Citrix has announced a R25-million investment initiative to train key channel partners and systems integrators in South Africa. There are already over 100 sales professionals and systems engineers undergoing training with more expected to begin training in the next few months.
With a surge in demand for cloud networking services to support the online, on-demand generation, the role of the channel has evolved to become more strategic and consultative. As a result, the skills required have evolved to focus more on nurturing trusting relationships with customers, having a detailed understanding of business pain points and identifying solutions to challenges faced by organisations across South Africa.

“The rapid rate at which technology and solutions are advancing has presented an opportunity to further develop the skills and knowledge of our channel partners, particularly in relation to cloud networking expertise.
“As customers embrace technologies to enable a more flexible, cost effective and efficient IT infrastructure, there is more opportunity than ever for channel partners to offer valuable insight and consultancy. This training initiative is designed to empower our channel partners to provide outstanding service to existing and prospective customers,” says Simon McCullough, channel manager, Citrix South Africa.

The training has been specifically designed to help sales professionals and system engineers within the Citrix channel ecosystem speak confidently with senior-level enterprise customers to articulate the value of enterprise mobility, cloud, networking and virtualisation solutions.

The benefits of the programme will prove invaluable to the channel community, helping sales professionals develop the confidence and knowledge in enterprise solutions selling and giving systems engineers deeper understanding of the latest technologies and solutions.

The sponsored training takes the form of a R200 000 voucher per person and entitles the holder to undergo a series of training courses to achieve qualifications such as the Citrix Certified Integration Architect level, for example.

“The success of an education programme is normally measured on reaction, learning, behaviour and results. While the latter points will take some time to become visible, the reaction we have had to the training has been fantastic.

“The channel community has really embraced the opportunity to enhance its skills and we have gained some fantastic insight into the areas that we could look to help develop in future,” says McCullough.