What’s the most important element of an exceptional employee experience? If you ask the Citrix SD-WAN product team, the answer is simple: a reliable, high-performing network that’s purpose-built for applications.

As Director of Product Marketing for Citrix SD-WAN, I believe no matter the size, industry, or goals of your business, the network is absolutely paramount to your success. The right network results in strong application performance which in turn leads to a good experience and greater productivity. Let’s look at how mutual financial services company PPS modernized its network to transform the employee experience — and how the Citrix SD-WAN product team helps make this success possible for PPS and all Citrix SD-WAN customers.

How a Modern Network Enables a Better Employee Experience

With 25 offices across South Africa and Namibia, PPS relied on its network for employees to share sensitive data and collaborate. Citrix helped PPS increase IT visibility and agility, adopt a multi-cloud strategy, and ultimately improve the employee experience. But it all began with a simple request: improve network performance.

According to Derik Scheepers, Head of IT Operations at PPS, their legacy MPLS network was slow and ineffective: “We didn’t have any agility. With [Citrix] SD-WAN and with the Citrix intelligence that’s built into the application and into the devices, it’s easy to find the problems, rectify those problems in a proactive manner, and keep the office running.”

Citrix also helped PPS adopt a multi-cloud strategy that simplified migrating apps such as Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops to the cloud. Scheepers said this led to “no more downtime, no more struggling to log in, no more struggling just to open apps and then connect to do their daily tasks. The user experience just multiplied.”

How Citrix Empowers Customers to Succeed

PPS is a great example of the Citrix SD-WAN product team’s commitment to delivering a high-quality solution, which solves tactical issues by improving network performance and reducing costs. At the same time, the solution delivers strategic value by helping the company with their cloud migration and security initiatives.

Also, since the network stays up all the time and the applications perform well, the IT team can do more. Rather than worry about fixing outages or connectivity issues, they can turn their attention to moving apps to the cloud, setting up more flexible ways of securing assets, as well as planning other ways to help with the company’s digital initiatives.

This is a powerful story, and applies to many Citrix customers. As we move into 2020, Citrix SD-WAN marketing will continue to work closely with the product team to bring more innovations to market while amplifying customer successes. This will include:

  • Launching and enhancing SD-WAN and security solutions.
  • Creating and highlighting new resources centered on customer SD-WAN adoption journeys from around the globe.
  • Expanding our industry presence at trade shows and conferences like ONUG Open Networking Users Group, the WAN Summit, and the Channel Partners Expo.

It makes me proud for my team to be part of Citrix’s larger story as a digital workspace leader and for Citrix SD-WAN to play a crucial role in making the employee experience better for our customers. As customers like PPS see strategic advantages from embracing the cloud for IT and business agility, it’s a powerful reminder that something as tactical as improving their network helped make this possible.

Keep an eye on this blog series as Citrix leaders continue to share the success of customers like PPS (and check out our past entries in the series below). In each entry a different Citrix leader will examine how Citrix team members empower our customers with the technology and great user experience they need to achieve their goals.