Unlocking Austria’s Potential with Expert Storage Services

Overview

Challenge

• The ability to deliver complete solutions with expert support is the key to winning new business in the Austrian market.

Solution

• CANCOM Austria is the only partner with a team of Hitachi Vantara-certified engineers capable of end-to-end service delivery.

Outcome

• Working together, CANCOM and Hitachi Vantara have won a series of major deals with both mid-market and enterprise customers.

Challenge

Part of the European CANCOM group, CANCOM Austria is one of the country’s largest and most experienced digital business providers. With more than 130 years of history, CANCOM Austria has evolved into a 1,600-employee company that provides a broad portfolio of IT services, including networking, data center infrastructure, security, full-stack AI, collaboration solutions and managed services.

The data center infrastructure division has dozens of customers in both the enterprise and mid-market segments of the Austrian business landscape, as well as managing major accounts in Switzerland and Romania. Today, the team helps customers deliver major projects in areas such as data center modernization and cyber resiliency, as well as building platforms for AI. A key goal is to design and deliver affordable, future-proof solutions that protect customers’ investment in a market where component prices continue to skyrocket.

“It’s a huge challenge,” explains Michael Perfler, Senior Director for Data Center Infrastructure at CANCOM Austria. “Many companies are gambling that prices will go down, but the reality is that they’re just going up and up. So, we have to use every tool available to reduce complexity, produce cost savings and help our customers get their projects done.”

Solution

With the cost of infrastructure rising, companies can’t afford to make the wrong investments. It’s more important than ever to avoid buying a storage system that can’t deliver the performance, availability and scalability the business needs. And making mistakes during installation, configuration and data migration can negate the value of the entire project.

That’s why CANCOM offers Austrian companies a unique proposition: Hitachi Vantara storage systems that make enterprise features accessible for midrange budgets, combined with expert services delivered by Austria’s largest team of Hitachi Vantara-certified engineers.

“Our customers don’t want vendors or resellers who only care about making a sale,” explains Michael Perfler. “They want genuine partners who are going to stake their reputation on making the project a success. Among the IT service providers in our market, only CANCOM Austria has the skills in-house to make that happen.”

CANCOM Austria recommends Hitachi Vantara storage for all kinds of use cases for both mid-market and enterprise customers. “We’re unusual, because we cover the entire Hitachi Vantara portfolio,” says Michael Perfler. “We have a broad base of customers using VSP One Block for Mid-sized Enterprises, but also some very large public sector and financial services accounts using VSP One Block High End. We are also seeing a lot of demand for VSP One Object, and increasingly also full-stack AI opportunities where we can take advantage of Hitachi Vantara’s alliance with Super Micro.”

Outcome

Over the course of many successful deals together, CANCOM Austria and Hitachi Vantara have built up a trusted relationship based on complete transparency and integrity. “We know the whole team at Hitachi Vantara and we’ve built our business in Austria together,” says Michael Perfler. “We know that when we’re working together on a deal, everyone is totally committed to making it work.”

This year alone, the two organizations have won a record number of new logos for Hitachi Vantara. Thanks to CANCOM Austria’s 150-person sales team—one of the largest in the country—they have become an increasingly dominant presence in the mid-market. And together, they have delivered a series of important projects for some of Austria’s largest public sector organizations and banks. “Some of the work we have been doing together in data protection and cyber resiliency is really innovative,” says Michael Perfler. “We’re delivering technology that didn’t even exist two or three years ago.”

He adds: “We love working with Hitachi Vantara because with every generation of storage, it just gets better. The systems have always been number one in terms of availability and scalability, and the fact that VSP One provides a single platform for block, file and object storage really resonates.”

He concludes: “Our relationship with Hitachi Vantara is a best-practice template for how vendors and partners can work together. We trust each other completely, so we can focus 100% on helping the customer succeed.”