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Technology and Innovation

Results-Driven in the Future of Work: PRO Unlimited Acquires MSP Leader GRI

Solution ProvidersTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

For nearly the past two years, PRO Unlimited has revolutionized the way the contingent workforce solutions market operates. Through its mix of proprietary software, Wand Vendor Management System (VMS), longstanding Managed Service Provider (MSP) solutions, and a mix of exclusive partnerships and key acquisitions, the integrated workforce management platform provider has been perhaps the most aggressive in the industry since mid-2020. Through its unique “platform approach” (as an “Integrated Workforce Management” platform) towards extended workforce management, HR, and talent acquisition technology markets, PRO Unlimited continues to deliver on its ultimate vision.

This morning, the company announced that it entered into an agreement to acquire fellow MSP offering Geometrics Results, Inc. (GRI). GRI has long been an innovative and powerful solution in the MSP landscape (most recently evaluated as a “Market Leader” in the Ardent Partners/Future of Work Exchange MSP Solution Advisor report) through its robust Managed Direct Sourcing (MDS) offering, coupled with one of the industry’s deepest intelligence engines (Envision Analytics) and a dedication to a variety of key market verticals.

GRI is currently owned by MSX International, a technology-enabled business process outsourcing firm, which is a portfolio company of funds managed by Bain Capital Europe. GRI has 150 customers across the world, representing over $4 billion in spend under management (particularly concentrated in the United States, the UK, and India).

The GRI acquisition, according to PRO Unlimited CEO Kevin Akeroyd, is a multi-faceted move that will help the solution expand on many of its forward-thinking goals for the greater industry.

“Our mission is to be the centralized system of record and a truly holistic platform for the extended workforce,” said Akeroyd. “M&A activity is a key piece of our mission, and when we think about satisfying the many “flavors” of how work gets done, including managed services, end-to-end software, data and intelligence, payrolling, and the worker experience, this acquisition firmly supports that vision, allowing us to deliver something very special for the marketplace.”

The GRI acquisition will allow PRO Unlimited to continue expanding its growing market, particular within additional industries that GRI has long specialized and served, including automotive and light industrial. In addition, GRI’s long list of large and mid-market clients will be a nice addition to PRO’s Global 2000 portfolio of customers.

From a solutions perspective, the Future of Work Exchange believes that PRO’s acquisition of GRI is an ideal and complementary piece to key areas within several of the solution’s Best-in-Class offerings, particularly direct sourcing (DirectSource PRO) and data and intelligence. GRI’s Envision analytics tool is one of the industry’s deepest and most powerful, a “gold standard” for total talent data and insights across the workforce management solutions industry. PRO’s agile reporting functionality will benefit from GRI’s on-demand, Envision-driven data and intelligence, which helps users better understand the impact of the extended workforce and how to maximize it by using predictive modeling and scenario-building.

“GRI will harmonize PRO’s analytics and intelligence capabilities, which are already the largest data-led offerings in our space,” said Akeroyd. Pointing to its recent acquisition of PeopleTicker, its stout RatePoint offering, and the “jewel” of the Workforce Logiq acquisition (ENGAGE AI), Akeroyd said, “Envision fits really nicely into all of that and what we’re offering from a total talent intelligence perspective and will be a nice boost to that critical aspect of our solution.”

With the GRI acquisition, the PRO umbrella of solutions will account for over $22 billion in spend under management, a figure which would make them one of the three or four largest MSPs in the workforce solutions marketplace.

“This acquisition will continue to enhance our overall vision, with GRI serving as yet another extension of the end-to-end platform,” said Akeroyd. “Many of the best brands in the world rely on GRI as a world-class MSP; we now have the opportunity to help enable these household-name organizations with world-class workforce management services, worker experience solutions, technology, and total talent intelligence.”

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Consumerization Will Continue to Shape the Future of Work

Business LeadershipTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

This past weekend, my family and I had the opportunity to watch the new Pixar movie, Turning Red, in the comfort of our own home instead of in a crowded movie theater. Now, I know this isn’t a unique scenario, as many facets of film have been changed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Disney+ has been a forerunner of the “the premiere is my home” line of blockbuster films over the past two years (in fact, one vivid early pandemic memory I have is rewatching Onward over and over again with my kids during those early lockdown weeks), allowing its users to access new feature films on-demand and from the comforts of the living room.

