Personalized experience through intelligent digital workspace

Safi Obeidullah, Technology Strategist and Field CTO, APJ, Citrix, talks about the cloud, data protection, Everything-as-a-Service and desktop virtualization.

How big has the growth of cloud been in India and what are the reasons for that? How are the public-private-hybrid models competing with each other?

India’s use of cloud services is rapidly increasing with it likely to explode over the next 3 years with India having the 3rd highest growth rate globally for public cloud services according to Gartner. As seen in other global markets, once organisations define a strategy for the consumption of cloud, they typically move very quickly in adopting them, much like the flick of a switch. SaaS and IaaS services are usually the most popular cloud services that organisations start their cloud journey with and then from there they go on to building out their own applications leveraging functions and services from the cloud.

The flexibility of cloud services means that organisations do not need to be tied to a single cloud. They can choose to leverage the cloud services that best meets their needs. Equally, depending on factors such as scale, data protection policies or cost, some use cases may best be served through traditional on premise infrastructure or private clouds. For this reason, we are likely to see a hybrid multi-cloud model as being the dominant approach for most organisations. This model gives organisations the most flexibility in being able to adopt the best fit services from which ever cloud provides them as well as being able to balance the organisations needs around security, delivering the best experience and managing costs.

Each public and private cloud provider will continue to add more and more services and capabilities to attract more utilisation. In other markets we have seen private cloud providers build out services targeting specific needs that a public cloud provider may not be able to meet. The best thing here is that organisations have the choice.

Choice is also one thing we have always focused on giving to our customers. Citrix Cloud services are integrated with all major public cloud providers as well as traditional virtualization platform used in private clouds or data centres. As organisations embrace a hybrid multi-cloud model, our services can deliver the visibility, security and control into applications deployed anywhere, all with a unified and consistent approach instead of having to use a different approach for each cloud.

India recently cleared the Personal Data Protection Bill (PDPB). How will that change the market and is India ready for it?

The draft of the proposed bill is a welcome change for India. The concept of privacy by design will not be an addendum, with this bill. Data privacy will now have to be part of the design for every system and application. What we should be looking for is a balance between data protection, with the need for innovation. With consent now needed each and every time, users also have a right to be forgotten. Since Indian enterprises leverage new-age technologies, one of the challenges would be to understand how anonymised personal and non-personal data can be processed for use in such algorithms. Most firms going to market without considering embedding security in the product or service, is also one of the larger challenges for India. Only time will tell how Indian enterprises adapt to this new change and ensure compliance.

Can you tell us something about the desktop virtualization scene in India and its place in the modern workplace?

Desktop virtualization in the workplace has rapidly grown into a strategic model to securely deliver a desktop while enabling employees to work from anywhere and any device. Historically, the office was the only place that “work” was done and so having fixed desktop PCs in the office made sense. The modern workplace however is much more fluid. More and more organisations need their employees to have the flexibility to work and be productive from anywhere and having the flexibility to access all of the applications and data you need is critical to support this. Importantly, desktop virtualization also provides significant benefits to IT departments allowing them to move away from having to deploy, patch and support physical desktops to a centralised model which provides a more efficient approach to delivering desktops to employees. A vastly simplified approach to managing endpoints can be embraced, with a focus on securing the applications and data. This approach also enables organisations to adopt a zero trust security model allowing employees secure and contextual access to the services they need.

Recently you company talked about Everything-as-a-Service. Can you speak more about that?

The concept of Everything-as-a Service really relates to two elements. One is the shifting commercial structures for organisations acquiring technology where increasingly the shift is towards more of a consumption model. Organisations no longer want to buy products, they want to buy outcomes and the shift to a service model will see organisations having more options and more flexibility in the adoption of new technology.

Equally, this has a flow on impact to technology, which I see as the second element. Technology vendors need to shift from a product-centric to a service-centric model to align with this shift to a consumption-based model. This requires a greater focus on driving adoption and having vendors support customers and deliver successful outcomes to drive more consumption.

Ultimately, the big winner here will be organisations themselves. Organisations can select best of breed functions from different providers to build their own applications. Consumption models mean that they only pay for what they use which will allow organisations to take a fail fast approach to evaluating different options enabling them to find the solution to deliver the best outcome for the business.

Can you speak about digital workspaces and "people-centric" solutions?

The manner in which people use technology in the workplace has changed significantly over the last decade. Prior to this, the technology employees used in the workplace largely centred around one device, the PC. When we think back to that time, things were pretty straightforward. You had one username/password and once you logged into that PC, all of the applications and data you needed was right there, in one place. The PC, however, was not very flexible. Generally, you had to be in the office to access so that’s where many organisations started to leverage our desktop virtualisation solutions to deliver that desktop remotely.

Fast forward a decade and a lot have changed. While employees are still using traditional Windows apps, more and more organisations are embracing SaaS and Web applications. The location where files are stored is starting to shift from file servers in your data centre to online services like OneDrive. More and more employees are looking to work from different locations and different devices. Whereas before, the PC was a single front door to corporate IT, now employees have to navigate multiple doors as applications and data are so dispersed. Employees have gone from a simple experience with one place to go, to now having to deal with different ways to access applications and files, multiple username/passwords, and all with different experiences based on the device that they are on.

This fragmented experience is what the Citrix Workspace is focused on addressing. Giving employees  a secure and unified digital workspace that brings together all of the different applications they need, all of the different file repositories with single sign-on and a consistent experience regardless of the device that they are in. This approach essentially organises access to all of the tools an employee needs and puts it into one place, with one experience.

But while this is a great way to organise access to applications and data, there is still a bigger problem that employees deal with. Employees today are increasingly dealing with more and more applications and are spending more and more time searching for information to aid a decision or a task. Adding to this is the constant barrage of alerts and notifications employees receive daily from all of the different systems they are using. All of these elements impact the productivity and engagement of the employee.

To start tackling this problem, we have just launched new intelligent capabilities for the Citrix Workspace. This transforms the way employees work by guiding and automating the various workflows and processes. Most employees only use a handful of functions within the applications and so instead of the employee having to waste time launching the application, navigating through the menus to get to that function, the Citrix Workspace will reach into those enterprise applications and bring those workflows or insights directly into the Citrix Workspace as a microapp. These microapps allow employees to get through their tasks, quickly and easily. In addition, the Citrix Workspace uses machine learning to simplify and automate repetitive tasks and workflows so common activities can be performed in a single click.

An intelligent digital workspace gives employees the personalized experience they need to be their most productive and to do the work that matters. It lessens the burden of busy work and dampens distractions that pull them away from what they were hired to do. It takes a user-centric approach that puts people first and enables employees to deliver value to the organization and feel good about the work they do.