Citrix signs exclusive strategic distie deal with Dicker Data

This new exclusive deal brings sole distribution and a new business unit, CXANZ.

Dicker Data and Citrix have expanded their strategic partnership, to bring new opportunities to partners and enahnce the partner ecosystem.

Both companies have been in an exclusive distribution deal since 2018, but this new agreement takes it one step further with Dicker being the sole distributor in the ANZ market.

With this expanded deal, there is now a new Citrix partner program, profitability modelling services for partners, a multi-million dollar investment into headcount, and it also brings new tailored solutions and incentives.

James Sullivan, VP Citrix ANZ told CRN Australia the opportunity for this deal is around market potential and enhancing the value to the channel program over and above what they are able to do themselves in local market.

“It's really about taking advantage of the expertise and the scale and the flexibility that Dicker Data have, and the intimacy with the channel and partner market,” he said.

“Elevating our position in that market and enabling additional value to particularly to the partners that have worked with us for so many years.”

Sullivan said it is also an enhancement to the partner ecosystem.

“Either by facilitating more investment in them and more understanding of Citrix, and in particular, new partners into that ecosystem as well,” he explained.

“It's absolutely an opportunity to drive market potential to get into untapped markets, and really for Citrix to have scale in operational that we couldn't do ourselves and Dicker is tremendous at that.”

Sullivan explained why Citrix continued to leverage the Dicker Data relationship rather than choose other distributors in the region.

“The reason why we've done that is really around their scale, their flexibility and their knowledge in the in the local market, for sure,” he said.

“On top of that, they have a deep understanding of Citrix. They've obviously been a sole distributor since 2018 with it brings intimacy with the partner network. It brings an understanding about our products, our platforms, and for a big part our strategic and direction.”

Pennie Stevens, general manager – software at Dicker Data told CRN Australia there is “enormous” opportunity to grow with this partnership.

“We're doing a lot of investment with headcount. We've brought people in over from Citrix, so we've got that continuity as the business grows, but we've also invested in resourcing and that sort of thing to support this,” she said.

“For us, it's about developing new ways to go to market for a vendor, and Citrix is embracing this new model.

For us, it's a learning of how to do that with them, and we get to do it with a vendor that we have been representing in that exclusive market for such a long time. There is that established, mature channel arrangement.”

Stevens explained the opportunity for Citrix partners.

“It's a whole new revenue stream in it, and the market development of what Citrix has got with the development of their product in this environment there is just so much more opportunity for our partner community,” she said.

“Anytime we can be providing more to our partners is a great opportunity for Dicker Data.”

CXANZ, a new business unit

With this new deal comes, CXANZ, Dicker Data’s new business unit in the Australian and New Zealand region.

According to Dicker Data, CXANZ is designed to strengthen partner alignment and deliver enhanced support across the Citrix portfolio.

The companies said this new structure allows Dicker Data to deliver top-level engagement layered with distributor-level expertise, creating a more flexible, responsive, and locally tuned experience for partners.

Through CXANZ, partners will benefit from tailored programs, streamlined communications, and expanded access to resources that accelerate Citrix adoption and growth.

Sullivan said this new business unit is also “opportunity driven”.

“We're historically good at the high end at the touch point to that, but we lacked scale to really [target] the corporate market and the mid market, and more recently, we probably lacked the flexibility with the channel program,” he said.

"When we did a one size fits all, we found the Australian market and the New Zealand market particularly wanting more flexibility and different opportunities out of that channel program.”

Sullivant noted that Citrix pulled investment out of its front end go to market, and moved it to investment in product, research and R&D.

“Now we can't get that to market quick enough unless we have strategic partners like Dicker that can operationalise that and then adapt it to the local market,” he said.

“That's what we're seeing in the benefit and the ‘why now?’ Because they can take the investment in R&D and product, and they can push it out to the channel, educate the channel and enable the channel to create a business proposition much faster than we can,” he said.

“We needed that in terms of the execution of our strategy and the deployment of the innovation in a more of a mass market approach.”

Chris Downes, senior business manager, CXANZ said for the new business unit Citrix has put in incentives and enablement for partners.

“We've obviously got a partner program, which has been launched the partners. But the key things are for partners that are that are skilled preferred services type partners is giving them upfront adoption discounts and rebates to enable them to drive adoption into the existing customers,” he said.

“The traditional deal registration I would say some really heavily incentivised discounts for partners that are generating new opportunities and driving new leads to Citrix and to themselves.”

Sullivan couldn’t elaborate on the partner program but said the efficiency in the programs are “a lot better”.

“It's a simple word with the hygiene in terms of partners getting paid quickly, getting reimbursements and rebates quickly, that shouldn't be under sold,” he said.

“We want to encourage investor partners and receive all these benefits, we also want the efficiency of the program to operate. There's absolutely no doubt that we're seeing that efficiency improve and improve exponentially since Dicker has taken it on.”