Other major films, such as The Matrix Resurrections, Black Widow, and Dune, proved that the pandemic also accelerated specific elements of consumerization, mainly the concept of on-demand and digital access to entertainment. We can all remember, as well, vying for coveted Peapod and Instacart delivery slots in the spring of 2020, which was a critical element of consumerization borne from necessity: the age of social distancing meant that many of us would rather pay a slight premium for doorstep delivery of our normal groceries instead of traversing to stores in a pre-vaccine, pandemic-led world.

The very concept of “consumerization in business” is not a new idea; for the past several years, business professionals have desired the same style and accessibility of tools, technology, and applications both in a working environment and as consumers. There was a speed in which e-commerce ran that, for many years, left enterprise technology woefully behind in terms of operating capacity. The move to the cloud, combined with a digital transformation renaissance, has changed that. Consumerization has firmly entrenched itself into the most critical tenets of the Future of Work movement.

In light of and because of the pandemic’s acceleration implications, business leaders expect the speed of the consumer in how they operate the inner-workings of the enterprise. Talent should be engaged and sourced within hours, not days or weeks. Project visibility needs to be extracted in real-time. Budgets and financial data should be proactively garnered, not requested. There is a “fluidity” that we take for granted as consumers: we buy items on Amazon with just a click, we order pizza for delivery in less than a minute’s time, and we can schedule a taxi ride just as quickly.

The consistent rate of innovation and transformation within the consumer world of technology has been creeping into the business arena; all the pandemic did was firmly push it into the fray. Two items stand out (amongst many) in this discussion, leading businesses to focus on these attributes of how they blend a consumerized culture with evolving technology.

Self-service configuration and the journey behind the UX.

Technology serves many, many purposes for the average business, however, at its entry point, it serves only one: that of the person using it. Automation in the world of the consumer must be fast, self-serving, and have a purpose; if it wasn’t, the average person would not utilize their mobile devices for the vast, vast majority of his or her daily processes (communications, content, commerce, entertainment, social networking, business networking, etc.). And so it must be for the business realm: enterprise technology needs to be applicable and accessible to all of its users while also supporting the “journey” (or purpose) within its overall user experience.

Every user must complete a specific task while leveraging an enterprise system. With this in mind, the consumerized aspects of today’s business technology should herald an overall UX that aligns with that “journey,” enabling professionals to harness the power of innovation at their very fingertips. In the same vein, the ability to mold technology into a more agile offering (something we’re absolutely experiencing in the world of workforce management automation) that is tailored to an individual user’s needs, wants, and preferences is what will help the typical enterprise in 2022 navigate not only the complexities of digital transformation, but truly thrive through innovation.

UX and self-service configuration are inherently linked, of course, with the two attributes of technology continuing to be optimized to benefit the user, the customer, the supplier, the partner, the hiring manager, etc.

Consumerization has, for several years now, danced with the business arena. Today, it’s not a matter of when this concept will shape the Future of Work, but rather, to what extent.

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The New “MSP Solution Advisor” Report: The Link Between MSPs and the Future of Work

Solution ProvidersTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

If you missed last week’s announcement, Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange were excited to reveal the publication of its 2022 MSP Solution Advisor report. Ardent and the Exchange have covered the core areas of the workforce solutions market over the past several years, publishing deep assessments of the Managed Service Provider (MSP), Vendor Management System (VMS), direct sourcing, digital staffing, and talent marketplace technology arenas.

Our Technology Advisor and Solution Advisor research studies fulfill several key objectives: provide a deep evaluation of the market’s leading technology platforms and solution providers, help procurement/HR/talent acquisition executives better understand the current offerings across the industry, unveil a deep framework of core differentiators and strengths across these complex solutions, and, enable business leaders with the proper insights and intelligence to guide them on their solution selection journeys.

As I wrote recently, the MSP model has a pivotal place within the Future of Work movement:

“The Future of Work demands that business operations be dynamic, repeatable, and scalable. And, to boot, nearly half of the total global workforce is considered “extended” or “agile” in some manner. For service-oriented solutions like MSPs, the question becomes, “How does this model fit into the Future of Work movement?”

