Competition can be fierce, yet companies within the same industry, reaching the same customers, often take different approaches to how they compete… to what they consider acceptable and, more importantly, what they don’t. Companies without competition rarely improve, and it’s the customer who suffers. It’s an essential part of business, yet how you compete tells a lot about who you are as a company and how far you’re willing to go to win the deal.
What I can share—without question or hesitation and as the President & Co-CEO of PPM—is how we choose to do business. We strive for honesty, integrity and a high degree of ethics. We aren’t perfect, and we make mistakes, but we strive to correct those mistakes. We believe in communication, and we are constantly working to increase transparency within PPM and with our clients. We approach our competition the same way. We focus more on what our clients need and how we can meet those needs than on what our competition has to offer.
Also… if you have a question about PPM or Perspective, we’re the experts… please ask us. If you’ve heard something and are wondering if it’s accurate, give us a call, and we’ll let you know. If you’re still struggling with what you’re hearing, please don’t hesitate to ask me. If I don’t know the answer off the top, I’ll get it, and I’ll make sure it’s a response we can stand by.
Here are a few of the questions and comments that prompted this post:
Q: We were told that PPM charges an outrageous amount for consulting and training, and that your end users can’t do anything for themselves.
A: All of Perspective’s administration and configuration options can be set up by our clients with no involvement from PPM. But, we don’t recommend it. In fact, we stand by our recommendation that new clients work with us to set up and configure their systems. For the first fifteen years, we just shipped software and, aside from answering technical support questions, let our clients do everything for themselves. The more they reached out to us for help, the more we realized that our knowledge of our software (combined with the security expertise of our in-house CPPs) could make a big difference. Our goal is to give our clients the jump start they need for a system that’s set-up successfully from the start. On top of that, our consulting and training rates are far from outrageous.
Worth adding… once a company is up and running with Perspective, their end users take full advantage of our free training options. Examples include three-day training courses here in Edmonton and a variety of one-hour, online sessions that can be attended live or viewed as recordings after-the-fact.
Q: We’ve heard that Perspective is inflexible and can’t be configured to meet our needs.
A: This answer is a lot shorter… we offer a relational database with extensive configuration capabilities. Our enterprise deployments demand it.
Q: We’ve heard that Perspective is a compilation of third party products and an integration nightmare.
A: Do we take advantage of the expertise offered by third party products and technology? Absolutely, our powerful and open API allows us to integrate to any technology our clients choose, but we don’t rely on any third parties. The core Perspective product—including database, web services and interface—is 100% developed by PPM and solely owned by PPM. In addition, all of PPM’s products, including our integrated modules, are carefully architected to ensure that they work seamlessly with our database, business and logical layers.
And, my favorite…
Q: Does PPM really charge for updates and upgrades?
A: Our SaaS clients are automatically upgraded with every new release, and our on-premise clients subscribe to our maintenance and support program (the SSP) through which all of our new releases are available free of charge.
What’s true? What’s exaggerated? And, what’s a downright lie? It’s tough to know. Don’t believe what you read. Call us directly, and we’ll help you separate PPM fact from fiction.
—Elaine O’Sullivan, President & Co-CEO