Pure Storage is showing record growth despite the pandemic and supply chain issues. The Mountain View, California-based company makes flash-based storage for data centers. This type of storage is faster than the usual disk storage – and Pure Storage makes it even more efficient using a unique compression process to allow even more data to fit on one drive. It’s a storage-as-service model of doing business that has led to extraordinary growth over the past few years, with revenue exceeding $1.7 billion in 2021 alone. And there’s no limit in sight.
The growth is partially attributed to the solid demand for their products. Many customers placed large orders during the pandemic, including a video maker who increased their order tenfold and a vaccine manufacturer who quadrupled their order in less than a week. Pure Storage wisely anticipated this growth in 2019, bringing on former Lenovo Vice President Mike Fitzgerald to manage the supply chain and growth. For Fitzgerald, a secure, dual-sourced supply chain was the lynchpin to continued success, but customer service – and the business’ bootstraps approach – remained a priority.
“We can make decisions quickly,” Fitzgerald said. “When Covid hit, we made decisions in a day that would have taken weeks at other companies. The culture at Pure is very entrepreneurial…we are working to build a true ‘one team’.”
Pure Storage has three manufacturing sites, two in Texas and one in the Czech Republic. Product testing and direct-to-customer shipping are done from these same locations. The factories are set up to run two shifts during normal times, easily adapted to four shifts when demand for product surges. Additionally, the company has a policy that any repairs to products will be done in four hours, a policy secured by a network of 200 depots around the world on standby for customer service. When the pandemic hit, Pure Storage made sure each of these depots was overstocked to ensure that commitment remained intact.
Though Pure Storage also monitors manufacturing in real-time, the company continues to refine and redesign its supply chain to weather difficulties. The footprint of the supply chain is routinely examined, and its security is paramount to saving money. Having most supplies close to home – in the United States or Mexico – added to its strength. Each point along the way has a backup if one supplier fails. This is something Fitzgerald learned the hard way during regional difficulties caused by floods in Thailand and a tsunami in Japan early in his career. Sourcing close to home gives Pure Storage flexibility and speed. Any product design also has a contingency plan for postponement. In the end, these planning and preparation processes allow Pure Storage to build, test and ship to a customer the day it receives an order.
The company’s stock continues to rise, gaining as much as 26 percent in a recent month. This bullish behavior in an unsettled market is a testament to the company’s preparedness and wise planning. On September 28, the company announced a new approach to storage and its offerings: a type of storage that will power everything from self-driving vehicles to space travel and DNA sequencing. Its brand new Pure Fusion and Portworx Data Services offerings ensure the company’s place as a necessity for doing business in a modern economy.“Since our founding, Pure has delivered simplicity and reliability at scale,” said CEO Charles Giancarlo. “[This is exactly] what organizations need more than ever as they increasingly adopt cloud-native architectures and modern applications…and advanced analytics. Our new software innovations further our goal of making infrastructure invisible to developers…and delivering it as a service.”
