Valery Slepak thought she knew what company growth meant, but then she joined Metropolis.
The product manager said he has seen many companies expand through acquisition. But what about a venture-backed startup acquiring a publicly traded company that’s been around for more than 100 years? It was my first time.
Slepak shared that with the acquisition of SP Plus, Metropolis aims to expand access to its core product, Metropolis Vision. The solution allows anyone who has paid once at Metropolis to automatically start and end a parking session by entering and driving in and out of other Metropolis locations, with payments remitted through the Metropolis platform. will be done.
Image: Metropolis
“Our immediate goal is to expand our platform to facilities everywhere, and SP Plus’ global operations are making that goal a reality,” said Alex, co-founder and CEO. Israel explained.
But parking is just the beginning. The company’s no-checkout technology can be applied to vehicle refueling, electric vehicle charging stations, and car washes. All of this highlights the potential need for Metropolis to redefine both market opportunities and customer perceptions.
Integration Director Alex Goodwill says maintaining a company’s health through growth depends on prioritizing two key areas: people and processes. And for both of these components to be successful, organizations must focus on staying ahead of the curve technologically. This is something Goodwill has seen firsthand in Metropolis.
“Investing in next-generation solutions is the only way to build sustainable growth over the long term, so seeing my organization take this area seriously, especially the digital experience space, is a great way to expand our capabilities. “I’m very excited about this industry and our long-term future prospects,” she said.
“Investing in next-generation solutions is the only way to build sustainable growth.”
To achieve its long-term goals, Metropolis is hiring product managers, engineers, and designers who can help bring its technology to thousands of new business locations, approximately 4,000 in total. To support this large portfolio, the company is also seeking “skilled and talented” software and hardware engineers, parking operators and data scientists to drive this stage of deployment, Israel added.
So what exactly will these future team members be working on? According to Israel, AI, and specifically computer vision, is fundamental to the company’s technology and will dominate the company’s technology efforts in the near future. It will be the focus.
“Despite nearly 60 years of research in computer vision, the way mobility works has been largely analog,” he says. “It’s time to change that.”
Image: Metropolis
In pursuit of change, the company continues to leverage computer vision technology to provide drivers with a frictionless, checkout-free experience, delivering a level of speed, ease of use that Israel believes is still lacking in many industries. We will provide ease and convenience. This technology also helps members and property operators alike create a superior customer experience.
Impact in numbers
Metropolis technology has a huge impact on parking property owners. Israel says its technology often doubles operating revenue for these property owners and reduces operating expenses by an average of 13%. It also improves reporting visibility and yield management.
This influence is matched only by the number of consumers the company serves, which equates to more than 9 million people and is growing by more than 120,000 per week, surpassing all North American registrations. Almost 4% of drivers. This number is rapidly increasing as Metropolis continues to deploy technology to new locations.
To ensure this impact is maintained, the organization is building an ecosystem of organizational support functions, including a newly formed technology division, the Advanced Technology Group. With a focus on collaborative innovation, the company’s integrated team has worked with executives to create systems for knowledge sharing and cross-functional planning.
“These capabilities are critical, among other things, to enable organizations to remain as agile as possible,” Goodwill said.
Photo: Metropolis
Metropolis engineers, with support from our leadership team and each other, have put together an exciting roadmap. As a result, the company is one step closer to achieving its goal of redefining the world’s relationship with parking, Slepak said.
“The decisive result is that we can further enhance Metropolis’ technology-driven competitive advantage by delivering profitable outcomes for our real estate partners and a great experience for our consumers,” she said. said.
All of these efforts, spread through acquisitions, reflect a relentless focus on reinvention. Goodwill believes now is the right time to reexamine the factors that have made Metropolis successful to date and challenge assumptions about what it can achieve in the future.
“We are leaving no stone unturned in pursuing optimized models, systems and processes,” she said.
“We leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of optimized models, systems and processes.”
Metropolis has reached a critical stage in its growth process, even though it is destined to change forever. At Goodwill, this transformation phase is equally driven by the team members behind our proprietary platform and technology.
“Combining our people with our technology infrastructure gives us the recipe we need to not only meet changing needs, but to capitalize on them and grow,” she said.
Both future recruits and the 22,000 people who already make Metropolis their professional home can lay the foundations for a multifaceted future. It is defined by advanced technology, new market opportunities, and untapped potential.
“By deploying our computer vision technology to more than 50 million consumers and our real estate partners around the world, we are enabling them to check out with unparalleled speed, ease and convenience, even online. ” concluded.