The answer is actually quite simple: an evolved model that blends traditional managed services with technological overlays for various “pieces” of the extended workforce lifecycle, combined with key integrations and partnerships with innovative platforms that address niche areas of talent engagement and talent acquisition.”

With major shifts in the enterprise workforce management arena over the past decade, MSPs have had to update and enhance their core value propositions to match the dramatic change happening within the total world of talent and work. The result is that today MSPs are more agile than they have ever been, with many providers in the market offering their own unique technology stacks from which client organizations can develop deep direct sourcing programs, digital staffing accessibility, enhanced management of services and SOW-based labor, and, most importantly, building an innovative bridge to the Future of Work.

The 2022 MSP Solution Advisor not only highlights the core service-based offerings of 11 major providers, but also details how their solutions drive progressive value across a series of modern workforce management approaches, including agile talent acquisition, total workforce (or talent) management, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and enhanced talent advisory and consulting services. This industry guidebook will serve as the definitive guide for businesses seeking new insights on the mature MSP solutions market, allow them access to the necessary information to guide solution selection journeys, and enable contingent workforce program leaders to better understand how each MSP offering differentiates itself from the competition.

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Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange Launch Definitive MSP Report

Business LeadershipContingent WorkforceSolution ProvidersTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

New Study Evaluates the Leading Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for the Workforce Solutions Market

BOSTON, MA, March 1, 2021 – Ardent Partners, a leading research and advisory firm, along with the Future of Work Exchange, a top destination for executives focused on the evolution of work and talent, announced today that its new 2022 MSP Solution Advisor report, which evaluates the Managed Service Provider (MSP) marketplace, is now available. MSPs, as the most mature offering in the greater workforce management solutions market, are continue to drive innovation in the rapidly shifting labor market and Future of Work landscape and tailor  their services to suit the needs of a dynamic, agile, and extended workforce.

“The world of talent and work has changed tremendously over the past two years, forcing enterprises to reimagine their core talent engagement, talent acquisition, and extended workforce management strategies,” said Christopher J. Dwyer, senior vice president of research, managing director of the Future of Work Exchange, and author of the new MSP Solution Advisor report. “This report will help readers identify the MSP provider that best-fits the needs of their agile workforce and educate them on the different approaches that each provider takes towards key workforce management areas, including direct sourcing, SOW management, services procurement, DE&I, and reporting and analytics.”

The 2022 MSP Solution Advisor is the leading assessment report for MSPs that guides HR, procurement, human capital management, and talent acquisition leaders through a deep solutions landscape by discussing the key functionality, capabilities, competencies, offerings, and performance of the main providers in the MSP industry. The new report highlights dozens of feature-specific offerings and market differentiators from which Ardent and the Future of Work Exchange evaluated the industry’s top MSP solutions.

The Ardent analyst team identified and selected eleven key providers – Atrium, Evaluent, GRI, Guidant Global, KellyOCG, nextSource, Pontoon Solutions, PRO Unlimited, Randstad Sourceright, RightSourcing, and Talent Solutions TAPFIN – in the MSP solutions market for inclusion in this research study.

“Since 2010, Ardent Partners has been a guiding voice for professionals managing their extended workforce management programs and the solutions that they use to drive them,” said Ardent’s Chief Research Officer, Andrew Bartolini. “The new MSP Solution Advisor report is a reflection of this expertise and delivers a clear and insightful report that is a must-read for leaders seeking to optimize their extended workforce.”

Click here to download the new MSP Solution Advisor study (or click on the image below), which will be followed by the VMS Technology Advisor in the spring.

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Let’s Demystify AI in Hiring

Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the premier technologies under the Future of Work spectrum. Along with machine learning, AI has transformed the way businesses think about data and insights, adding an additional layer of depth that was previously out of grasp. As AI became more prominent within the business stratosphere, it quickly moved from merely augmenting existing “Big Data” strategies to becoming a means of transforming both tactical and strategic enterprise operations.

