Season 3, Episode 1 – Behind the Citrix curtain with Sara

Transcript

Jordan Fleming : 0:01

Hey everybody, it’s Jordan here. Just in advance of season three. Kicking off, I just wanted to say a quick word. We are going to be back to regular podcasts, the whole COVID experience this year has thrown a lot of things out of whack. But I’m happy to say that most things are getting back to normal and we’re going to be coming back to getting routine podcast going. And a little reminder that it would really help us out if you can like and share the podcast give us a rating. And of course if you want to be on the podcast, if you are a podio partner, or if you use podio and have a story to tell, please do reach out to us on our website www.wearegamechangers.com And I’m excited about today’s episode, and I’ll get right on to it.

Narrator : 0:59

Welcome to Powered by podio automation is everything. supercharge your business with podio. Get ready for another episode of supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming your weekly dive into the awesome impact workflow and automation you can have on your business when it’s powered by podio. Join us each week as we learn from the top podio partners in the world as we investigate system integrations and add ons and hear from real business owners who have implemented podio into their business. Now join your host Jordan Samuel Fleming, CEO of Gamechangers for this week’s episode.

Jordan Fleming : 1:43

Hey everybody, and welcome to this episode of supercharged I’m your host Jordan Samuel Fleming, here to talk all about the power of workflow and automation when your business is powered by podio. Today’s very special guest to sort of kick off the season after COVID is our very own Sara from podio long term users of podio will know Sara from a long, long way back in podio. And she is the master of the system. And I’m excited to have her on the show. Sarah, welcome to the podcast. Why don’t you just introduce yourself a little.

Sara : 2:17

Hey, Jordan, thank you for having me. I’m very honoured to be a part of your show today. So Hi, everyone. My name is Sara Høeg Højlund-Rasmussen . It’s the true long name. I’m from Denmark. And that’s why it’s a bit difficult to say but you can call me Sarah from podio. So actually, it should be Sarah from Citrix, right? Because I’ve been a part of the company for eight years now. I joined back in 2012 is shortly after podio was acquired by Citrix. So I was actually never officially on the original team. I joined it I think in the first month after acquisition in 2012 and have been using podio and Citrix ever since. So that To me, thank you for having me.

Jordan Fleming : 3:02

Wow, that is actually like, because it’s funny I’ve had Anders was on one of the episodes earlier. And he’s like, podio user 11 or something, right? I mean, I can’t remember what it is. Yeah. 711, something like that. And I just, I always associate you with podio. So much and and of course, Citrix, but it’s never occurred to me that you you joined after Citrix acquired it. I mean, you must have seen I’m really curious, I speak to on this podcast, a lot of partners. I speak to a lot of customers a lot of integration people as well. And, you know, if you look back at the last sort of eight years of Podio’s development, what what strikes you the most in terms of, you know, what, what, what stands out to you over the last eight years in terms of Podio’s development.

Sara : 3:57

Well, so overall, I’m just proud to See that the business continue to grow and our customers are making true impact with the platform. I’m also really proud to see that partners like yourself are building a business on top of the platform and providing new, cool, innovative features. That was a dream we had back in 2012. And it’s actually happening. One thing I can share that and maybe the ones that’s been with us from the very beginning would know is that podio was actually tiny when we were acquired by Citrix, right? So the the product launched from beta in 2011. Back then, I was also a polio user. So I was sort of seeing it from from the outside. And we were acquired by Citrix only one year after our birthday right after polio was born. So back then we were 16 employees. I joined I think around number 20 or something like that. And we had a tiny customer base. We were a little shocked. In Denmark that was, you know, acquired by one of the big tech giants in Citrix, and actually most of the customers, most of the partners, most of the new development we have seen has been inside of Citrix as a company and not before. So that that’s really great to look back and, and imagine how small we were back then. Right? We were all preparing our lunch, we were fixing the coffee machine, we were chatting to every single new customer in person. And, you know, today we are we are part of the Citrix family. And I’m really happy for that as well.

