Entrepreneur Spotlight: PlanServe Data Systems
written by: PlanServe Data Systems | photos by: PlanServe Data Systems
Describe your company / What do you do?
PlanServe Data Systems specializes in products and services for the financial, retirement, and healthcare services market. The ownership team brings years of market leading software design and real-life administration experience to our common remitter and pension portal products. Our approach is to deliver simple and reliable solutions which empower administrators to offer the most competitive and cost effective end-user services. Our proven technology platform has transformed how record keepers and insurance companies use the web to service their participants, employers, and advisers. Because of this, PlanServe has become a trusted partner to our customers in both thought leadership as well as technology implementation. We don’t make the products our customers deliver; we make them better and easier to deliver.
How did you get where you are today? (What is your story?)
Planserve was created to fill a gap in the market where businesses needed to take back control over their web front porches and get more out of their existing system investments. New technology should deliver more features, make them run faster, and provide them cheaper. However, many of the solutions in the financial services space have become more and more bloated and expensive. This situation combined with today’s economic pressure to reduce cost has created a huge opportunity for Planserve. The unique Planserve approach is to combine right-sized content and customer management tools with simple web technology. The approach uses open XSLT and XML so that it can be deployed quickly and maintained by in house staff. Our secret is the dynamic assembly of XML and XSLT into a usable and attractive presentation. Thus, we have captured both our customer’s and prospect’s imagination and trust.
Planserve is passionate about providing real solutions to financial, healthcare, and retirement businesses. Our strength is in our experience doing hands on work in these fields so our solutions are able to focus on the real issues and deliver real value. Too many of the technology approaches today are based more upon raising professional services revenue rather than providing real value. In many cases, the common business events have been distilled into best practices, but too often these are not captured in out of the box applications. Our unique approach is to deliver solutions out of the box that the customer is comfortable running themselves and deliver immediate value without extended professional service engagements.
What was the hardest part about monetizing your passion?
The biggest challenge with any new venture entering a major market is establishing credibility. PlanServe Data System’s leadership team brings years of market leading software design and real-life administration experience to our next generation products. Our leadership has over 25 years of senior and executive level experience in providing software and related services to the retirement and financial services market; Based upon years of experience in the design, development, and implementation of custom software solutions, our technology team has developed a next generation web framework based upon XML and XLST using the proven .NET and SQL environments. From both an owner and consultant perspective, our leadership team has helped largest, progressive banks, mutual funds, and administrators strategically improve the operations and reduce costs in very competitive environments; Our strength is not only having a strong understanding of the core technology, but also on applying forward thinking e-business concepts from our experience in the domain. Our approach to establishing initial credibility is to simply provide the source code for our tools as part of the offering. This not only gives the customer a significant degree of comfort but it also fits with our model of letting them take control of their web front porch.
At Planserve, our team enjoys seeing our customers accelerate because of our solutions. Initially, we see the customer amazed by the agile and fully transparent delivery. We do all of our development in the open in front of the customer so they can not only provide immediate feedback, but they can also learn as we go. This eliminates a lot of waste in capturing verbose requirements and managing issues. Then, we share the satisfaction with the customer of seeing items automated that were previously manually performed. Our tools feature a unique method of integrating with various data sources to combine data and files that seamlessly bring together parts of the office. And finally, our biggest sign of success is when we see our customer begin making changes to the site themselves. Our biggest satisfaction comes from seeing customers take control over their environment without using complicated tools or extended professional service engagements.
The challenge in the technology area is to make sure the core team has the right mix of skillsets. And then be ready to ramp up in the right areas. It is important to realize that there are different talents and personalities needed for each aspect of the business. Planserve came together with a fantastic mix of business, sales, and technology experience which immediately enabled us to be different in the market. But with success, we had to quickly build up and round out the day to day support and development teams. We have tried to maintain a delicate balance between cash flow and expansion so that we can maintain a consistent growth without overextending ourselves.
The startup environment in Birmingham is better than ever. We were first able to get a lot of the right help because of the excess technical labor in the area. Any time there are a number of layoffs in the area, this creates an environment ripe for new growth. Then, the energy and connections from the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Innovation Entrepreneurship Management program really helped set the foundation. The program helped us see beyond the immediate challenges and stay focused on the bigger picture. However, the biggest boost came from being selected as one of 2010’s 14 most promising startups and be given the opportunity to go through the Birmingham Venture Club’s accelerator program. This bootcamp has produced some of the brightest rising star companies in the area and is an outstanding program sponsored by Bradley Arant Boult Cummings.
