Neels du Plooy (Citrix)
Citrix’s new Australia and New Zealand channel chief Neels du Plooy has vowed to double down on partner engagement through a tighter approach to geographic boundaries.
Speaking with ARN, du Plooy, who was appointed director of channels and alliances in April after nine years at VMware, said he would now ensure a stronger focus on a state, territory and regional level across A/NZ.
As a result, the business now has territory partner account managers based in every region across A/NZ, du Plooy claimed.
“For me, that's such an exciting change and it's one that is very well accepted by our partners as well as having that much closer engagement down to the key regions across Australia and New Zealand,” he said.
According to the recently hired channel chief, if Citrix wants to capture more opportunities, it needs to accelerate all parts of its business, especially its channel.
“Almost a whole new leadership team now sits in the A/NZ business — it is quite comforting and also exciting to know that these individuals are so focused in working closely with our partners,” he said.
One such partner is Logicalis, which recently helped healthcare provider Peninsula Health with Citrix infrastructure to support remote working and telehealth services.
However, the regional focus is not just to provide more support to existing partners, but also to allow the company to better target new partners as well.
“[We’re] also looking at the territory as a whole; how do I make sure that I've got both capacity and capability within the region, and that I'm partnering with the right partners? [We're g]oing and finding those young and upcoming partnerships that might also be better suited for some of the more emerging technologies that we take into market,” du Plooy said.
“The other thing with that is looking at those partnerships that have been really good for us but have maybe fallen off the wayside a little bit — re-engaging those partnerships and making sure that we continue to grow again.”
The channel chief’s main priority with finding new partners, he stressed, is quality, rather than quantity.
“I'd rather have one new partner in every state every quarter than having 10 new partners in every state every quarter that are doing a mediocre job,” du Plooy said.
The new channel chief follows in the footsteps of Brian McColm, who previously had the position of A/NZ channel director for four years. He then took up the director of sales roles for northern Australia and New Zealand in February before moving over to Autodesk in July.
When speaking about taking over the existing position, du Plooy said when he comes into a new leadership role, he has to look at what is currently in play. While he is looking to change some elements, other aspects are set to continue, as they come from the company's global and Asia Pacific and Japan strategies.
“As I continue in my push forward for success, at the end of my first quarter, I review, and ask 'I've started making these changes, is it successful?' I will do the same at the end of this quarter, sitting with a team, making sure that we are executing on the things that we set out that we're going to execute on," he said.
“If there are certain things that are not working, I think it's important to then realise that and call it out as required to make sure that we do engage our strategy for success,” he added.
