THE VISION
Like many innovative companies, Virtual Procurement Services (VPS) can trace its inception to just three visionary ideas: identifying what economists refer to as the “excess returns above normal values” that are generated in a competitive market, eliminating inefficiencies in technology procurement, and finding a better way to do it.
Twelve years ago, Scott Robins, who was enjoying a profitable career as a successful technology salesperson, was conversing with one of his clients (a CIO at one of the top three gaming companies in the world) about a new concern that had become front of mind for them: constraining spending on technology. In late 2007, the first fissures of what would soon become another financial disaster for the world were beginning to crack through the imagined safe space of leveraged CDOs, and Alan Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” was proving to be much more impactful than a Keynesian taunt bandied about at cocktail parties. The gaming and hospitality sector has always been (and continues to be) the “canary in the coal mine” for financial prognosticators, and it was against this backdrop that CFOs and far-sighted CIOs were looking to rein in the unfettered spending splurge on technology. The tantalizing promises of higher work production, improved workflow, increased efficiency, enhanced communication, better work-life balance, controlled total cost of ownership, fully realized return on investment, and a whole lot of other imagined benefits (buzzwords) had resulted in a race to throw as much money at technology as possible.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE FALL 2019 EDITION OF GAMING & LEISURE MAGAZINE.