Merging two tech companies into one undisputed market leader—and realizing millions in synergies

Our Impact 

Park Place Technologies is a leading global data center and networking optimization firm. In 2020, Park Place acquired its biggest competitor, Curvature, and became the global leader in data-center support – serving 21,000 customers in 150 countries. But realizing the merger’s potential required rapid and smooth integration of the two companies into one. That’s where we came in. 

The West Monroe team worked with Park Place to plan, manage, and deliver the successful migration to a single technology platform—one that is core to the company’s operations. As a result, Park Place was able to focus on capturing the benefits of its enhanced market position. 

The Full Story 

The Challenge 

Most organizations only aspire to become the undisputed global leader in their market. In mid-2020, Park Place found itself with the opportunity to accomplish just that – by acquiring its largest competitor, Curvature.

But big opportunities often come with big challenges. This would be the largest acquisition in the company’s history, doubling its size in both revenue and headcount. Success hinged on integrating operations on one common technology platform within eight months of closing— and over a single weekend— to minimize disruption. This meant migrating Curvature’s inventory records, customer contacts, and financial data located across Salesforce, SAP, a data warehouse, and a home-grown inventory management system into a Microsoft-based environment that included Dynamics 365 and Park Place’s warehouse management solution.  

Park Place is no stranger to acquisitions. In fact, Park Place typically handles merger integration in-house. But this deal brought unprecedented complexity due to its size and variance in core systems. This was exactly the type of high-stakes situation where West Monroe’s experience and expertise creates real value. 

An Undeniably Different Approach 

Our team initially produced technology diligence for the transaction, leveraging our proprietary IT assessment capabilities and deep industry experience. Then, one step led to the next. As Park Place began planning for the migration, our specialists in infrastructure, operations excellence, and customer experience stepped in and played a crucial role through execution. Our organizational change management team also played a large role in the post integration assessment. And by the time of the final integration, Park Place understood the real value of West Monroe’s multidisciplinary approach.  

We prepared an organizational readiness plan that outlined goals, the migration approach, the primary and downstream systems involved, and the stakeholders whose participation would be required. We then partnered with functions across the organizations – including Operations, Finance, Sales, and Marketing – to make it all happen.  

Park Place aimed for a “big bang” cutover to new systems in a 36-hour period. This was essential for customer continuity – but it required meticulous planning. We’re never one to leave details to chance. So, we orchestrated a mock conversion one month prior to test and refine the timing of activities, identify and mitigate risks, and prepare the people who would be performing cutover tasks. This trial run proved critical in ensuring a successful migration. 

Real Results  

Park Place completed the migration as planned, with minimal customer disruption. What made all this possible was the ability to integrate operations with speed and precision. Park Place completed the integration on schedule and within budget. And by identifying all redundant active vendor contracts, we were able to help Park Place identify millions in synergies over several years while doubling EBITDA. 

More importantly, Park Place is now well-positioned to take advantage of its expanded global scale and new capabilities within its Professional Services organization. Having all employees on a common platform of modern IT applications and processes increases agility and responsiveness. Park Place can operate its business without having to “swivel seat” between separate systems for ticketing, sales orders, contracts, bookings, and other customer management functions. That means it can serve more customers, better and faster.