Powering the Future of Work

The Future of Work is NOW and who better than CIOs to understand and lead the transformation in their respective organizations to help them better prepare to be future ready? However, there are many aspects to creating, maintaining and sustaining a digital work-space that are still being fleshed out. Not many technology leaders as such are ready to take on this task of preparing and executing a digital workspace environment.

To fill this lacunae, CIO&Leader in partnership with Citrix held a panel discussion, titled ‘This is how Future works’ in Mumbai on October 24. The aim of the session was to enable CIOs take the next steps towards building a secure digital workspace.

As we know, taking the steps to connect devices, apps and data help expand the limitations of geography, time and productivity. Citrix organized the event to bring customers and innovation together, delivering the experience people want, with flexibility, choice and security. Citrix believes that it is not technology that shapes people, their actions or environment. Rather, in today’s workspaces and the era of the new-age worker, it is the tools that people need as per their requirements. However, in order to realize the benefits of these shifts, CIOs must enable transformation and have innovative strategies in their arsenal to ensure that the benefits of leadership in digital accrue to the enterprise.

Delegates register at the Citrix Synergy Direct Conference

Partners for Citrix Synergy Direct

The day-long event was kicked off by an opening note by Ravindra Kelkar, Senior Director – Enterprise and PSU Business at Citrix. With his expertise in managing technology and business transitions, Ravindra set the tone for Synergy Direct. The welcome speech was delivered by Parag Arora, Managing Director, Cloud Networking, who took up the tenor from Ravindra explaining what Future of Work actually meant and entailed. With his considerable experience in driving innovation at top BFSI clients, Parag took the audience through the finer details of digital workplaces and what acumen digital leaders must possess to drive transformational business changes through technology.

Opening remark by Ravindra Kelkar, Senior Director - Sales, Citrix India

The Keynote, titled ‘Powering the Future of Work’ was delivered by Aaron Mowbray, Senior Director, APJ Pre- Sales, Citrix Systems. Aaron leads pre-sales activities across APJ for Citrix, driving customer engagements and leading enablement activities and assuring customer and partner alignment with Citrix resources. In his talk, Aaron explained what Citrix Workspace offered clients – Work- space App, Desktop Workspace, Access Control for SaaS, Access your Content, Mobile Workspace – and how it ensured digital transformation and leadership for an enterprise – total experience with brand personalization, and institution of Workspace Hub with Secure Mail.

Keynote on 'Powering the Future of Work' by Aaron Mowbray, Senior Director, APJ Pre-Sales, Citrix Systems

Post a short break and booth tour, the participants gathered again in the seminar hall to listen to an engaging panel discussion between Anuja Shukla, Cloud Technology Partners Lead, India, Google Cloud and Vivek Agarwal, Head of Chrome Enterprise India, Google Cloud. Together, they walked the audience through ‘Cloud Based Digital Workspaces’ helping them understand how Google Cloud, Chrome Enterprise and Citrix are partnering to provide the best-in-class technology for a modern, cloud based Digital Workspace. Google Cloud equips enterprises to build their digital assets and populate their corporate workspaces as they transition into a new way of working. The participants were explained how Chrome Enterprise and Citrix Cloud can bring performance, security and flexibility to their enterprise. The second keynote by Aaron, titled ‘Powering the Future of Work in Hybrid Cloud World’ offered an insight into the many options that enterprises have when it comes to hybrid – Multi/hybrid cloud, Citrix and Microsoft, Multi containerization support for MAM, SD WAN. He also answered the many concerns of CIOs around digital workspaces like Security Compliance, Business Continuity, ADC, ITM, Secure Browser, Analytics, etc.

Networking during booth tour

A second booth tour and lunch followed this session. Post lunch, the sessions were divided under two heads – Track I and Track II, comprising 4 sessions each. Under Track I, the first session was presented by Vikram Khanna, who briefed the participants on ‘What's new with Citrix SD-WAN’. Session 2 provided inputs on how enterprises can embrace hybrid deployments with XenApp and XenDesktop Service and was ably presented by Thejo Murthy. In Session 3, Kartik Thakkar provided insights on the new features in Citrix networking, whereas the last session took the participants through the nitty-gritty of ‘Creating an Enterprise-wide Security Framework for SaaS with Citrix Workspace’ and was presented by Mohit Khanna.

Under Track II, the first session titled ‘How the Secure Digital Perimeter can help Secure your Digital Workspace’ emphasized the importance of security and how it can be achieved. It was presented by Nitin Bansal. The next session provided a ready reckoner to Linux VDI by ‘Demystifying Linux VDI: How to Deliver Linux Virtual Desktops on Demand’ with Satish Tikhe making a lucid presentation to the participants. Session 3 was on securing against ransomware, titled ‘How to Break the Cyber Kill Chain of Ransom- ware’ had the audiences hooked, as Sandip Warke walked them through the details skillfully. The last session under this track was titled ‘CSP Session - DaaS: Accelerating EUC Transformation’ wherein Anunta helped the audience understand the importance and the way to ensuring fast transformation in their enterprise. An evening session ‘This is how Future works!’ moderated by R. Giridhar, Group Editor, 9.9 Group, had an animated discussion between panelists Aaron and Anuja, and had the audience hooked.

'This is how Future works' conducted by R. Giridhar, Group Editor, 9.9 Group

Digital workspaces are not a distant future but the present reality. Organizations are scrambling against time to ensure that their workspaces are not left behind in this race, as they risk losing their competitive edge, if left behind. For the audience, it was an opportunity to understand the technology shifts and get insights into a crucial area.

Nike Magista Obra FG