TOP 5 BUSINESS CHALLENGERS CITRIX HEARD FROM CUSTOMERS IN 2023

Citrix blog

2023 was a challenging year for many businesses. Geopolitical instability and financial uncertainty have had broad reaching implications. Hybrid work continues to be in a state of flux, with some businesses back in office full time and some on partial hybrid schedules. Businesses also remain acutely aware of the increased risk of cyber-crime. Ransomware and other attacks continue to grow, and IT budgets must compete with the needs for additional security solutions.

Across the globe, these factors have impacted Citrix customers in a variety of ways high lightening the 5 top business challengers in 2023:

Security, employee experience, rising costs, IT automation, and operational efficiency. In addition, discussed in this post, is how Citrix capabilities can assist organizations in tackling these challenges, and new ones, in 2024.

Security

The top concern across industries is security, and for good reason. Per Gartner, the top cybersecurity trend in 2022 was attack surface expansion, partially as a result of hybrid work settings. Hybrid work and hybrid infrastructure have added complexity for IT as users need access to corporate resources outside of the office. 

Corporate-managed device programs have become more expensive, and 85% of companies only provide select employees or no employees with devices, meaning employees must bring their own devices. Implementing a bring your own device (BYOD) policy may be more cost effective, but it can lead to security concerns and compromised credentials. 

Citrix has a variety of features to help make businesses more secure:

• Citrix Secure Private Access On-Premises extends Citrix's comprehensive Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) capabilities to on-premises control planes.
• Citrix Device Posture Check Service establishes device trust before allowing an end user to log in to DaaS and SPA resources to reduce potential attack surfaces.
• Enhanced integration of Citrix Enterprise Browser with Citrix Analytics for Security elevates an organization’s ability to monitor, manage, and respond to potential risks effectively.

Employee experience

Hybrid working environment, multiple worksites, nationally and/or globally, providing a high quality employee experience needs to be a top priority. 

Employee experience will require technology that can deliver applications and desktops anywhere, so employees stay productive no matter where they’re located. 

Citrix offers the best-in-class solutions to increasing employee productivity. From delivering crisp audio and video, to on boarding new employees and /or contractors to have secure access to corporate applications in minutes and:

• Deliver the highest fidelity user experience (whilst also reducing network bandwidth requirements!) with the implementation of Advanced Video Codec support for HDX.
• Enable access to Citrix Workspace via a company-branded domain name (as opposed to <customer>.cloud.com) using the Custom Domain feature.
• Arm admins with an Enhanced Session Experience Metrics Dashboard to proactively identify and troubleshoot user impacting performance issues.

Rising costs

Spending was top of mind for CIOs. In fact, according to a survey conducted by EY, 35 percent of businesses indicated that cloud and infrastructure costs hindered their digital transformation efforts. Spending concerns have IT looking for different ways to control spending, including using hybrid cloud models to avoid vendor lock-in, making the most of existing investments in on-premises infrastructure, and implementing automated controls.

Citrix supports hybrid cloud, multi cloud, and on-premises resources so organizations build a cost-effective environment using existing resources. With support for every major public cloud provider, companies can pick and choose the best options for features, price, and more without worrying about whether it will integrate that provider into the existing infrastructure. 

Citrix comes with more features to optimize costs, including the following:

• Optimize infrastructure utilization with the expansion of Citrix AutoScale support to include on-premises control planes.
• Analyze the effectiveness of AutoScale settings via the Tech preview of AutoScale Insights.
• Minimize Persistent VDI Costs using features such as Shutdown if not in use, End User Hibernation (Azure Tech Preview) and the VDI Reclamation Service.
• Tailor load balancing configurations on a per delivery group level to maximize efficient utilization of public cloud-hosted workloads with Vertical Load Balancing.

IT automation

Many businesses continue to prioritize digital transformation and modernization projects. However, IT departments must support everyday operational tasks while trying to deploy new projects. 

Finding talent for is proving to be difficult, with 41% of CIOs reporting slow hiring for IT roles, 35% reporting a decreased overall IT budget and 29% reporting an IT hiring freeze, per a study by Gartner. As businesses search for ways to make staff more productive, automation is underutilized in IT, according to research by Gartner only 9 percent of IT work is automated or AI augmented. This means that a majority of IT departments still rely on manual work methods, tying up employees in manual workflows rather than working on value-added projects. 

Citrix includes automation features built into some offerings, including Citrix Autoscale and Machine Creation Services, where you can set up load-based scaling to automatically adjust the number of virtual machines available based on demand. In addition, Citrix offers three more features to help increase IT automation:

• Reduce Administrative effort required to script or manually install VDA updates to workloads using the Citrix VDA Upgrade Service.
• Centrally manage end-user client experience with the Global App Configuration Service (GACS), now also available for on-premises workloads.
• Deploy Provisioning Services-based workloads using the Citrix DaaS Provisioning Tech Preview.

Operational efficiency

As environments get more complex, it becomes harder for IT teams to keep operations running smoothly and to monitor those environments, especially with the rise in augmented workforces and generative AI. Without oversight into the health of operations, the business risks unexpected downtime due to operational issues. Streamlining and simplifying operations will help IT increase efficiency across hybrid, cloud, and on-premises deployments. 

Citrix offers tools like Citrix Director for agentless monitoring and Analytics for Performance for improved user experience through monitoring and troubleshooting. There are more features for operational efficiency too, including those listed below:

• Enable a consistent administrative experience across DaaS and CVAD with the release of Web Studio for on-premises control planes.
• Efficiently manage configuration across multiple CVAD sites using the Citrix Automated Configuration tool, which now supports on-premises control planes.
• Simplify configuration of single sign on to web and SaaS applications in the Citrix Enterprise Browser using new integration with the Global App Configuration Service.

Optimize your Citrix investment in 2024

2023 came with its own unique set of challenges, where organizations had to balance the desire for greater innovation against limited resources in addition to responding to a host of external challenges. Citrix continues to invest in innovative new features that can be adopt today to help improve security, enhance the employee experience, control cloud spending, increase automation, and improve operational efficiency this year. For more details about these features, check Citrix Product Documentation, or contact OAS sales.