Guest Speak of this month: Parag Arora

Parag Arora Area Vice President – India Sub continent Citrix

Tell us about your accomplishments in the industry that would sustain your interest in the long haul? My main focus area had been to drive business transformation and core emphasis was to drive innovation which could create value proposition for clients. Additionally, I had been instrumental in managing project outsourcing as well as creating new business models. I like the dynamic nature of the IT industry – as we shift to the cloud era, the industry is undergoing a drastic change and it is constantly evolving. I believe that virtualization and cloud computing is causing a major shift in the industry, and it will shape the future of IT delivery.

Can you reveal some of your success stories from the past? The last three years spent at Citrix had been an eventful stint where I got to be a part of several customer success stories led by workspace transformation. I have also been able to work closely in the implementation of a number of solutions for our partners, and even help them pick and choose basis their requirement and financial muscle. Apart from this, we have also been able to work with various technology options like commodity hardware and Software Defined Store (SDS) vendors bringing down the overall costs significantly. This opens up multiple options for our partners and customers. What are the major bottlenecks in the industry when you design the business ecosystem? In the past decade, the IT industry has evolved dramatically with a plethora of new technologies being introduced into the environment. However, one of the major challenges that companies still face is adapting to this change smoothly. A business ecosystem cannot change overnight and hence it is vital that players understand the need to constantly evolve in order to focus on providing the best services to its customers. Besides IT, what are your other areas of interest? In my spare time, I read books on management, business and strategy and watch Formula 1. Besides this, I am a fitness enthusiast and enjoy participating in marathons, paced weight training and dynamic yoga.