>> Live from Atlanta, Georgia, it's The Cube, covering Citrix Synergy Atlanta 2019. Brought to you by Citrix. >> Welcome back to The Cube. Lisa Martin with Keith Townsend, continuing The Cube's two day coverage of Citrix Synergy 2019. We are very excited to be speaking with one of the Citrix innovation award nominees, ZF Group. We've got Walter Scherer, senior manager of IT workplace foundation. Hi Walter. >> Hello, nice to be here. >> And Greg Lehofer, manager of client virtualization. Greg, great to have you on The Cube. >> Thank you very much. >> So, first congratulations to ZF Group for the Innovation Award nomination. We hear there were over one thousand nominees. Pretty exciting to get to the top three, one of the top three finalists. So Walter let's start with you, tell our audience who ZF is and what you're doing with Citrix. >> So ZF is a global system provider, we enable next generation of mobility. So for us it's very important to invest in technology fields like integrated safety, electricity, like automated driving, that's very important for us so we see the future, the world will change so we see it every day and therefore it's very very important for us that we push innovation, that we push internet of things, and we push the digitalization. That's a must for us. >> So you guys are supplying a company that supplies systems for IC, your passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial technology. >> Yeah. >> Across Germany or is this to cross Europe? >> That's globally so we have around 40 confidants where we have locations. Where we have well organized globally and therefore it's very important for us to bring the right product for the future, for our customer. >> Wow so Greg tell us about the landscape, that's 40 countries, tell us how big is the infrastructure to support all of them? >> It's very big, so the transformation of IT is very important for us as Walter mentioned before, so yeah we start to build up a bigger infrastructure now, a virtual infrastructure because in the past we have a lot of water in place and so it's all from from ZF and now we are able that the external service providers and we have a lot of external service provider in place around the globe so that they can bring their own devices now in ZF and can use virtual desktops and so yeah for us the effort is not too big because the infrastructure is more central at the moment and so yeah, we are searching for new ways how we can make that more efficient for us and more easier and manage them and yeah we are looking at cloud infrastructures at the moment and yeah we are working very close together with Citrix and that technology and yeah, for us we are very proud that we are now nominated for the prize and yeah. >> So again about scale, how many partners worldwide do you have? So number of devices connecting to your infrastructure, how big is your customer base? >> So we have a lot of customers there so for our project because of course you mentioned, so we have off-road vehicles, we have product concerning the automotive areas, we have commercial areas so that's a lot of individual customers that we all have there. So and therefore we have to bring the right outcome so with Microsoft or with Citrix technologies and of course with the partnership with Microsoft that's very important too for us and so we have to bring the right infrastructure in place, especially in the user centric experience approach that's very important too for us and therefore we have the good partnership with Citrix so and with Citrix we have a really big and powerful systems in place, product to portfolio, so that will help us in this journey. >> Let's talk about that journey Greg, when you started working with Citrix to virtualize the environment, talk to us about how you went about that from a mobility perspective and what is that enabling your business to achieve for your customers? >> For our customers you have global graphic we have customers all over the world, they are always on airports and traveling around the world and so it's very important for us that we are transformate the IT in that way that the customer is able to work all over the world, anytime anywhere with any device. It's very important for the customers and for a new generation X to work with every device and yeah there is big transformation at the moment in place so yeah we with Citrix it's make it easier for us that we can provide all customers with every device a workplace or an application, that application the customers need or our employees need to work to collaborate all over the world with other engineers and so on on collaborate topics and on tasks and on projects and yeah with that technology, with private cloud and now with public clouds they are able to work with all kinds of devices everywhere in a secure way, and that is important for us because security is one of the important factors for us because when you are traveling all around the world and connecting from every place, security in our perspective yeah, it's very important and so with that technology-- >> And if you are looking for the flexible platforms that's very important, the solutions that Citrix have embized with The Cloud system so that brings us in the situation that we could manage all the platforms that we have in place locally today and if you connected to The Cloud. So therefore we have a common plan so to administrate and manage all the Citrix environments. >> So I imagine there's a large range of applications that you're deploying, you guys seem to provide a lot of services, what type of application data and tasks are happening remotely with your users? Like what's a typical transaction that a user will conduct while they're sitting at a