Park Place International turned 15 years old last month, but president and CEO Ed Kenty says his organization has just begun to experience dramatic growth.
When the Chagrin Falls company was founded, it sold aftermarket computer hardware, but in the early 2000s, its long-time customers were clamoring for better post-warranty technology services.
Park Place International has since expanded its services to include all original equipment manufacturer (OEM) product post warranties. With 120 employees, it had 2005 revenue of $30 million and projects 2006 revenue of $36 million.
Smart Business spoke with Kenty about how he differentiates his company with a unique customer service philosophy.
How did you create Park Place International’s rapid growth strategy?
By listening to our customers. When product falls off a warranty, OEMs — with whom we compete — charge astronomical service prices. We saw that as a nice niche. When you deal with customers, generally they’re right.
Contract revenue has become a significant portion of our business, which is a wonderful thing because it’s very predictable. When somebody signs a multi-year service contract with your company, you know they’re going to be paying you for next two to three years. In the past, we were basically a hardware reseller, and making the shift to service was what really drove our strategy and our growth.
The first year of growth was in 2004. We acquired another company in February 2004 and absorbed what was the last competition in this marketplace. In 2005, we grew our service by another 40 to 45 percent, and this year, we’re anticipating growth to continue at that rate.
How do you compete with the OEMs?
OEMs have a set of rigid services that they offer for their end users. We’ll offer a customer a flexible service program that meets their business needs. It’s not pre-defined like the OEM.
We also have a large systems integration operation, which is the other component of our $36 million in revenue. We sell IT solutions, infrastructure solutions and hardware into the health care market, which is a growing industry.
How do you define your ‘Service First — Entitlement Second’ motto?
We’re a very high-touch service organization. If you call here with a service call, you’re going to talk to a person.
That’s very important because if you’re in the middle of a situation at your hospital where your system is down, you don’t want to be talking to an automated system. You want to talk to a real, live body who can help you.
A lot of service companies, when you call in with an outstanding invoice, they’ll require you to give them a credit card or do something on a wire transfer basis before they will help you with that problem. We don’t do that. All we make sure is that you have a service contract with Park Place International, and we dispatch our engineer and take care of your problem.
We allow the billing process to really be controlled by the billing people — the payables people, the receivables people, and we don’t hold anybody hostage when they’re in a situation where they’ve got a problem in their environment. That’s what we mean by Service First — Entitlement Second.
How has your ‘Ease of Doing Business’ philosophy benefited Park Place International?
We’re an easy company to deal with because we’re small enough (that) there isn’t a lot of bureaucracy. We can cut special terms with customers. There are a lot of nonprofit institutions in the health care vertical that simply can’t pay every 30 days, maybe every 90 or 120. We’ll work with those folks.
Everyone in this company is accessible to our customers. If you have a problem with a large computer hardware manufacturer and you try to place a call to a senior executive there, it’s very unlikely you’re going to be heard. I get calls from customers all the time. It’s often for good things, where they may tell me an engineer did an outstanding job.
My cell phone number is on my business card. If (a customer is) having a service problem, and somebody needs me to jump on an airplane, I will do that. You’re not going to get that from the large OEMs. Their senior guy’s just not accessible.
Why do you put your cell phone number on your business card?
It shows a level of commitment to what you deliver for quality service. If there’s a service issue or a delivery problem, I may get called, and I’ll certainly respond. It shows people that you’re available for them if they need you.
I don’t think it’s practical for some large companies, but when you have 120 people and you are growing, I think it’s a nice touch.
HOW TO REACH: Park Place International, (800) 931-3366 or www.parkplaceintl.com