Jordan Fleming : 5:36

I think I think I joined the podio ecosystem around 2013 I think something like that. And even for me, I’ve seen quite a development of podio you know, over the years. I guess to me, two things strike strike me of from a podio perspective is Number one, the acquisition of globiflow was, I mean, probably one of the most critical things to really make podio sing, and make it feel like a integrated kind of platform. And two it feels to me like, as probably as true with all software companies, there’s been an acceleration over the, you know, there’s a continued acceleration of users, I, I’ll bring someone into podio. And I’ll look at the user number and I’m like, Jesus, are we up to that level already? Because then I look at my own user number. Um, how have you like, have you seen acceleration in podio? Like really kind of be steady over the last couple years? How’s it been from a platform perspective?

Sara : 6:52

Well, I can share that back in the early days. We were still trying to figure out what we were and what our role was in Because podio was initially seen as a social collaboration platform, right? And sort of modern intranet, the Facebook of the businesses where you can communicate, collaborate, manage your tasks and projects. But we weren’t really back then seen as an automation engine in the way that we have, you know, developed to today you mentioned the globiflow acquisition. So, what’s really been striking is that we have also over the years been finding ourselves in our place and where we add the most value. Back then people were laughing a bit because we were trying to position ourselves as a work management platform that could support multiple use cases, right both the basic social collaboration but also project management, CRM, intranet, business process management and and the more and back then people were either project management or social collaboration. Or CRM, no one was really trying to do it all. And today, it’s a bit more common that in the notion of a work management platform that you can find a tool that can manage most of your processes. So that flexibility has really been a part of, I think, what made us successful and what made us sticky over the years. And then you mentioned workflow automation. So interesting part is that one of the good design pieces we did back in the days was the the open API, right, the free open API that everyone can build on. And in the very early days of podio, the only workflow feature we had was really a basic task generation. So you could create a project and you could automatically create a task to follow up for the responsible person, right? That was all you could do. I was actually and my role has changed over the years I joined in support and in customer success, and then I moved to product management. One of my first projects in project management back in 2015, or product management, was building the podio basic workflow functionality. So taking what was back then creating a task to actually automating when something is changing, I want to automatically create a common create a task, create a milestone, create something in a related app. And the reason we built this was, we had seen how our partners and customers were starting to automate these processes using the API. And even internally in Citrix, we had API automation to do these kind of basic workflows. If I create something here, I want to create a related, you know, follow up item in my task app, or I want to create a related success tracking item for my customer. All of these things we were doing via the API. So we were based on all of the feedback from our customers. We decided to build that What was the basic workflow work workflow functionality in podio. And then after that, that’s where globiflow really took, started to grow. And we could see that more and more of our customer base were embracing not only the basic workflows within podio, but also the new innovation that our partner ecosystem and globiflow fluently as the founder created here. So this was sort of, you know, new expected unexpected innovation from something that we we knew internally, but we didn’t actually know the problem space that well. Back then we learned a lot from from Andreas and what the customers have done here with with globiflow. And what we did initially was creating a simple partnership where we said, well, everyone on the premium plan of podio will get access to to our partner globiflows functionality, and from then we could just see the success right immediately after we added globiflow to our premium tier that became the most popular plan in podio. And before that, it was actually the plus plan or middle tier that was the most successful. But we could see that, you know, just by adding more advanced automation capabilities to build documents, automate email, since automated text messaging, that was really the sort of the glue that we were missing in order to bring podio to the power that it has today. And so yes, acquisition became sort of a natural part of just seeing the success and the growth of globiflow a on its own. So of course, it made more sense to provide that functionality into it. So our customers don’t have to purchase you know, both that podio subscription and globiflow subscription, but now it’s included as a part of everything you’ll get from us. So yeah, really, I think we’ve been sharing a few of these numbers but after the acceleration of the workplace, Automation. And we found that fit right that not only can restructure your data sets with podio and collaborate, but you can actually automate critical business tasks that you would otherwise, you know, spend hours and hours on, or have may be separated across multiple processes. Now, all of that can be tied together nicely. And we have seen a big, big increase in in how our customers are leveraging that functionality. I believe we shared some numbers initially in 2018 or 17, around 700 million workflows, automated by customers, and and the numbers we shared here is only by the advanced workflow automation, not even counting the basic that, you know, we built and made available internally in podio. And today, we’re seeing actually 1.3 billion workflow actions being automated by customers estimated this year in 2020. So that’s a double increase a 200% increase from just two years ago in terms of how much customers are automating. And and if you, you know, compare that back to even when when globiflow was acquired, we’re talking about, you know, 1200 300 400% increase year over year. So it’s really tremendous that we have seen this amount of growth in and how our customers can use the platform and also that we see customers continue to come to podio because we can actually bring all of the things together. You might start with one use case, but then you can expand and automate more and more stuff across your business. So that’s really great to see.

