I am thrilled to start this year with Fujitsu being recognized as Worldwide Partner of the Year 2019 at Citrix Summit 2020. It’s the highest recognition a company in our ecosystem of 9,500-plus global partners can achieve.

Since joining Citrix 14 months ago, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Fujitsu. I’ve observed how they’re evolving as a company with digital transformation at its core. Their vision is to become a digital transformation leader by going through it themselves, so they can bring the expertise and experiences they gain from their own internal transformation to its customers. (Read about the research on digital transformation that we partnered on.)

In 2019, one of Fujitsu’s regions, Fujitsu Oceania, was among the first beta customers for Citrix Workspace with intelligent capabilities to deploy the solution for their internal use. They’re working to improve employee experience and engagement to tackle the employee retention challenges many companies face. Fujitsu believes in the power of Citrix Workspace. After all, they’ve chosen to leverage the solution with some of their most visible and mission-critical apps — Salesforce, ServiceNow, and SAP Ariba for phase one — which are widely used by their employees. Talk about a company that’s serious about employee experience.

Happy and engaged employees drive a company’s success. People are the No. 1 asset for any organization, and apps and technology should be there to empower employees to get work done, not to make it more complicated and cumbersome. Employees’ contentment in a company or in a job has an impact on external businesses, as well.

Think about airlines or mobile phone service companies. When I call one for help, I can usually get a read on the employee’s engagement and satisfaction within a few minutes. I can hear them as they’re switching from app to app and system to system to get their job done and answer my (usually simple) question. But it’s rarely ever simple, and it’s often frustrating for us both.

In fact, employees across industries spend about 20 percent of their time searching for the information they need to do their jobs. That must change, and Citrix Workspace and Citrix partners like Fujitsu can help.

Let’s think about that customer support specialist. While I am always mindful about how I speak to agents, even when I’m frustrated, I know they are the first points of contact for customers who have a problem to solve (and who are usually unhappy about something). When they don’t have the technology to complete a simple task quickly, they get fed up, tired, and frustrated fast. Morale drops, and they either stick around and are disengaged or they quit. These agents — or, really, employees anywhere — don’t have to be at the mercy of complicated systems that get in the way of work. Businesses can’t afford it. Poor customer satisfaction — stemming from a poor employee experience — will damage your brand and hurt sales.

I’m excited about working with Fujitsu in 2020 to bring the future of work to companies around the world. Working at Citrix, where we truly care about delivering solutions that improve employee experience, and working with a company like Fujitsu, where employee experience matters, makes this job fun every day.

Congratulations to team Fujitsu again, and we’re looking forward to a great 2020!