Citrix Systems

When a startup grows up, so must its brand.

2008 marked an important year in the growth of Citrix Systems. Having just broken the $1 billion revenue mark and completed numerous successful acquisitions, Citrix had earned its seat at the “big table” as a contender for leadership in desktop virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions. Global companies, like Microsoft, were knocking at the door and looking for partnership opportunities. It quickly became obvious that something had to be done to give the brand the stature it deserved and to create the brand experience clients were looking for.

Now a strategic partner with Microsoft and a key competitor to big-league players like Cisco and Oracle, Citrix had to shed the ad-hoc branding practices of its days as a scrappy tech startup. Citrix reached out to Tenet Partners for help. Starting with a re-tuning of the brand positioning from functional-based (access) to a broader, benefit-driven strategy (infrastructure), Tenet’s team of strategists and designers worked together to translate the new direction into a brand identity that expressed openness, transparency and scale.

Now that it was playing in a decidedly different league and appealing to a much broader market, meaningful connections with their customers were going to be key for success for Citrix. To that end, it was vital to create a more robust and clearly defined partnership and ingredient branding program. Tenet helped rationalize, structure and communicate the expanded program. The program was recently voted one of the best channel programs in the market.

Citrix continues its growth trajectory, doubling their revenue to just under $3 billion in six years. When customer experience and business strategy align, the sky’s the limit.