Jordan Fleming : 13:46

I wonder Do you you know, when I think about the increase in automation, I see it in to the or the increased focus on automation for most, what I would classify as small, small businesses, you’re either focused on it because you want to, you know, in essence, do more for less. You know, if you’re if you’re in a relatively tight margin industry, then the more you can automate, then the the better it is, you’re going to make more money etc. Um, do you see a call any common threads around? You know, it’s either industries or, or the way I mean, Citrix must be looking at trends for business sectors, etc. Is there anything that you you guys sort of see that you think, wow, that really fits? really well. I mean, certainly, from my perspective, with the COVID-19 stuff, you know, for anybody listening where we’re in September 1 2020. So for most places, COVID-19 is A market reality and podio all of our customers who are in podio really had no problem transitioning to work from anywhere. Everything they needed was already there. What do you What’s a Citrix? sort of focus on in terms of sectors or business trends Do you think

Sara : 15:23

yeah, that’s also been on my mind the last six months so for I’m actually located here in North Carolina in the US and not in Denmark anymore and and we’ve been definitely hit hard with with COVID and still this so six months later, I’m still working remote with the bigger Citrix offices in the US being closed for at least the rest of the year. So working remote and in you know, digital transactions and managing your work and, you know, sort of hybrid remote world right where sometimes you might go to the office, sometimes you’re not it’s definitely a part of, of the trends and And the reality right, we’ve been talking for almost 10 years about sort of the trends that we were expecting in terms of remote workers. And I had a few analyst calls recently with, you know, Forrester, Gartner, IDC. And some of the things we talked about was, well, there was a sort of add a trend in place to say that we would reach 15 or 25% of all workers being remote in that that the analysts and has been waiting for and talking about for a long time. And now we are actually here, right COVID-19 was the last sort of tip of the spear that that had to happen for us to be in a world where we expect I think their projections was in 2021. We expect 25 to 30% of the global workforce to be remote, which is huge. So it’s something that we’ve been talking about being in tech for a long time. But now we are here, where It’s actually reality and where it’s happening for us, even internally in Citrix and a tech company. So, yeah, what does that mean for small businesses, as you say, definitely what we can see for existing clients using them the Citrix cloud part of the portfolio. So podiodo it rightsignature for a signature sharefile for file sharing is that they have no issues transitioning into this world because they already had a track record of everything they need to do their job in the cloud. Everything is available. What Of course we have seen is, is for some small businesses that have been struggling to keep their business running in the sense of just a hard reality of the services they deliver. So to that end, it’s hard for us to know that small businesses have been struggling because of COVID it but we also happy that we will still be here keep their data safe and and then in the other end of the spectrum, We have new businesses coming to us saying, hey, I need to get everything online. And that’s you know, really fast because they did not have the processes in place that could secure a business continue continuously for them. And so on our end, what we have seen is both a rise in demand for software that we provide. But we have also seen, do the world situation that some businesses are struggling to keep, you know, to keep things together. We can offer from Citrix side is something where you really end to end meet have everything you need. To keep your business in place, you might need to combine you know, podio with an accounting system or something additional and email client if you’re still using email to keep your business running. But otherwise, we can actually manage most of what you need to get done using a Citrix solution. In the other end of the spectrum for our enterprise, mid market, and bigger clients What we have seen is that it’s usually a hybrid situation where enterprises has some part of their tech stack in the cloud and some, some still on prem some still on paper, some still without any system in place. And for that, we have really seen that that Citrix is able to help both and you know, get people remote access their secure applications and their desktops from a remote environment. So we’ve definitely seen a big increase in demand for this sort of legacy part of the Citrix technology where you can you can basically give secure access to all of your applications and, and desktops from from your home. But what we also see is that businesses are trying to plan better for the new emerging world right where changes are happening all the time, you need to adapt quickly. You need to be flexible, you need to have a low cost effective A structure that you can, you know, adapt to the needs of your workforce. And that’s where tools like podio come in as something that can offer that type of business agility to your company, right. And you can spin up an app in a few minutes and hours, you can set up a new process or a new team into end with with, you know, podio. And the automation we offer in a week or two, which is really fast compared to what else you see in the industry. And some customers might have ServiceNow or Salesforce deployments. But those are really heavy and expensive to get up and running. Right? It could take six months for a business to have a you know, new apps available and a new process up and running in it in a system like ServiceNow. But podio you can create a workspace and you can get started the next day. So we really also see that I’ll see a trend for empowerment Right empowerment of the business empowerment of the the team lead and the end user to structure their work and and make a platform available to solve, you know, the requirements, they have to keep their business running, but in an in an agile and low cost effective way, and not something that takes, you know, six months to get up and running because when COVID hit, you had to get remote on day one, right? You don’t have six months to plan for getting your processes up and running. So that’s how we see it sort of both on the small business, but also on the enterprise end of the spectrum.