As talent became even more of a competitive differentiator over the years (especially in these evolving times), businesses realized that they required additional support in executing more educated talent-based decisions. Today, AI is prevalent in both full-time/traditional talent acquisition and within the extended workforce arena. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 60% of organizations are effectively “blending” AI and human-led processes into the current hiring initiatives, with another 34% expected to do the same over the next 12-to-24 months.

I am excited to join Beeline and HiredScore next Thursday, February 24 (11am ET) for an exclusive webcast on demystifying the role of artificial intelligence in hiring and extended workforce management. I’ll be joined by Beeline’s Colleen Tiner (SVP Strategy) and HiredScore’s Athena Karp (CEO & Founder). We’ll tackle (and answer!) such questions as:

  • Can AI really help my program hire the best talent?
  • What will my legal team say?
  • How can we use AI safely without bias?
  • Are there laws regulating the use of AI for employment decisions that I need to know about?
  • How do I get started on this journey?

Click here or on the image below to register for next week’s event. Looking forward to seeing you there!

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Digital Staffing, Talent Marketplaces, and the “Elastic Workforce”

TalentTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

It’s no great secret that the many layers of talent acquisition and talent engagement have been transformed over the past two years. Businesses, dealing with both a “Talent Revolution” and “The Great Resignation,” continue wage war for skillsets and expertise in an on-demand economy that demands agility and flexibility.

Digital staffing solutions and talent marketplaces have been augmenting talent engagement for a number of years. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research have been covering, evaluating, and following these platforms for nearly a decade; we have discovered that adoption of these solutions has increased nearly 725% since 2015, a surefire marker of the high-impact, top-tier benefits of these platforms.

There’s a reason why talent marketplaces have become such critical pieces of the Future of Work puzzle: they drive true workforce agility, scalability, and flexibility. Future of Work Exchange research found that, in 2021, nearly 84% of digital staffing and talent marketplace users stated that their extended workforce drove true scalability and flexibility in the face of challenging times. Being able to plug-and-play talent as the market dictates is a powerful competency that can empower enterprises of all sizes with an ability to engage with many of the best and brightest minds in an on-demand manner. Throughout the toughest days of 2020 when uncertainty reigned, companies were constantly reshuffling their workforce strategies.

In 2021, those businesses that could effectively harness the power of a scalable workforce were the ones that entered 2022 with the ability to thrive during evolving labor market conditions. Best-in-Class organizations are 32% more likely to tap into digital staffing outlets for talent acquisition needs. These offerings are often considered enterprise-grade solutions that facilitate real-time and on-demand talent engagement with independent, freelance, or contract workers via a web-based network or portal. Talent marketplaces typically offer “white-glove” or high-touch talent management services (akin to Managed Service Providers) to help their clients source the best-fit talent for their project requirements as well as the automation of core workforce management processes (such as requisition management, talent pool development, and back-end financial operations).

I encourage you to join Bluecrew, Ardent Partners, and the Future of Work Exchange on Thursday, February 24 at 1pm CT for an exclusive webcast on the advantages of the talent marketplace model, its impact on building an “elastic workforce,” and the core workforce strategies required for successful extended workforce management. Click here on or on the image below to register.

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With Ceridian Partnership, PRO Unlimited Doubles Down on the “Worker Experience”

Solution ProvidersTalentTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Are we really going to mention “The Great Resignation” in the first line of a Future of Work Exchange article? Yes, we are, but for good reason. Much has been said of the “talent revolution” that is occurring today: workers are finding themselves at a veritable crossroads in which the needs and desire for flexibility and cultural attractiveness are becoming prerequisites for their next career moves. Compensation is key, but the experience is truly paramount.

In a similar manner, much has been written about the “war for talent,” even in pre-pandemic times. For years now, businesses have had to do all that they can to catalyze talent acquisition and talent engagement. When aspects such as workplace culture, business environment, and diversity and inclusion become key reasons why a worker would choose to bring their talents to an organization, the overall “talent experience” suddenly rises as the top differentiator for enterprises in attracting new talent.

