Park Place Technologies, the leading global data centre and networking optimization firm, is employing R&D, innovation and strategic acquisitions to continue its evolution from pure-play TPM to a full portfolio of managed services, including software and hardware sales.
With an office footprint in 21 countries globally, and over 21,500 customers in 154 countries, the growth of Park Place, in tandem with the boom of technology infrastructure services has led to increased customer demand for a range of data centre services that can be employed, working with one supplier. Park Place is happy to work with our customers to meet the demand for additional services beyond hardware maintenance.
Park Place thrives on innovation and accepting the challenges of customers’ ever-evolving needs. Led by customer demand, market and organic growth and through a combination of internal R&D, innovations and aggressive acquisition activity, Park Place has built a full portfolio of managed services to bolster its core third-party data centre hardware maintenance: professional services, infrastructure managed services, network performance monitoring and hardware sales.
This is illustrated by the recent acquisition of Congruity360’s Storfirst software platform, the industry’s most secure, OEM- and platform-agnostic (cloud, hybrid cloud and on-prem) file system migration and information management software. Storfirst allows customers to manage the movement of their data from production servers to disaster recovery servers, on-prem and to the cloud; the software enables customers to control the movement of all file data.
Another recent innovation is Park Place’s exclusive ClearViewTM Contract Analyzer, which projects potential costs savings for maintenance considering a number of key factors including the customer experience, the hardware’s place in the workflow, compliance issues and associated risks. It also provides an objective recommendation on which devices should:
- Stay with OEM support
- Which should be moved to Park Place Hardware Maintenance support
- Which should be moved to NetSure+ support, which leverages customer-owned and entitled spares purchased by the customer through Cisco’s authorized VAR channel (and are 100% compliant with Cisco policies).
Park Place worked with key industry analysts to establish an entirely new category, one that would link together a broad portfolio of services and products including Data Centre Hardware Maintenance, Professional Services, Infrastructure Managed Services, Network Performance Monitoring Software and Hardware Sales.
“We landed on ‘Data Centre and Networking Optimization Firm,’ as it distils specifically where our focus is in IT and emphasizes the end benefit for our customers – optimization,” said Park Place Chief Marketing Office Jennifer Deutsch. “Everything we do optimizes IT in some way – optimizes the performance of a customer’s infrastructure, optimizes the impact of their IT staff, or optimizes their IT spend.”
“It was important that we signalled change to those that are already familiar with us,” said Park Place President and CEO Chris Adams. “We’re much more than a TPM now, but with a 30-year history in Hardware Maintenance, we know that many IT leaders still think of us in that way.”
A recent campaign to communicate the evolution of Park Place, features the tagline, “Every OpportunIT Optimized.” The unique play on words is intended to command reader attention and inspire IT decision makers to think of Park Place whenever they have a challenge.
“Park Place is well positioned to help IT teams deal with many of today’s challenges,” Adams said. Ads in the new campaign demonstrate how Park Place services and products can benefit companies dealing with staffing shortage, skills gaps, supply chain issues and rising costs. In a change from past marketing, sometimes that solution comes from several elements of Park Place’s portfolio.
“A portfolio approach is important for us to grow our business, but it also greatly expands how we can help our customers. For example, in the past a customer that was refreshing hardware would no longer need maintenance and likely go on hiatus until their initial warranty ran out. Now, in that same situation, we can sell them the hardware, we can help with disposition of their old assets, we can help them migrate data from the old hardware to the new and so much more.”