Jordan Fleming : 21:37

How do you I mean, I think one of the biggest challenges that that podio is always had, in terms of people understand, you know, I sometimes think you don’t know what podio can do until you know what podio can do. And by the time you know what podio can do you know what podio can do. It’s i mean it’s it’s quite aGiven the podio is a,as you put it right there a platform, it’s not really, it’s not really a defined software product like a Salesforce, because you’re going to build it, you’re going to build the things you want. And you’re gonna do that the way you want to. How What do you think we sort of have gone through this period where, eight years ago, 10 years ago, whatever it was, people were building all these separate different bits of software, and everybody was using 15 different tools. And then plot podio, I think was ahead of its time, in terms of its ability to to integrate all sorts of business functions into one platform. So you didn’t have to go around. But it also then generated a massive, potentially difficult marketing problem. How do you position what is What is podio? Um, I I have certainly answered that as well as I can sometimes to customers. But I would always like what do you say? Like, what I what what when someone says what’s podio except for taking 20 minutes to outline all things you could do. I mean, how do you normally position it? I’m curious.

Sara : 23:24

I think that depends on the day and how I position it. If I speak to a customer that needs a project management tool, that’s how I will position it. If I speak to an enterprise client that needs a flexible, lightweight database to structure team processes and add automation then I will, I’ll position it at that. But I think you bring up an excellent point that it’s really been one of our strengths, but also one of our key issues over the years, right that we almost had too much power so we didn’t know where to focus and I think what we’re seeing at this point in time is that it’s becoming, and more than well known technology, we see other vendors moving in that same direction. And so I think it’s becoming more of a unknown and an okay to be a work management platform that can solve for multiple use cases, you don’t have to pick and choose and do one thing. So what I think we we will try to do going forward is to focus more on the solution we can deliver, and the flexibility and agility we can deliver that solution with. So you might start using podio for one use case to manage your marketing content calendar. And so that could be a solution around you know, marketing efficiency and management. But then as you learn the power and the flexibility you add on other use cases afterwards, and one example is we have some Big customers, leveraging podio for what we call it self service, right? So things where you have, you quickly spin up new applications and enable the end users to create their own applications to structure processes that they can’t easily fulfil in, in in systems like Salesforce ServiceNow, or JIRA, because they are controlled by it. They’re controlled by it. So you can easily make changes you can easily you know, do what you need. So podio is almost your collaborative excel sheet where you have you enabled the citizen developers in the company to build what they need for their it, tooling and IoT platform. And, and that’s something I think we’ll see more of and with the, with the sort of the speed of how things are evolving, right with the no code, low code, tools and automation being more common. It more people People in, you know, the growth of this citizen developer base that want to have power over their own tool, right? They don’t want to use something that doesn’t work for their process. They want to have empowerment of ownership of their process. And we see tonnes of businesses that are, you know, still in in Excel sheets and documents and spread across multiple project management tools, because they can’t find one thing that fits most and podio allows each team to spin something up where they can actually customise it to make it work for their team process it but in a low cost way so that IT again IT self service, it will enable the business users to spin up these processes on their own and without having something that’s defined for them already. So I don’t know it’s a hard question, but it’s something we’re looking at not just on the Podio perspective, but from Citrix overall. So we are trying to see How does Podio fit into the Citrix suite of services that we are delivering to our clients? Right? I talked about secure access to apps and desktop. And Citrix has you know, access control or single sign on a application delivery eSignature. And, and having all of these together is actually something that podio will benefit from as well. Leveraging or being that no code app builder platform that any of our customers who might be using Citrix for their a, you know, identity or application management. Well, they can add in a low cost no build a no code at build their platform to spin up new processes, and without depending on it, you know, six months a $2,000 project to set up a new with a new service. So we are really looking at that not just from a podio perspective, but how do we position the power of podio within the Citrix suite

