Peak 10 + ViaWest Rebrands as Flexential, Poised to Grow Nationally

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Peak 10 + ViaWest, the company that formed from Peak 10 purchasing ViaWest last spring, is rebranding as Flexential.

Flexential said the new name is based on the company’s “flexible, customer-focused approach that is essential to their way of doing business.”  The company calls itself a leading hybrid IT provider that has 41 data centers across 20 markets, and reaches more than 4,200 business customers.

Flexential’s Dave Sroka

Dave Sroka, Flexential’s vice president of channel sales, tells Channel Partners that a crucial part of the rebrand was creating a single, cohesive partner program. Flexential will continue to deliver data-center offerings spanning colocation, connectivity, cloud, managed solutions and professional services.

“The two companies had many partners in common, but at the same time, many ‘new’ partners worked locally with either Peak 10 or ViaWest because of each providers’ geographic coverage,” he said. “Under Flexential, we’re confident that partners will appreciate the new capacity we have, as well as the investments we’ve made in the resources that support those environments. For current and prospective clients, we believe our differentiated product suite is much more comprehensive than what our peers are offering.”

Flexential now has the scale it needs to prospect and serve even more customers across new regions, Sroka said.

“Under the new brand, we’re able to geographically disperse resources for both partners and end customers in ways that Peak 10 and ViaWest simply couldn’t do separately,” he said. “The establishment of Flexential as a national player will give partners the ability to sell a single brand from [Philadelphia] to Portland, Oregon. Many customers like to have diversity across a single provider, and as a national brand we are now able to give this to our partners. The rebrand to Flexential will create even more opportunities for the company and our partner program — and we’re excited to see where it takes us.”

Lynda Stadmueller, Frost & Sullivan research vice president, noted that most rebrandings result from mergers and acquisitions.

“Some companies take the opportunity as they’re doing their brand assessment to say, ‘We want to move beyond either brand we have,'” she said. “When there is a belief that the existing brand options aren’t going to be sufficient to keep you moving forward, that’s when the effort is worthwhile. In a case like this, you can’t have two brands; that’s fragmented and absolutely doesn’t work. There’s a period where Peak 10 + ViaWest [has] needed to leverage both brands and educate the market that it’s now one company, but you can’t do that forever. It’s unnecessarily confusing. No customer wants to have to think that hard in terms of, ‘Who am I dealing with?”

Flexential will seek to continue its expansion, considering opportunities and deals that will allow it to compete in the industry’s largest markets, Sroka said.

“A big priority this year will be executing on Flexential’s overall go-to-market strategy, which was completed and launched with the national sales team earlier this month,” he said. “Edge data centers will play a big role in this strategy. In terms of the channel strategy, we plan on continuing to offer our partners the best support and opportunities in the industry. We are always looking for new alternative channels to help sell our vast suite of products.”