To that end, integrated workforce management platform (IWM) provider PRO Unlimited recently announced an exclusive partnership with global human capital solutions provider Ceridian. The partnership will focus on the integration of Ceridian’s unique Dayforce Wallet into PRO’s innovative Worker Experience solution. Extended workers will have direct access to net pay as it is earned; after an on-demand pay request is completed within the Dayforce Wallet mobile app, funds are deposited directly into workers’ Dayforce Wallet accounts (which can then be transferred to checking accounts, withdrawn for cash, used to make purchases, etc.).

“It’s really about rethinking this industry in the sense that the extended workforce is more than just placing and filling roles,” said Jessica Kane, Chief Client Officer, PRO Unlimited. “We want to bring all of that talent-fueled data and intelligence together for the best possible worker experience. Businesses want to attract the best and brightest workers, and this partnership with Ceridian will certainly drive more choice into the overall talent experience.”

Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 80% of businesses are now focused on transforming their workplaces into more attractive places to work, a statistic that reflects the core mindset of enterprise leaders across the world: develop an alluring, positive environment in which candidates what to work and thrive.

“Skills have really become the new currency,” said Kane. “We want workers to be able to utilize those skillsets, combined with our data and intelligence, to support them along their career journeys and enable them to choose the right paths. Thinking about the opportunities and the clients that offer these roles, how do enterprises attract workers to these positions? Combining our data ocean and integrated workforce platform with on-demand pay through Ceridian, we can leverage all of these innovations in helping workers purse their passions.”

“Worker Experience is a standalone solution that will revolutionize how businesses transform the overall candidate and worker experience,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “Functionality such as worker engagement and profiling (amongst other processes) are already integrated into our platform via WillHire, however, this new partnership will enhance those pieces of our solution and push worker experience management into the extended workforce.”

The concept of “day pay” has become a hot topic in the extended workforce world, as industries such as light industrial, warehouses, and other shift-based businesses experience a sharp uptick in the utilization of non-employee labor. As businesses in these sectors strive to build compelling and engaging candidate experiences, traversing into on-demand pay will become a critical measure. PRO Unlimited certainly understands the implications of this innovative market shift, which is reflected in this unique and pioneering partnership with Ceridian.

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The Industry Is At A Crossroads

Technology and Innovation by Featured Contributor on

[Editor’s Note: Today’s article is a guest contribution from Neha Goel, Vice President of Marketing at Utmost.]

We are interconnected in all aspects of our lives, and work is no exception. We have become global citizens, and organizations are utilizing talent outside traditional full-time employees in record numbers. In fact, a company’s workforce is becoming inherently external, made up of episodic, variable, and dynamic engagements.

People are choosing careers that are no longer hierarchical or linear, and demanding flexibility in how and where they work. Similarly, companies want to capitalize on collaborating with a talent ecosystem that can deliver speed and value with highly-skilled, hyper-specialized workers.

Today, this looks like a large and complex network of extended global workers, spanning staff augmentation contractors, Statement of Work (SOW) project-based workers, independent consultants, freelancers, gig workers, and consultants. Now, it’s up to the enterprise to determine how best to capitalize on this new world of work.

Many companies are doing just that. New data from LinkedIn (via Forbes) finds there has been a 60% increase in “future of work” job titles and a 304% increase in titles where “hybrid work” has been included in the past two years. The job title Head of Future of Work was listed as one of the most in-demand job titles available today.

Once you have the people in place, leadership also must get on board with how all talent wants to be engaged. Today’s market “requires leaders to develop a much deeper empathy for what employees are going through and to pair that empathy with the compassion—and determination—to act and change,” said a recent McKinsey article on the role leaders play in understanding attrition. “Only then can employers properly reexamine the wants and needs of their employees—together with those employees—and begin to provide the flexibility, connectivity, and sense of unity and purpose that people crave.” Our findings support this to be true.

Finally, the next challenge becomes finding a technology that can support the risk, size, and complexity of today’s workforce. This must be done in a way that makes it easier to find, engage, and attract top talent while meeting them how and where they want to work.

As I’ve said before, it’s not just about managing suppliers and vendors and merely augmenting a contingent workforce management agenda on the world of talent, but rather looking at how to manage the workforce effectively in optimizing how work gets done.