Jordan Fleming : 28:00

I think that’s fine. I mean, to me, that’s fascinating because I think, um, you know, you for I would say historically Podio has been very much a small business, small medium business tool, not a very large business tool, not an enterprise level tool. But what you just pointed out in terms of being able to roll out these, you know, these these low code, no code process, kind of abilities to teams is definitely a big part of what Podio can do. And, and that actually brings me to an interesting kind of question and I’m very aware obviously, that the the Citrix roadmap etc, is not you know, is not something we can discuss openly because it’s clearly a corporate thing. But I would be interested in some feedback or some of your ideas in terms of, if I look at some other no code, low code solutions, like bubble etc, one of the criticisms, and I’m going to fight your corner on this one in a weird way. One of the criticisms of podio is its user interface. And it’s not moved on for a long, long, long time. Now it has moved on since I began, but it’s not moved on for a long time. Now, I would actually argue that having a consistent user interface is a good thing. Because when you look at a system, like Bubble, for instance, which is another low code solution, but one where you really need to develop a user interface, you’re adding time expense, pain and the ability or the need to sometimes upskill your people every time you add new bits, because you’re going to make it look a bit different. Whereas podio is big strength sometimes is once you know how to use it. You’re you’re flying regardless of what type that says. So what where do you see I mean, how do you approach a balance I suppose between Wanting to push and to continue to develop and and needing to, or and and not trying to, or not breaking the formula, so to speak, I guess is that must be a delicate balance for you guys to find your way and nobody’s ever going to be fully happy, like you’re always gonna have like there’s going to be sides that that complain or bla bla bla. And I’ve always taken a very kind of middle ground view of this. But I’m curious, is that how you feel about the approach to balancing new versus consistently keeping it going, if that makes sense?

Sara : 30:41

Yeah, I think it’s a good question. I probably have two answers. I want to get to first around just the the user experience and sort of the consistency of the UI. Definitely the last two years, you’ve seen more of work in podio being performed in the backend, right. So we talked about in public about our Focus on performance and reliability and some of the big infrastructure changes that we had to do in order to secure the continuous scale of the growth and the automation we’ve been seeing. So definitely focus has been more on getting the backend part of podio to actually work as expected. And but I will still say that it’s a balance about not adding too much complexity all the time, right? Because what we keep hearing requests from is more settings, more complexity, more features, more automation, and but it’s also a balance of not creating a monster that no one can figure out how to use right. We still want to keep it lightweight, in a sense that we can send documentation to someone and they can get up and running with 80% of what they need on their own. Sure, you will always need you know a partner and customization if you want to get really into the I will say the gold and get sort of the Everything that podio can offer, especially if you need custom integrations, but we want to create something that gives you what you need on your own without needing a doctor degree to figure out how to use it. Right. So definitely a balance there. And I’ll also say in terms of roadmap, we’ve been focusing a lot on the back end part of podio. And what you’ll see over the next year is that we are starting to put more love in the user experience and sort of the colour colour scheme and the improvements on how to use it, but not in a way that will break the foundation, right? We don’t want to create something where you have to learn how to use podio all over again. Because that I think that’s critical, more pain.

Jordan Fleming : 32:44

I was gonna say I’ve always been on I think that’s critical. I think that’s something that a lot of people you know, I think that’s something a lot of people miss, when they’re when they’re asking for functionality. You know, my my viewpoint has always been Are you trying to create a Salesforce then like, like, but like, particularly when people people ask functionality sometimes, right? Whether you want slightly different colours or whatever I can, you know, would podio benefit from a fresh kind of a bit of an upgrade and you know, get new cabinets on the kitchen doors opening to make it feel more much. Yeah, it would. But the functionality of podio actually, is still purring, like, you know, and, and what whenever I see requests for functionality, I always put it through my question of Well, are you then trying to create the podio as a CRM module with specific things was actually you can build a really good CRM in podio. You can build a really good one with drip sequences and automated law and this is this and move it all around. You can do that with the tools you have if you understand how to use the tools you have, and I can imagine that There’s always got to be a balance between, between not. But you know, the power of podio sometimes is the ability to go, right, I can build this CRM app in 20 minutes. And I’ve got my CRM, and the moment you make it that a two week process, you’ve lost something really important to podio, which is that ability to be like, hey, click add fields. Wow, I’ve got exactly how I want to be. So I can see how that would be a, an interesting balance point for you guys and one that you’re constantly having to evaluate the things that you’re trying to do. Um, around that. So that that must be interesting. In terms of Sorry, go ahead, please.

