Going beyond partnerships

DUNCAN FAITHFULL EVP, Gaming Business Leader and CCO at Quixant, outlines some of the key differences between being a partner and a ‘great supplier’ and discusses ways in which Quixant is supporting the product delivery process.

Words by ERIN GALLAGHER

The word ‘partnership’ is used far too often by organisations who aim to position their service provision as superior, and is commonly perceived to be more valued than their customers would say that it is. Often those promoting the value of partnerships like to put ‘strategic’ in front of it to reinforce how important and inherent they are to their customers’ product delivery.

Being a partner becomes a throwaway line used in marketing collateral designed to make potential customers see the supplier as more than a supplier, when actually being a great supplier is a brilliant thing, and often exactly what customers are looking for.

So, what defines being a partner as opposed to being a great supplier? At Quixant, we believe that partnership is about striving to achieve common and shared goals based on our customers’ overall objectives in the gaming and sports betting market, and their drive to deliver the ultimate customer experience, and that part of being a partner is being a brilliant supplier. What is the point of pretending that we have a role in the delivery of our customer’s strategic objectives if we don’t do our core activities at the required standard?

The ’pandemic years’ show this theory perfectly. During that time when our market was largely closed and supply chains were crippled by component shortages and shipping disruption, our role became largely focused on the delivery of our market leading hardware platforms.

Ensuring that our customers could build their products safely in the knowledge that the critical components which drive their games were available became our main driver, and this involved reengineering many of our products multiple times as components came in and out of availability.

During the pandemic, AMD, a key component supplier to our industry, chose to ‘de-prioritise the gaming industry’ and made some of their key graphics products end-of-life. This gave several of our ‘partners’ (yes, the ‘P’ word is appropriate here) a very small runway into a new provider at a time when their businesses were already under pressure.

Working together, we focussed on the shared objective of new product introduction and delivered long-term solutions in line with their cabinet and kiosk strategies. This sentence underplays the significant amount of work on both sides to make this happen, but as Quixant only operates in the gaming and sports betting industry, our focused expertise was 100% committed to this task.

For our competitors, the industry is only one vertical amongst many, and so Quixant is different in that we only think about developing and delivering solutions to answer gaming and sports betting-based challenges.

2023 has so far been about delivering on our partnership and supplier commitments as our market continues to recover from the last couple of years. Thankfully, the world looks increasingly positive so whilst we continue to focus on excellent delivery of the core requirement of our customers, we are also focused on bringing new hardware and software solutions to the market to help our customers to achieve their objectives.

As such, we are pleased to demonstrate our support of the industry by sponsoring SBC Barcelona on 20-21 September. We look forward to connecting with those attending the event to discuss how we can enable them to focus on the integration of their game or sportsbook and the enhancement of the customer experience, by leaving the hardware platform, cabinet, terminal and kiosk solutions to us.

Our ultimate range of hardware platforms, IQ, IQON, and QMAX have been designed with the requirements of the gaming and sports betting industry in mind, giving our customers the confidence that their solution is reliable and as powerful as their imagination needs it to be.

The platforms are designed to provide maximum performance based on budget, market, and product needs, and come with our market-leading software solutions as standard, which are designed to optimise game development and delivery and ensure optimum results with sports book integrations.

We also offer a range of specialist cabinets and kiosks, Quantum and Qinetic, which are powered by our market-leading hardware platforms and come with a comprehensive suite of peripherals. They are highly configurable and can be tailored to meet each customer’s individual requirements, with expert technical support from our inhouse cabinet and kiosk design team.

Whether you are working with another technology provider and seeking a new supplier, are an online company looking to move to the land-based sector, or are completely new to the industry, we are here to support you at every stage of your journey.

So, what do you get if you choose to partner with Quixant?

• Relentless focus on innovation and product delivery.

• Outsourced supply chain management solutions.

• Stability – Security – support. From the gaming experts.

• Commercial flexibility.

• Joint product lifecycle management.

Are you attending SBC Barcelona and are interested to find out what a partnership with Quixant could mean for you? If so, arrange to meet us at the show by visiting quixant.com/sbc-barcelona-2023/