Here we are at the start of spring.
For those of you who are walking around the lake at the NEC campus (pictured) before or after the ST19 Birmingham event next week, next Thursday to be exact, you’ll see nature trying to start. And talking of starts I have recently started a Facebook group where I have managed to get 106 members join in just a few days. Its proving to be quite a lot of fun with Ian Cook from Hanwha kicking off a question of ‘How many years have you been working in this industry, and what was your first experience?’ I have to say it’s had a brilliant response, I always assumed I had the edge with my mere almost 47 years, starting in May 1972, but apparently Dave Newbury (of Case Security) beats me by one month. The winner so far is Bob Steele of Pro-Vision, sorry now EET, who started in 1971. We intend to have quite a few chats on this group so feel free to join in, I am calling it the Professional Security Elite Squad.
Click on careers
Here I would like to give you the web link to the Hanwha Techwin website www.hanwha-security.eu and ask you to click on careers and then vacancies, as they are looking for some people in the UK and on the Continent.
Stepped up
To the actual gossip and I have to say its very quiet out there, everyone seems to have theirs heads down, I wonder why? Is it the ‘B’ word I wonder? Let us start with Peter Grainger, who has just joined the team at Security Dynamics. Peter has been around in our industry for some time of course, some 25 years. You may remember that in 2012 he was one of the Olympics stewards. He joined our industry in 1991 talking of when you started for a company called Euro Alarms Ltd! Gallagher tell me that Richard Huison has stepped up to General Manager for UK and Europe, a year after joining Gallagher from Vanderbilt Industries’ access control brand ACT. He believes that Gallagher is well placed to counter the cyber threat as a long term CPNI-approved supplier to the Home Office and critical national infrastructure clients such as the National Grid. Richard said: “The cost of a power outage on the Grid is £1m per minute so they have to be absolutely sure of their cyber resilience and that everything they plug on to their network is secure. That’s a real challenge in an era where kettles and other household appliances are becoming increasingly wifi-connected, so a hacker switching them all on at the same time could bring down the Grid.” Things have changed rather since the 1970s, you will agree.
Office manager
At TDSi in Poole, Nicky Southwell has become office manager. John Davies TDSi MD said: “Our Poole facility is at the heart of UK and international operations, the vital hub for our distribution, sales and support. As such, Nicky has an important role.”
Sales team
Mayflex the Birmingham-based distributor of security and related converged IP products has two new regional account managers. Sharon Powell will look after the central regions, and Janna Butler the south-west. Both bring account management experience gained in their previous roles. Tonika De-Souza will provide admin support. Christianne McMillen, Director of Sales, Security Internal said: “They have joined the security sales team at a very exciting time.” Mayflex have by the way six dedicated parking bays with EV pod point charging stations for staff or visitors. Any of you fleet car owners thinking or going hybrid?
And recently the guys at CCTVdirect had three new recruits in sales and marketing. Joanne Shaw and Laetitia Rawlings are in sales support, and Will Fraser is digital marketing assistant. The company tells me there’s plenty of exciting things coming from CCTVdirect this year. We shall keep an eye out. And yes, it looks from that picture of Laetitia that starters get a big bar of chocolate. Hope you’re not reading this while you’re hungry.
Business development
I mentioned last month Debbie Carter had joined Videcon; they have also recruited business development manager Terry Howells in external account management. Terry has over eight years’ experience in security distribution and has accounts in the south west of England, and south Wales. Product launches in ‘deep learning video analytics’ and more in the Concept Pro range are imminent.
Dealer programme
Stanley Security are launching their dealer programme for installers, at ST19 Birmingham; in-house financing (a selling point for end users); a ‘customer first team’; plus monitoring options from a self-service app to Stanley’s Category 2 NSI Gold standard BS5979 accredited alarm receiving centre (ARC). The best of both worlds, UK Channel Manager Dan Hindley calls it: “Independent security companies continue to use their skills in sales and installation, with the added advantage of our expertise in designing, delivering and servicing.”