Sara : 34:43

Yeah, I have another example to your question. Because, you know, internally in Citrix, we are we’re using and deploying podio heavily, right. So in the past, we shared information around how we have, you know, more than 14,000 workspaces created by Citrix employees. I think that was a few years ago, it’s probably a lot more now. But we’re using it heavily as this you know, anyone is able to create a workspace build an app and do what they need to solve their process. Versus in Citrix internally, if we have to get something done in a corporate and larger system, then we have to wait for it to have priority and time to build it out. An example is here recently with it with when COVID-19 hits and we were trying to figure out how to make it safe for employees to be a of course, you know, remote where we communicate and we have our business we we continue as normal. But as we started to open up the offices in Asia and Europe where things are a bit more under control than in the us right now. We needed a tool to ensure that employees could quickly like in just mock compliance and make sure that you you’re you’re felt safe and taken care of share feedback to facilities In a quick manner, in what else it posts communications and those kind of messages where normally it would have to either built up a separate app targeted COVID and the compliance requirements we had across the world. For example, in Japan, we have some compliance requirements before we can get employees into the office. In the Netherlands, it would be different in the US at something else. So building a new application is something that an IT organisation would normally spend, you know, now we have to spend, you know, three months to get this up and running. I’ll be using ServiceNow or rebuilding something custom. We actually just took podio here, right, we were able to create a simple podio form a to have employees Mark certification that they are aligned with the different requirements before going into the office, they can certify using a podio app either and a webform that we can make available for Like contractors and guests, but also as opposed to form within Citrix workspace where all employees can go in certify to the local requirements, make them feel safe that Citrix is actually taking care of them and not just opening the office to everyone with COVID symptoms. And then we have all that data locked into podio workspace for our HR business partners, our security and compliance team to ensure that a when people are actually logging compliance, this is what is happening, etc. So those use cases we could spin up with podio in a few weeks, where the time spent was not actually building out the podio apps or integrating to Citrix workspace. The time spent was working with our HR teams, legal teams compliance team to figure out what is the processes we need to support to make employees feel safe. So that was an example of something where we were leveraging it podio to, you know, deploy something to all Citrix 8000 employees worldwide, but in a very flexible manner where we could take all of the different country requirements in consideration and deploy that very quickly.

Jordan Fleming : 38:10

Well, that’s great to see. I mean, it’s always great to see, you know, Citrix using podio. Like, for me, that’s always a good thing to see. Because it’s a you know, it’s got such flexibility. And it’s great to, you know, the Citrix is kind of view or application of podio you know, it’s really important for all of us who who are so that you know, are so dedicated. I mean, now I won’t I’m not gonna hang you on this, don’t worry. I but I do have one question. I get approached as a I’m a relatively well known partner in terms of my I’m a basically a pain in the ass so people know what I look like. But I get asked probably three times a month. You You know, uh, you know you do do I feel like polio is here to stay? I genuinely still get asked this question. My view has always been, you know, probably four years ago, I was a bit worried. And actually now I feel like it’s a it’s it’s going into the Citrix ecosystem. I’m not going to hang you as to, you know, Sarah says we’re fine. But I mean, how, you know, there does seem to be a drive to integrate podio into the new focus of Citrix, which is workspace. There’s a like, when I look at Citrix, I see a wholehearted run towards workspace. But podio fits into that run in a pretty decent way. From my perspective, can you give us any sense? I mean, I’m not trying to Allah, you know, I just can you give us a sense of where you see as much as you’re able The podio journey in Citrix right now I as much as you’re able, and if you can, of course I respect that.

