right now, we are working with IBM to develop a Virtual Hosted Client Solution which allows companies to deploy clients in other geographies in a very safe and secure way, and which also meets the needs of large customers.
We also recently expanded our existing partnership with Microsoft in access and end-to-end application delivery to make computing faster, more secure and more cost-effective for employees in branch office locations. We have collaborated on developing and marketing a new multifunction Citrix branch office appliance based on the Microsoft Windows Server operating system and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, and utilizing the recently announced Citrix WANScaler solution.

Allen also adds that a top priority for Citrix right now is to grow their base of networking partners. “Our recent acquisitions have all been in the area of application delivery or the WAN optimization area. These initiatives mean that we need more partners who are experienced in these areas and we are actively recruiting such partners,” he says.

In addition, Citrix will also concentrate on identifying partners who may have been sitting comfortably on their Partner Program at the Silver level for say one or two years, and have a strong potential to grow. “We will then apply specific partner programs to help these partners upgrade their skills and become more committed to Citrix and also more profitable to themselves,” elaborates Allen.

He acknowledges that Citrix has fairly stringent channel requirements and that the company plans to maintain this. “Partner engagement is a two-way street,” notes Allen. “Our selection criteria for partners is definitely not a ’walk in the park’ as we want to ensure that together, we can drive joint success globally in the region.”

The most important thing that they look for in a partner is the willingness to invest in a Citrix relationship. What this means, explains Allen, is that a senior executive representing the partner sits down with Citrix for a discussion on what the relationship is going to deliver over a period of time and the plans that are being put into place to achieve that outcome. “This is the first step and if a partner is not willing to follow through on this, then it sends a message to us that the partner is not going to grow and develop into a strong partner,” notes Allen.

The second aspect is the product fit and ascertaining that the partner has the capabilities to sell the product or is willing to obtain the capabilities to sell a product that they are trying to take on.
Thirdly, Citrix needs to make sure that their partners do not have competitive associations that may influence them at a critical time in their relationship causing them to focus on other directions.

“These areas are a range of things we do to preserve partner interest. In addition, we conduct activities ranging from periodically rolling out schemes and partner awards, to giving price protection on existing inventories and guarding product margins to ensure profitability,”
Allen adds.

“The most important thing that we look for in a partner is their willingness to invest in a Citrix relationship. This includes certifications, attending our seminars and events, and committing to revenue goals and measurements,” he continues.

“We want to be recognized as a vendor that engages deeply with partners and that has a number of support programs so that when partners make investments, they end up with valuable assets,” Allen asserts.

He believes firmly that Citrix will continue to stand out not only through their products and services, but especially through their channels.

“We will continue to try to leverage the existing knowledge and experience that we have around channels to beat those vendors who try to act in a fly-by night way by announcing channel programs and don’t back them up with long terms and substantial plans to maintain their channel focus,” Allen concludes.

Coming from one of the first vendors who launched the deal registration program system, somehow, we know that Citrix Systems will achieve this and well. ◊