Park Place collaborates with thousands of partners across the globe and selected Softcat for this pilot program to demonstrate its commitment to partner enablement, and to Softcat’s people. The primary purpose of making Uptime Academy available to Softcat was to educate, upskill and provide sales enablement to the support services team at Softcat, focusing on key areas such as Third-Party Maintenance (TPM), Infrastructure Managed Services, and Entuity Software™.
Uptime Academy is Park Place's internal Learning Management System, ensuring consistent messaging about Park Place’s offerings, culture, and compliance across the entire organisation. The training content contains material created in-house by Park Place subject matter experts, as well as a variety of content from third-party specialty providers. Uptime Academy also allows tracking of learners' progress through courses, curricula, and certifications.
Ian Anderson, Senior Director, Partner Sales in EMEA, said, “Our internal Uptime Academy training portal offers hundreds of courses, ranging from IT basics to deep-dives into specific Park Place services. Sharing that knowledge base with a partner empowers and hopefully motivates its people to develop their talents, contribute to their personal growth, and fuel the success of Softcat and Park Place.”
Softcat was eager to leverage Uptime Academy as it recognised the platform as a tool that could help to upskill its support service teams, who in turn could immerse themselves in Park Place messaging and go-to-market methodology. This elevates Softcat as a channel partner selling our services into literally being an extension of the Park Place Technologies team out in the field.
Kevin Rickard, Sr. Team Leader for Support Service Sales at Softcat, said, “Having access to the Park Place Uptime Academy has significantly empowered our specialists in several ways. It has enhanced our expertise, increased confidence when talking around managed services, and given us a competitive advantage. It has given us a detailed insight into how Park Place works and how their services, management, and fulfilment of contracts flow.”
The initial Softcat trial saw participation from two dozen individuals, who praised the engaging delivery style and practical knowledge gained from the courses. The format of Uptime Academy was called out for particular praise, with participants enjoying the digestible, bite-sized courses. Several shared their training certificates online.
Park Place’s Anderson said, “Following this successful trial, we are looking to expand access across other teams at Softcat and also look to roll similar initiatives to other partners globally. This initiative demonstrates Park Place Technologies’ pioneering approach to partner enablement. We are committed to transparency and empowering our partners with the knowledge they need to ultimately be more successful in selling more to customers – meaning everyone wins.”