Sara : 40:07

Yep. Yeah, I think it’s a good question. You know, so it to the history. It’s also saying that back in the days when I joined Citrix, Citrix was almost free different companies. There was a networking company that was a fn virtualization company, and there was a cloud services company sold off, right, it was Citrix, but we had these divisions where things were very siloed into the different product solutions we were delivering. And podio was a part of the the cloud services division and ecosystem working closely with GoToMeeting and the likes. So obviously, the uncertainty you’ve referred to is back in 2016, when we had the spin off of, of GoToMeeting, and suddenly, Citrix actually decided to change the whole company structure, right to move away from these siloed division to What we back then called one Citrix and a, we always in the old days referred to Citrix as speak Citrix, right? We were the cool startup and big Citrix was was the, you know, the guys that had us. But now it’s actually very, very different. So we are a part of the core strategy of Citrix overall. And we are part of the strategy for workspace to move to the cloud. The good news is that podio is ahead of the game because we are already in the cloud. So we don’t need to take the same strives, as you see in Citrix overall, where we are looking to see how can we add more value to the cloud solution? How can we attract more customers to see the benefit of cloud? We are not even there because we surpassed us, right? We were born in the cloud. So what we are looking at instead is how do we unify the value we’re delivering inside of the new cloud version of Citrix in the workspace that is unifying all of our applications. A all of our files, all of the data, all of the secure access control the secure container, single sign in to your SaaS applications and all these goodies that Citrix already have with an underlying a, you know, analytics platform with an underlying developer platform. podio fits straight into this as a part of delivering these small a no code, Mike reps that we talked about and talked about the automation that podio offers right as a part of Citrix workspace in or actually now it’s already available today, if you will, if you are finally like yourself, and you know how to integrate to workspace, but you can actually deliver podio apps, it automation flows forms that I talked about, I talked about this COVID-19 form that we are delivering in Citrix workspace. This is a podio app that we are making available in and actually have, you know shared in a press release just two months ago. Go to the world that we are able to deliver these new use cases in the Citrix cloud solution. And one of the amazing strengths we have is that we already have an app builder and platform with podio. We have projects we have CRM, we have a you know all of the business flows that you need in a business, and we can tie those into the workspace to get all of the other goodies that Citrix has to offer. So, yes, we are very much aware and we are very much a part of the Citrix workspace strategy. So I report up to our portfolio of a what you call the content Collaboration Suite. So it content collaboration is you know, podio shafali, and right signature where I oversee what we call collaboration and workflows, which is podio in our right signature e signature solution, but then as a part of this We are part of the workspace solution. So the Vice President for product strategy for the workspace experience is my vice president, right? I’m a part of his journey to the cloud and how we make our customers successful in workspace. And if you look at, you know, where customers a are with verge, virtualization and apps and desktops, we can now add a lot more intelligence to that. Not only can you access your apps, but you can also access micro flows where you can get work done, right, you don’t log into your application go to their application and you never go back to Citrix workspace in Citrix workspace you get worked on, whether it’s with podio as a SaaS application, whether it’s with data from your other applications. So workspace is a great story for for us this is it really enable us to connect podio to the other work that you might be doing I realised that for a small business might not or who might only use a few applications. And the benefit you will get here will be a secure, you know, single sign on experience, multi factor authentication, the secure container to fodio. Alongside the other applications you might be using. It could be an integration to Google suite to see all of your Google files, all of your calendar invites or emails, it could be integration to, you know, Slack, if you’re using slack for your communications and chat. So in that sense, workspace can really connect the SaaS applications you’re using it you’re only using podio. Well, then it’s a secure lock into your podio data or you use podio that you do today. But definitely, there’s a big move towards workspace and Citrix and podio is very much a part of that move.

Jordan Fleming : 45:53

Yeah, I’m excited about the workspace in general. I mean, I know that our friends at brick bridge consult who are, who are fellow podio partners, Gil and his and Alex and Jared have been on this podcast I’ve been on there’s so it’s great to be able to give them a plug right now. We’ve been, you know, my other hat obviously game changes I’m podio consultant as smartphone. We’re a very, you know, a an integration will. And we are currently rolling out with brick bridge the smartphone workspace integration. So, you know, I I do see the power. And I think I think from a small business perspective, I think what’s great to see is that podio is a part of a really important part of Citrix strategy, because I think there’s always you know, there there are some times people don’t understand back end development. People don’t understand that this stuff you guys have been working on for the last year and a half maybe behind the scenes and nobody sees They don’t necessarily understand it. And I can set my watch. Usually, by the every three months, someone posts a something saying that, you know, nothing’s happening. But actually, I feel quite confident now about the the podio, the podio future within Citrix, because I’m seeing so much integration with workspace. And because we are seeing a defined sort of, you know, group of people in the Citrix environment that are dedicated to podio in a way we probably haven’t had for a while. So that’s really great as well, just to close this off.