airport? >> So that's what Gregor said so that's very important with the device strategy to treat the promote it with any device anywhere and to each time so and therefore we could provide a virtual desktop so that's independent from the device so we have maybe for collaboration that's a very similar topic, so we have solutions for our third parties, for the contractors and so it could give them a small solution, the Citrix mobile desktop, the mobile app so they have the possibility to connect to ZF and the infrastructure and so we are very flexible about that. So the only what they need, they need a device, they need a browser that's it. So that's the solution from Citrix. >> In terms of the operational efficiencies that you have presumably gained from working with Citrix, sounds like your users as well as your end-user customers are benefiting from the virtualized infrastructure that you've put in place, but talk to us about from an operational perspective, how much more efficient is your organization now? >> From our perspective, it's more efficient because as I mentioned before in the past they we have to give all our external service providers as an example hardware from ZF, and so it's a very big benefit, a lot of doings for our IT to prepare the desktop to make them secure the hardware and so on and now we are not longer responsible for that order because the external bring their own hardware and we only provide them a VDI on a secure way, a NetScaler gateway in that case and though they can connect and we only take care about our workplace and they take care of their hardware and so yeah for us it's much better because our effort is not so big and that is very good and yeah, and so as an example the workplace from Citrix, the new, it's very, very good for our customers because the users intrecities is very high because a lot of tools or applications they need has put the time SAP and read the emails, have a look at the chat, have a look at teams and so on, it's all in one platform and saves a lot of time. And time, everybody knows is very important for us and yeah when we can save time it's very perfect for us. >> Let's dive into that time savings, how long does it take you to onboard a new partner now versus before you had Citrix? >> Now-- >> For the deposit there was a lot of processes and they need I would say days, so in the meantime we have to push a party so internal SATA should automatically create an image, a VDI for example for the the customer, that's it. So and of course in the background we have to set the right direction, the right access, what systems they have in use, (mumbles) and that's it. >> So it sounds like it takes the business processes longer to onboard a customer like, so you have to sign a deal, get involved with a partner and IT it sounds like it's moving way faster than the actual business itself. >> Yeah as I mentioned it's a very fast process in the mean time so you have a portal you could go there so that to request what they need and then there's automatic behind that and so we could create automatically this request for him. >> So it used to take days to onboard a partner, now with Citrix workspace, it's hours, minutes to onboard a partner, how much time can you quantify that time savings? >> I would say if you consider the whole process, it needs some hours so because it's not only the Citrix onboarding, the Citrix onboarding goes very fast. So then the you have to create the operating system and so on, the imaging, so to bring the applications to the client, what they need I would say that needs hours. >> Or days to hours, so big time savings and also what you were talking about Greg I couldn't help but think that now that you don't have to provide all of this hardware to your partners, there's probably a massive cost savings as well that ZF has achieved, can you talk about that? >> Absolutely, from the cost perspective we save a lot of money and the other benefit is that the external can bring the hardware we'll work with. So normally we have one device and the external have to work with that and now he can bring his-- >> Whatever they choose. >> Right right, yeah right. Any device and that is very benefit for them because they can work with smart phones, they can work with tablet or they can work with a notebook as they like and from our perspective, yeah as you mention before you save a lot of money because it's yeah we only have to provide the virtual desktop and yeah we can provide them in a very quick way and we have workflows for that and yeah it's great for us. >> What feedback have they given you now that the process is so much faster for them but also they're able to use whatever device they're already familiar with, I imagine from a customer satisfaction perspective this new experience that you're enabling has really probably driven up your customer loyalty. The customers happier, more satisfied? >> The customers more happier of course so and the important topic for us is the customer is happy, they have a fast solution, it is mobile so and we have the access under control, that's very interesting for us. >> Well making your customers happy is always a top priority and we hear that you're doing that very well, we want to congratulate ZF on your nomination. >> Thank you very much. >> For the Innovation Award, we know that the voting goes through till tomorrow when the winner will be announced, we wish you the best of luck and thank you both for joining Keith and me on The Cube this afternoon. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you, for Keith Townsend, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching The Cube, live from Citrix Synergy 2019, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)