Team Insentra recently spent a few days in beautiful Orlando, Florida for Citrix Summit 2020. Soaking up both the sun and a wealth of knowledge from Citrix experts on all the upcoming changes to the technology, as well as new products! For some of the team, it was their first-ever time attending Citrix Summit and a year when Insentra sent 10 people over to experience event.
Here is a summary of our hectic and exciting adventures at Citrix Summit.
SUNDAY:
After the crew travelled to Orlando from all over the world (10 people from the UK, Australia and USA) we assembled and headed over to our designated country Partner welcome celebrations.
In the evening we gathered with our local Citrix teams to share food and drinks with some of the best people in the industry.
As Insentra have just entered into a brand new partnership with IGEL and the Insentra crew attended the IGEL Happy Hour and met with Jed Ayers CEO, Brad Thompkins CSO, and other members of the channel leadership team.
MONDAY:
It was an early start to register for the conference, collect our lanyards and awesome free backpacks.
After familiarising ourselves with the locations of the various breakout sessions we made our way to the opening keynote delivered David Henshall (CEO) and other senior Citrix executives.
Citrix wasted no time with quality presentations, announcements and messaging for partners.
David Henshall, President and CEO, reviewed 2019 company performance and highlights before talking about the opportunity ahead for Citrix and our partners.
Mark Ferrer, Executive VP and Chief Revenue Officer, shared the five key priorities for all internal and partner sellers as we look ahead to 2020.
Bronwyn Hastings, Senior VP of Worldwide Channel Sales and Ecosystems, demonstrated how partners were successful with the program changes introduced last year and outlined how Citrix is updating the program this year to ensure continued growth for our partners.
Andrea Canavan, VP of Global Sales Enablement, spoke about the way Citrix is driving transformative solutions and how our partners can come along on this journey with us by following the sales plays.
It was also great to see how Citrix led by “Big Nick” (Nick Cross) assisted in raising funds for the Australian Red Cross for the recent bush fires in Australia.
Here are some key takeaways from the opening keynote:
- User Experience is key to a successful organization. Citrix delivers the best UX with their Workspace bolstered by MicroApps service and Performance Analytics.
- Value propositions are no longer just for business outcomes and objectives. They also have to cater for employee engagement.
- “Good enough” in Enterprise IT, is no longer good.
Throughout the day we all split into sub-teams to meet with partners, lead Citrix personnel and attend technical clinics, roundtables and sales breakout sessions in order to learn more about Citrix Cloud, Microapps and running successful Pre-Sales engagements.
The Insentra crew spent time in the Solutions Expo to connect and collaborate with sponsors, vendors, product developers, and other Citrix pros.
In the evening Insentra hosted a Happy Hour for a number of partners and ‘Citrites’. While in Orlando Jody, our President of US celebrated his birthday, so we took the opportunity to sing a happy birthday song and present him with an ice cream cake!
Day one was capped off at the Xentegra party where we gathered watch one of the American football playoffs.
TUESDAY:
The day 2 keynote included demonstrations of new product security features, performance analytics, and workspace intelligence We’re hoping to get our hands on some demos of these to show our customers ASAP!
On stage, PJ Hough (Citrix, Chief Product Officer) and Brad Anderson (Microsoft, Vice President of M365) showcased the partnership between Citrix and Microsoft and shared the priorities and alignments of the partnership for 2020.
There was a big focus around Windows Virtual Desktop, Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Teams.
Next up, we were treated to a presentation from Carey Lohrenz (US Navy 1st Female F14 Pilot) where she addressed the importance of teamwork, leadership, and communication.
Something which resonated with me was when she was discussing how to simplify complicated concepts to build trust and relationships (in her world, that’s explaining how a plane flys) …
“If you can’t explain something complicated on a cocktail napkin with a fat sharpie marker, you’re gonna lose some people”.
I’m a big advocate of whiteboarding solutions in the simplest way possible!
After the keynotes, it was another busy afternoon of breakouts where we learnt about Citrix Managed Desktops, Windows Virtual Desktops and Citrix ADC.
Tuesday night gave us time to relax at Universal Studios where Citrix had hired out the park after hours to celebrate with partners which was a great experience.
The Insentra crew managed to get on a ton of rides, with no queues, lots of food and a few drinks too!
Overall it was a wonderful event and again we gained value in attending. I know Citrix were very impressed and appreciative on how many people attended from our crew.
Citrix Summit seems to be a harbinger to how Citrix Synergy will go every year. If this year keeps with this tradition, we’ll be in store for a great Citrix Synergy in May. Hopefully, we’ll see you there!