Sara : 47:41

You can also you can also, hopefully, feel the reliability improvements, right. So if you compare the podio you had this year to the podio. You sold two years ago, and hopefully you should see a lot less interruptions and not in a better experience getting your work done, right.

Jordan Fleming : 47:59

Yeah, I think I think what’s what’s really interesting what that is, of course, you guys are building these improvements while you’re still hammering the system with even more items. And so I, you know, there’s a there’s a sort of step by step thing, we keep improving, and you guys keep doing more things, which puts more loads. So I think it’s I think that’s a definitely been an improvement over the over the last sort of two years, you’ve seen an arc of improvement. And, you know, I’ve, you’ve seen kind of more investment into the, the support elements as well, just as a final kind of, you know, as a final summing up, I mean, I look at the next I always like to look at sort of 1218 months, I had and I you know, I think for me, the the focus obviously on remote working is going to be critical. What is there for 12 to 18 months point of view from for you Are we going to start Do you think we’ll be seeing some of these kind of more front end things without giving any roadmap or timelines or anything like that? Is that kind of in the 12 to 18 months? Or are we looking more like the 36 months type thing? Are we going to start to see some of those more interesting things happen? Do you do suspect?

Sara : 49:20

Yeah, I definitely, I can say it’s already happening right now. Right. So we recently released a sort of small makeup lifts to the polio website and our help centre as well as we have branding changes coming up for globey flow, where we are finally changing all of the naming to be a part of podio. Right. So that’s one of the first sort of teaming up and steps we see in terms of of changing the visual look of podio so I feel comfortable looking 12 months ahead that you will see a more modern podio application, you will see a podio application fully integrated to the Citrix ecosystem and And the Citrix strategy. One example I can give here is that we have our, you know, developer conference for Citrix in November, where we are hoping that you guys a lot of the podium partners will be a pod on stage a part of the the key topics and keynotes for all of Citrix to share what you are building with podio and what you’re building with workspace, and that would never have happened, you know, four years ago where we were separate business units, right. So definitely, you guys can expect great things from us in the future as well. We’re here to support you and I, I’m very comfortable, confident that you’ll be happy with what you’re seeing in the next 12 to 18 months.

Jordan Fleming : 50:43

Well, I am super excited. I mean, I have been using podio for so long now that I can I can control my whole life with it. I genuinely I think I’ve got a workspace for everything. But it’s you know, I think it’s great to hear from you, sir. Great, you’ve got such a wide perspective on podio. You’ve been so intimately involved and obviously a key player in Citrix. Now, this kind of environment, it’s great to have you on the podcast great to kind of hear some of your, your views on it. And it’s also great to hear that there is a, you know, that element of of podio being part of the Citrix kind of flow as it goes right now. I think that’s a really important that people can hear that, given how much most of our businesses rely on podio Yeah, you know, so that’s fantastic. To hear for anybody who has not taken a look at the Citrix workspace, I will post some links for you. And I do also you know, I as Sarah mentioned, the the development coming up. I know that last time you guys did a big development push the podio partners to kind of rock the house. So I I’m looking forward to seeing all my colleagues doing it again.

Sara : 52:04

Yep, yeah, I think we had three podio partners that won the top awards last year. And even in the spring when we had a virtual hackathon. We also had a podio partner win the productivity awards. So definitely proud of the ecosystem and how you make a difference for Citrix overall.

Jordan Fleming : 52:23

Well, thanks so much for joining us today. Sarah, and I will look forward to seeing all this and have a fantastic week.

Sara : 52:32

Thank you, Jordan.

Narrator : 52:34

You’ve been listening to supercharged with Jordan Samuel Fleming. Subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play or Spotify for your weekly dive into how you can supercharge your business by making it powered by podio. Be sure to check out our website we are game changers.com where you can learn more and arrange a 30 minute call with Jordan Dale, do you understand how podio supercharges you