Entisys360 Wins Citrix Partner of Year For 5th Time

Maybe Citrix should rename its partner of the year award the Entisys360 partner of the year award.

Entisys – No. 183 on the CRN SP500- this week walked away with the top honor for the second consecutive year. It marks the fifth time Entisys360 has won the award in the last 11 years.

"It feels awesome," said Entisys360 CEO Mike Strohl , who credited his team of 130 employees for combining off-the-chart sales growth with best-in-class Citrix solutions and customer satisfaction. "This is a validation of our team who are passionate about the partnership and work so hard everyday to deliver game changing Citrix solutions for customers."

[Related:Citrix Channel Chief To Partners: It’s Time To Expand Practices Beyond Virtualization]

Entisys360 doubled its Citrix business in 2018 to $19 million, accounting for 12 percent of the company's $180 million in sales. "We did more seven figure deals this year we have done in the last three years combined covering all sorts of verticals including healthcare, bioscience, e-commerce, and finance," he said.

Strohl said the back-to-back win was particularly gratifying given the robust Citrix sales growth Entisys360 delivered in the prior year. "When you have grown enough to win one year to grow again at that kind of rate is very, very challenging," he said."No words can describe the kind of growth we had in 2018 given the size and volume of the business we were already doing with Citrix."

Entisys360 made a concerted effort to double down on the Citrix partnership at the start of 2018, said Strohl. "We didn't take our success for granted," he said. "We wanted to go and absolutely dominate this market. So we looked at how we were partnering with Citrix and how we aligned with each other. The level of connection and partnership is beyond anything I have ever seen in all my years. Citrix continues to align the programs to where we are going as a business."

That plan to recommit to the Citrix partnership included a major investment to grow the sales particularly in Citrix Cloud and Citrix Workspace, said Strohl. "We got more customers into long term subscription based commitments as opposed to short term transactional commitments," he said. “We learned how to take customers wall to wall with Citrix rather than tactical relationships."

Also key to the success was Entisys360 investments in cloud and DevOps, which opened up big new Citrix opportunities. "All of it converged together to create a very special year for us," he said.

As part of the award honor, Strohl -- in a billboard-size honor to Entisys360 -- attributed the victory to the Entisys360 mantra that "Relationships are Business Critical."

"You have to have relationships with the sellers, with executives, with marketing- it all goes together and they're all different kinds of relationships, so if you're not connected across the board then you're missing a big piece of the puzzle," he said.

Now the question is: can Entisys360 do it again? Strohl, for his part, said his team is committed to doing just that. "We are going for it," he said. "It was a wild year and we're hoping we can do it again. This is all about the team."