Whether you believe in acquisition and consolidation of the VMS/EWS market to expand functionality or are skeptical of the “FrankenSuite” approach and believe a purpose-built system is favorable, many organizations find themselves at a crossroads now that almost half their workforce is made up of non-employee labor with no seamless, scalable way of managing it.

As companies compete for greater access to on-demand, agile, highly specialized talent at better rates, faster access to information and analytics, and the ability to meet today’s workers where and how they want to work is imperative.

Whatever companies decide, it’s clear workers need to be redeployed faster, have agency over their information (with PII and diversity top of mind for all parties), and have a positive user experience that makes it easy to come in and out of companies and projects with ease. This is the new world of work, and if companies don’t embrace the changes quickly, they may be left behind when it comes to finding talent that ensures their success in the market.

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Building the Hybrid Workplace is 2022’s Best Path Towards Digital Transformation

Business LeadershipTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

As far back as four or five years ago, you couldn’t escape the greater business discussion of “digital transformation.” The discourse around digital transformation was quite simple and straightforward: enhance organizational efficiency, operations, and functional value through the adoption of automated solutions and digital technology. Now, the conversation may be much more stripped down than the concept itself, however, as implementing enough systems, connecting them via intricate architecture, and driving real solution adoption are all much more difficult, of course.

The other side of digital transformation (particularly business agility), too, is the fact that the “digital enterprise” harnesses the power of digitization to boost internal and external experiences (candidate, supplier, user, etc.) and end-to-end business processes. When this is taken into consideration, the goal of becoming a truly digital enterprise is that much harder, given the interconnections required to achieve these technology-led and business goals.

An enterprise’s best path towards digital transformation today is to capitalize on something that had been organically growing since before the pandemic while becoming a standardized way of operating during disruptive times: remote and hybrid work. The “hybrid workplace” requires many of the same measures that end-to-end digital transformation does, up to and including executive buy-in, the necessary software, and the cultural attributes needed to drive adoption and value.

  • Developing the next great hybrid workplace requires investments and resources akin to a full-scale digital transformation. No one said it was going to be easy, however, if a business had been long willing to invest time, money, and energy into digital transformation, why shy away now? Consider the stakes at hand: the so-called “Great Resignation” is largely occurring because employees desire flexibility, agility, and other aspects not related to compensation. The hybrid workplace is not just a “nice to have” at this juncture but rather a pure business investment that will pay incredible dividends in terms of productivity, engagement, and worker experience. Back in 2016 and 2017, digital transformation was the hottest business topic; let’s take that level of passion for digitization and apply it towards building the next great hybrid workplace.
  • Removing redundancies means a smoother, end-to-end experience for both traditional and remote workers (as well as other key stakeholders, partners, and suppliers). Digitally transforming the workplace to account for a hybrid infrastructure doesn’t just benefit those that primarily work from home. The digital enterprise is founded on a seamless user experience that allows all stakeholders and employees to access data, automation, intelligence, content, etc. in an on-demand manner. By shoring up technology gaps, removing redundancies for access (i.e., too many access points for stakeholders and workers), and providing a near-limitless experience, the greater business benefits from these digital enhancements.
  • An operational hybrid workplace translates into a superior employee/worker experience. While it’s true (and stated above) that workers crave flexibility, they also desire an overall “work experience” that allows them to be productive, happy, and collaborative. During the early days of the pandemic, the shift to remote work was borne of necessity, leaving little room to account for hybrid workplace nuances. Today, businesses have had time to plan and implement the best-fit hybrid work infrastructure and can truly develop a digital workspace that not only is operational and efficient, but also enables workers with a more positive overall experience. Most importantly: they will have the tools they need to be productive and effective in their roles…a surefire factor in keeping them from taking their talents to another organization.
  • Hybrid work technology represents the best of what digitization has to offer, allowing enterprises to set the stage for digital transformation. The simplest reason why developing a hybrid workplace is the easiest pathway to digital transformation? The technology in use is current, modern, and is connected to the core components of the Future of Work movement: it creates accessibility, drives intelligence, and boosts interconnectivity between humans and systems. Digital workspace technology is collaborative in nature and enables communication between functional units, as well as automated, on-demand sharing of data and content. The original foundations of digital transformation, even several years ago, revolved around the concept of real-time connections and superior interconnectivity between workers, leaders, customers, and suppliers. The hybrid workplace of today represents all of the aspects…and more.
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Digital Workspace Leader Citrix Acquired for $16.5B in Private Equity Deal

Solution ProvidersTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

If there’s anything the business world has learned over the past two years, it’s this: the very concept of “work” is an evolving, organic idea. It’s a living, breathing entity that is actively founded on the principles of market progression, the dynamics of talent and the workforce, and, most importantly, the very way “work” itself is optimized for better business outcomes.

