- Digital Workplace
- Citrix
- Case story
Danish large-scale retailer, Salling Group, is a legendary and proud part of Danish business history. With an impressing reach which includes significant donations to culture and charity. A long-running business adventure with tens of thousands of users and more than two thousand facilities in six countries – and, thus, a complex IT-infrastructure. But Salling Group is also a company with an IT-maturity level placing them among the very first to enter a new reality as first movers on the Citrix Platform Flex.
Traditional scenario – new reality
This story does not present the classical case story where a company seeks a certain solution and a certain goal. It does not so, due to the simple fact that the Citrix Platform Flex was so new that the client did not even know of it. The project, however, took its start from a different, and traditional, scenario, says Rasmus Poulsen, Manager, Operation IT Service & Support, in Salling Group: “We come from a very traditional license-solution, and we were to negotiate and renew our contract, so we entered this project, business as usual”, he states. “However, we were in the midst of migrating our datacenter from on-prem to our own Azure Cloud. A strategic decision covering all our datacenter operations, including Citrix. We did so to secure future operations, to exploit the potential of the cloud and to reduce our footprint”. This situation leads to a positive development, Rasmus shares: “When Citrix got the news of this reality, they presented the possibility for us to become first movers on the Citrix Platform Flex. It is worth noticing that the solution at this point in time was not even fully released. So, everything was very new to us”.
A maturity journey towards the future
Salling Group’s cloud-project ended up being the foundation for this project – and this story. ”Our cloud journey is what made it attractive for us to look at this new platform. It became a whole other model for us to look into. Timing was good, so when the first part of our migration was done, we were ready for the next step”, Rasmus Poulsen says. “We experienced a whole new perspective on our partnership, where Citrix took part in this maturity-journey we were on in terms of moving into the future. Citrix offers hosting in their Azure tenant, and with their operations and management tool for Virtual Desktops, Unicon, fully integrated, we could then see that this could become extremely attractive for us operationally. Incidents, which used to take a lot of time, now take seconds to fix”.
Citrix Platform Flex – et overblik
”A new model built to tackle modern IT pressures with persona‑based computing”. Quite a promise for a new platform! But, with a new level of flexibility and Azure integration the road to change is open. What is in the box?
Citrix x Microsoft: The platform presents a fundamental shift in the use of Virtual Desktops and apps – especially through a close partnership with Microsoft and Azure. Platform Flex is built directly to Azure, and the two system are deeply integrated to create a fully managed and secure infrastructure.
Citrix Daas Flex: A core service for fast deployment of virtual apps and desktops. A cloud-based administration through Citrix Cloud where scalability is central: You can start or shut down thousands of virtual machines in few minutes according to current needs.
Security for the users: Citrix Secure Access with integration to Chrome Enterprise ensures security directly in the users’ browsers. The company’s data and systems are protected, no matter from which device or location the users are logging in.
About licenses and users:Traditional Citrix licensing was based on fixed user or device licenses. This could, in bad cases, lead to unnecessary costs. Citrix Platform Flex is a credit-based model where you purchase a pool of Flex Credits. These credits are used dynamically across the organization according to the actual monthly use of services.
The persona part: The price per user depends directly on the individual digital profile – the persona. A simple Tast Worker uses significantly less credits per month than a Power Worker, such as a developer with heavy graphic workloads.
No punishment for being complex
The advantages with Citrix new Platform Flex are plenty, but the word, Flex, especially, is to be taken seriously. Being a large, complex organization with great geographical spread and a deep mix of user profiles, Rasmus and Salling Group wanted a solution which would embrace this and support their path for growth. “Looking at our use patterns and our users is central here. This is our personas. As a retailer we have many unique users, and in other platform services we would be punished pretty harshly for that. We have more than 15.000 users on Citrix and many part-time users”, Rasmus says and continues: “With Platform Flex we could get a model that matched our user-mix 100 % - and especially also our license-mix. Without getting financially punished for it, that is”.
The perspectives, thus, are clear to Rasmus Poulsen and his team, already at this early stage of the project. “This already creates some big expectations regarding insights in performance in the platform and in the transparency in our operations, because everything is tailored to our user-mix”. Here, users and business are closely linked, he says. “By having our own cloud on the Platform Flex, we can see already now that we can control things on an entirely new level. We can up- or downscale according to what we need”.
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From one-sizing to right-sizing
Søren Bay Graahede, Commercial Lead, Citrix, in Danoffice IT, agrees with Rasmus Poulsen. He believes Citrix is taking the discourse on business-supporting IT to a new level. “Why should Salling Group pay for Azure if they only use a browser? Giving the clients what they need gets a whole new meaning now”, he says and explains: “Launching a persona-based platform is a genius move – you only deliver what you should. No more, no less. It lifts the whole dialogue with a company like Salling Group, because instead of just talking about licenses, we are now talking about licenses. With Platform Flex, we are talking about right-sizing instead of one-sizing. The era of one size-fits-all is over – we now look into super-tailored solutions”.
From second movers to first movers
Representing a such large organization as Rasmus does, and to take it onto a new and fresh platform – possibly as the first in Denmark – was not a logical choice. “It has been really exciting. You can easily say that this is a new step for us. We are not used to be first movers – actually, we prefer to be second movers and to go with well-tested solutions”, he says and elaborates: “For us to take this step emphasizes just how attractive Platform Flex and its licensing-model was to us”.
“For us to take this step emphasizes just how attractive Platform Flex and its licensing-model was to us”.
Rasmus Poulsen, Manager, Operation IT Service & Support, Salling Group
Agility and continuity
The Platform Flex solution also brings in another important advantage in a time of insecurity in international geopolitics, says Søren Bay Graahede: “The IT-world reacts super-fast to the state of the World, and it affects all of us working with it. To be able to react fast is more crucial than ever. Citrix Platform Flex gives a company like Salling Group ultimate agility. It is possible to act very quickly and most importantly; it brings security and continuity. If there is a break-down, then you know that your infrastructure keeps running”. Ulrik Stub adds that the future perspective in particular look great: “Besides this important safety in your operations then you always work on optimizing your business. And here, we are very excited to see the reduced costs for a company like Salling Group. So many factors are being optimized, not just time and resources, so the road to growth is indeed lined up”.
A strong partnership
Being among the very first to make a move on new technology not only takes courage. Strong partnerships are crucial for succeeding. For Salling Group, their courage led to an even stronger partnership – an alliance we in Danoffice IT are proud to be a part of. “We have experience excellent goodwill from Citrix”, Rasmus says. “They show great flexibility and willingness to adapt things to our conditions. This absolutely affects our partnership”. Thus, Salling Group can se a before and after stepping in to the Platform Flex-reality. “When looking at our old platform – our old contract, there were many things we wanted to do and develop – but often we had to make workarounds. We did not have the licenses to act”.
“With the Flex-platform we have everything ready. If we want something done, we can act. Even on new solutions, that are not entirely our specialty, we can get help. Through funding from Citrix, we have access to Danoffice IT’s Citrix specialists, who will step in with heavy competencies. So, in short, we are in a good position. We look forward to seeing the value in the long run – and to see how the business will move with the new platform”, concludes Rasmus Poulsen, Manager, Operation IT Service & Support, in Salling Group
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