The business of machines

Founded in 1992, South Seas Data LLC began serving the money transfer industry as a supplier to First Data Corp. Since then, Englewood, Colo.-based SSD has continued to provide custom service solutions to Fortune 500 companies in the technology market, with a concentration on replacement and maintenance solutions for POS terminals and personal computing hardware.

In 1997, SSD landed Western Union as a money transfer client. A contract to service MoneyGram's money transfer locations followed. SSD acted as the trouble ticket management bridge between MoneyGram agents and the BancTec maintenance team.

"In 2002, three years before we were acquired by the General Credit Forms ownership group, South Seas Data began providing advanced exchange equipment depot solutions to Western Union's group of money transfer agents all across North America," said John Marzano, SSD General Manager. "Today, we've grown to support over 200,000 locations and a diverse client portfolio." From machine, to cloud and beyond According to Marzano, SSD assists enterprise clientele with everything from hardware procurement to full depot services, including hardware support, repairs, refurbishments and retrievals.

In 2017, SSD introduced a new cloud/software services division to provide terminal management solutions and customized operating environments to the broader community of transaction processing entities. These service offerings include an array of cloud-hosted solutions applicable to the small to midsize business market, along with SSD's existing POS customer base.

Included in the new cloud services mix are applications to address private virtual desktops and servers, disaster recovery and business continuity, and remote and offsite backup solutions.

According to SSD, the company functions as a trusted cloud partner for its clients, enabling information technology departments to, support things such as bring your own device, while still maintaining secure access and trace-ability of resources. Marzano believes providing this critical support to end users directly raises client efficiency and productivity, which in turn, helps improve employee morale with better response times and more manageable support ability.

A network of credibility

The relationship to its parent entity also enables SSD to offer clients additional capabilities. As part of the McCormick family of companies, which includes General Credit Forms, Golden Business Forms, Advanced Labeling Systems and Paper Systems Inc., SSD has access to a much wider set of products. "Together, all the companies are focused on helping our customers meet the POS needs of their merchant clients," said Pete Philomey, SSD National Sales Manager. "From transaction forms to rolls and ribbons to guest checks, labels and hardware depot services, the affiliated companies under the McCormick umbrella are able to meet all of those merchant needs."

SSD also maintains many levels of certifications and manufacturer partnerships that can be leveraged to provide support and solutions to clients. "We like to maintain a variety of educational backgrounds, which directly translates to not only a more educated workforce, but a greater knowledge base that can be leveraged to assist with the client's needs," Philomey noted.

Extending the legacy

Going forward, SSD plans to keep growing organically in both the hardware advanced replacement and cloud/software sectors. Company leaders also expect to build SSD's expertise in providing full hardware support for retailers and ISOs that don't want to handle it themselves.

Marzano said SSD will also be "expanding beyond the traditional check/cashing money order vertical to retail and restaurant POS support, and also other industries such as medical and hospitality, where the company can leverage its software security suites to lock down solutions and provide further PCI protections." Philomey affirmed SSD is positioned well for growth, because it can provide full turnkey support for hardware at the retailer locations. "We purchase; we image and load software; we configure; we ship; we maintain; we repair; and we retrieve – in addition to providing customer support for the installed hardware," he said.

Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact names or information may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.