The Future of Work has been defined as many things, but its core definition is as follows: modern business can be transformed for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness through the evolution of new talent-based strategies (particularly the extended workforce), the advent of disruptive technology and innovative tools, and the overall reimagination of business thinking and mindsets.

The COVID-19 pandemic had many, many ramifications on the world of work, however, none greater than the remote work awakening. Future of Work Exchange research has found that, during pre-pandemic times, nearly 21% of the average enterprise’s total talent base (FTEs and extended talent) was operating in a remote or hybrid environment. Going into 2022, that number has more than doubled; 43% of all enterprise talent are currently working remotely or in a hybrid work infrastructure.

Citrix has long been a forerunner of the “digital workspace” industry since its founding in 1989. Today, the tech behemoth is a staple of unified communications and automation, providing virtual desktop technology to nearly 400,000 customers across the world, including 98% of the Fortune 500.

Yesterday, news broke that private equity firms Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital had acquired Citrix for $16.5 billion in an all-cash deal. The plan is to match and merge Citrix’s wide range of digital workspace and unified communications tech with TIBCO, a Vista portfolio company that seamlessly integrates applications and data across the enterprise technology infrastructure.

“The combination of TIBCO with Citrix will be a game changer. Over the past three decades, Citrix has established itself as the leader in remote work, providing secure and reliable access to all the applications and information employees need to get work done, wherever it needs to get done,” said Tim Minahan, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy, Citrix. “With the addition of TIBCO’s connected intelligence capabilities and solutions, we can enhance our digital workspace platform and the results we help our customers to achieve.”

The essence of this acquisition is a straight Future of Work play: Citrix will have additional technological support to expand its virtual desktop platform with the necessary arsenal to provide real-time intelligence, seamless integrations, and enterprise-grade security in a digital working environment.

A source close to the deal confirmed this vision. “[The acquisition] is certainly a testament to the overall strengths of the [Citrix] platform and the executive team’s long-term vision of where the product can go during these evolving times,” the source said, adding that “this is a “proof of delivery” of the remote work work model.”

This is a Future of Work gamechanger, for sure. The acquisition, and subsequent merger, means that Citrix’s incredible breadth of workspace technology can be buoyed by TIBCO’s cloud-fueled integrations and real-time data and intelligence. These two facets, in a convergence unseen in the enterprise solutions market, is a transformative shift towards a more secure, more flexible, and, most importantly, a more agile, hybrid cloud infrastructure for businesses across the world.

Additional Future of Work Exchange analysis:

  • One of the biggest “knocks” on the digital workspace/remote work environment is its lack of enterprise-level data security. TIBCO’s robust strengths in this critical attribute will help Citrix expand its overall reach to include those organizations that were once trigger-shy when it came to a hybrid workplace due to concerns over security of financial data, intellectual property, etc.
  • The concept of “better business outcomes” has long been a core Future of Work mindset. The Citrix/TIBCO merger translates into the ability to “blend” virtual workspace technology with agile analytics and intelligence….meaning that, no matter where a professional is located, they can make more educated business decisions by tapping into the same stout data that is available when tethered to an in-person IT infrastructure.
  • With the extended workforce expected to comprise half of the average company’s total talent pool by the end of the year, this deal reinforces another Future of Work shift, one that relies heavily on non-employee remote workers that require access to enterprise systems, IP, data, and other critical assets in order to get work done effectively.
  • This deal, which taking into account the combined Citrix/TIBCO solution, is the largest ($25 billion) private equity deal in enterprise tech history. The move displays a level of utmost confidence in Citrix’s current and future ability to deliver on its greater Future of Work vision.
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