Park Place is investing in people, programs and platforms to build a prescriptive channel business
US-Park Place Technologies, an IT infrastructure services and solutions provider recently launched its Uptime Partner Portal and Uptime Partner Program. These new Channel offerings provide enterprise IT teams with a single source of truth to maximize daily operations and create a seamless experience for their partners by leveraging the vendor’s global service network. In a recent conversation with ChannelTimes.com, Xavier Surentherathas, Regional Channel Sales Director, APAC, Park Place Technologies, discusses some of the new initiatives undertaken by the company for its channel partners and its plans for the India market in terms of growth and channel expansion.
What are some of the new initiatives undertaken by Park Place Technologies for its channel partners?
The primary goal Park Place Technologies has for its partners is to create an opportunity for them to become true customer heroes. We do this by providing an evolving portfolio of IT and technology solutions that offer partners the power of choice, ultimately equipping their customers with the tools they need to create their own success stories. We recently launched the Uptime Partner Portal and Uptime Partner Program which gives our partners the opportunity to make their daily operations more efficient while enabling and rewarding ourpartners for their collaboration and customer advocacy. We listen to our partners and we understand that more and more customers are looking for partners to deliver a portfolio of IT services beyond typical third-party maintenance (TPM).
With our DMSO (Discover, Monitor, Support and Optimize) model, we are able to provide partners and customers with a fully integrated approach to discover IT assets, proactively monitor, and optimise the performance of their hardware and software assets, while at its core, continue to provide industry-leading maintenance services, for IT storage, servers and networking hardware, all underpinned with our industry-first quality assurance, First-Time Fix™ guarantee.
Our channel partners can also now offer our new Professional Service solutions which consist of wireless transformation, IT Asset Disposition (ITAD), Data centre relocations, IMAC (Install, Move, Adds and Changes) services, and more to their end-user customers. Our partners are pleased that now they can work with a single global partner that can provide these services all from one Place – Park Place.
How are you supporting your customers in India and other markets?
We have a large fullyintegrated team in India, as well as in other countries within APAC, and across the globe. In India, our office is based out of Hyderabad and we have the business development, sales support and service delivery and engineering expertise to support our customers and partners, to ensure continuous Uptime.Our APAC headquarters is based in Singapore, and our APAC Service Centre is located in Malaysia, and we also have operations in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Philippines and Thailand.
From a support perspective, we have a strong and experienced team on the ground to serve every need of our customer and this is of course backed by our remote experienced engineers for any diagnose assistance and they are available 24/7. We practice a “follow the sun” concept where support is always available around the clock.
On top of that, we have a support portal that helps customer to log in case and monitor the progress and our first of its kind in the third-party hardware maintenance category, PPTechMobile that brings the self-service convenience of our customer portal (Central Park) right to their mobile devices.
We are a dynamic organisation, and while we are expanding our IT services portfolio to ensure our partners have the services and tools to sell more to their customers, we are also expanding into new markets annually, giving our partners the confidence that we can deliver our word-class services, expertise and logistics, wherever in the world, they may find themselves.
What are your priorities for the APAC regions and India for now?
In short, for India and wider APAC, we are looking to continue our growth in these markets. We want to continue to create awareness of Park Place Technologies and the portfolio of IT services we can provide. We will continue to invest and build on our capabilities and presence throughout APAC.
With the launch of our Uptime Partner Program and Portal, we want to work in partnership and collaborate with more VARs and SIs in India and in wider APAC to mutually deliver Uptime to our end-user customers, while also mutually growing our respective businesses.
Can you explain how is Uptime Partner Portal and Uptime Partner Program beneficial for your partners? And more details about it
The new Uptime Partner Portal is a global digital platform that offers enterprise Channel partners several benefits, including:
- Easy and fast deal registration with just a few pieces of key customer information
- A robust on-demand library of co-brandable marketing assets
- Access to quick-tip videos to guide clients through the main features of the portal
- Dashboard functionality, allowing visual measurement of success against crucial KPIs
- Comprehensive overviews of Park Place’s solutions and services, including ParkView Managed Services, Entuity Software and third-party maintenance support
In tandem with the Uptime Partner Portal launch, Park Place is also implementing the Uptime Partner Program. It comprises three program tiers – Platinum, Gold and Authorized Partner – that include a variety of marketing and sales support resources, co-selling opportunities, training, access to program investment dollars, as well as a myriad of other features.
In addition, Park Place introduced the first Partner Specialisation Track – the Network Management Specialist Partner, which certifies channel partners that sell and invest in training for Park Place’s Entuity and ParkView Network Management solutions. This also offers our partners the ability to sell co-branded services for these products. From improving the customer support experience to saving customers money on support costs, the Uptime Partner Program will enable and financially reward channel partners for their collaboration and customer advocacy.
How do you see India as a market for Park Place technologies? Can you elaborate on its significance, opportunities, and improvement areas?
With a population of circa 1.3 billion, the India market represents enormous business potential. Asia’s share of the global spend on IT hardware has made up around 40% of the total spend in recent years. India has been the third-largest market in the region, after China and Japan. With burgeoning middle class and economic growth outpacing most western markets, India’s IT sector is well-positioned for further rapid growth.India is a key market for Park Place because of its dynamic growth as well as its growing importance as a tech hub for global organisations looking to enter the APAC market.
India has lots of potential opportunities for us to explore. More partners are interested in working with us as beyond traditional TPM services, we have expanded our portfolio to provide our partners with a wide and full range of IT infrastructure services that they can provide to their end-user customers.
The current pandemic brings unprecedented financial challenges to businesses. Our partners realise that many organisations stopped buying IT/hardware equipment and rather than stretch the life of the hardware, they became laser-focused on cash flow and expenses. For businesses that have cash flow concerns, stretching the lifecycle of their hardware assets through our Post-Warranty, and End of Service Life (EOSL) maintenance services can be a gamechanger as our maintenance services followan Operational Expenditure (OpEx) model.
What are important trends that you have noticed in India and APAC regions over the last few months? What are your predictions for the future?
Customers are beginning to look beyond simple cost savings. Customers understand that ensuring that their IT infrastructure is as agile and efficient as can be is more important now. This is why more organisations are looking towards digitally transforming their IT infrastructures.
Our Partners understand that down time is an issue which is costing them money, and customers which is why more businesses and as a result, more partners are looking for an IT service provider who can deliver an integrated, seamless end-to-end approach to data centre infrastructure management (DCIM).
With our DMSO (Discover, Monitor, Support, Optimize) approach, we are ideally positioned to help our partners and their end-user customers achieve Uptime, through a plethora of services through one single pane of glass, from one partner – Park Place Technologies.
What is Park Place Technologies’ Channel strategy for the near future?
Our channel partners represent a significant growth opportunity for Park Place Technologies. This is why we are making investments in people, programs and platforms to build a prescriptive channel business. The Uptime Partner Program and Portal are great examples of our continued investment and dedication to the Channel. Our partners are embracing our DMSO strategy which provides service offerings to create opportunities within their customer base that will fuel theirs, and our growth and expansion.
Park Place Technologies is constantly evolving and innovating to continue to digitally transform our multi-vendor service offerings so that partners can integrate these services into their sales portfolio, in turn making them into customer heroes.
What is your future plans for India and APAC region?
India is one of our fastest-growing markets in APAC, while we also have plans to grow our presence in Australia, Japanand Thailand, while identifying potential new markets for us to enter. Ultimately, we will continue educating the APAC market about third-party maintenance and our range of IT infrastructure management services, while also growing our business. And working in collaboration and in partnership with the channel, we hope that our partners will continue to be a part of our success story in India and in wider APAC.