Citrix to drive momentum for workplace mobility in Thailand

Citrix Systems announced its plans to prioritize Thailand as one of the key markets in its regional ASEAN strategy. The leading provider of cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies first set up a presence in Thailand in 2003 through its local channel partners, but recognizing the potential of the market, established a direct sales office soon after in 2005. 

 

Today, Citrix works with top local distributors, such as Metro Systems, to service customers across multiple industries, ranging from government, healthcare, financial services to education and manufacturing. Asia Pacific (APAC) remains the fastest growing region for Citrix Systems, registering 40 percent growth in revenue gains in the first quarter of financial year 2012. Thailand, as an important market for Citrix ASEAN, is critical to fuel this growth further. 

 

According to IDC’s latest IT spending forecast, Thailand is set to take the No. 2 spot in IT spending in Southeast Asia this year. This is largely attributed to the public’s insatiable appetite for smartphones as well as Thailand’s continual growth in the IT services market. With increased tech-savvy consumers opting for more functionality from their mobile phones, Thailand’s smartphone market is expected to reach US$1.5 billion this year. 

 

These same factors are causing a transformation in the Thai workplace. The proliferation of mobile devices is creating a new generation of digitally-savvy employees who want to be able to use their own devices for both work and play. The emergence of this mobile workstyle is a trend that is happening in many other countries, leading to more and more companies implementing Bring-Your-Own (BYO) policies which offer benefits for both the organization and the employee.

 

Add to this the devastating floods in 2011 which had a tremendous impact on Thailand’s economy. According to the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), the country’s GDP declined by 9 percent in the last quarter of 2011 compared to a year earlier. 

 

As a result, Thai businesses today are looking at technologies, infrastructure and systems to help them stay open for business no matter what. Technologies such as cloud computing and desktop virtualization have become much more attractive as a means to ensure business mobility, agility and continuity. 

 

Bringing the latest virtualization and cloud solutions to power up Thailand’s mobile workstyles and cloud services 

One company looking intently at business continuity is technology solution provider Metro Systems, who adopted Citrix virtualization solutions in 2011. With Citrix XenDesktop in place, Metro Systems has been able to introduce a BYO scheme to its employees, offering them the ability to work, not just from their desktop computers, but also from any mobile device of their choice.  At the same time, the centralized management of XenDesktop allowed Metro System’s IT team to securely and effortlessly upload and deliver full desktops, new upgrade patches and corporate applications to all registered devices, regardless of the operating system. 

“Being in the IT industry, it is essential that Metro Systems stays at the top of our game in terms of IT infrastructure. We wanted to empower our customers and staff with the ability to conduct their business effectively without interruption. At the same time, we were also keen to explore options that will allow our employees to work on their personal devices on the go,” said Mr. Suradet Lertthammajak Vice President, Metro Systems. “We find that Citrix virtualization solutions play an integral role in enabling business mobility, productivity, continuity and agility, and we are proud that our employees are truly embracing a mobile workstyle with the flexibility to carry out their work anywhere, anytime and on any device.”

 

Being at the epicenter of the unstoppable IT consumerization transformation, Citrix will continue to bring in its latest series of solutions, continuous innovation and best practises to Thailand. Making use of the continued innovations in desktop virtualization and its strong partner ecosystem, Citrix intends to further deliver technologies that will enable cloud computing to aggregate and deliver corporate applications and virtual desktops seamlessly and securely for our customers in ASEAN. At the same time, Citrix plans to ramp up its operations in Thailand, concentrating specifically on the three major verticals, namely financial services, the government sector and the telecommunication industry.

“The workplace of the 21st century is undergoing a remarkable transformation with an increasingly mobile workforce looking for ways to work the way they want – with anyone, from any location, on any device – and this is no different in Thailand,” said Yaj Malik, Area Vice President, ASEAN, Citrix Systems. “Leveraging the potential of the growing Thai market, we remain committed to helping our customers in Thailand gain easier access to people, data and apps, to improve business performance and productivity.”