Tyco Security Products Aims to Be the Integrator’s Edge
Tyco Security Products (TSP) and Life Safety Products (LSP) President Mike Ryan believes the manufacturer's video surveillance solutions, among others, are tough to beat.
How do you view the residential market changes of late with these new entrants; or are you taking a wait-and-see attitude? How is it impacting your plan?
Ryan: Specifically in residential security, and the overlap into the small business environment, the change over the last two years has been really significant. We think that rate of change is going to continue, and quite honestly it has the potential to accelerate. The idea of a cable operator offering residential security as an integrated partner offering, companies like Alarm.com offering their interactive service for their dealer networks. And then in other parts of the world we see growing interest, specifically in the telecommunications companies around the world, again to integrate security into their offering.
Tyco is really well positioned outside of North America to help the telecommunications companies. They own the customer and the brand, but they’re looking for expertise in the security products offering.
They’re looking for companies that can help them install and service and monitor on the security side. That’s obviously right up our alley. The rate of change in residential security business around the world is changing rapidly with new players and we’re positioning well to have those companies pull through our DSC, Visonic and Bentel branded intrusion products.
What about in the North American commercial side? Do you see IT and end users becoming more involved in the process?
Ryan: If you look over the past year at how our business is transacted through our channels, I would not characterize it as being significantly different or representing significant change. If we look forward there are discussions with, for example, the IT integrators or other service providers on the IT side. That is potentially an area for future development. We’ll continue to monitor that, evaluate that, and look for segments where that can help us. Again, it’s nowhere near the rate of change we’re seeing on the route to market on the residential side.
It seems to me one of Tyco Security Products’ great selling points to integrators and end users is having so many brands and products under one roof. Integration can be more seamless among the different types of solutions.
Ryan: Absolutely, that has been something we have focused more on the past three or four years, and that will continue to be an area of focus. A quick example would be in the past few months how we have integrated the Exacq software very tightly with the Software House C•CURE access control system. We also have integrated tightly with the Kantech access control system. So to your point on power of integration and giving our channel partners and integrators simpler, easier to use, easier to install solutions, there’s a benefit to us.
Let’s discuss Exacq a little deeper, an acquisition some may have found curious. How is it being integrated into other areas of the business, and why did Tyco find their solution so appealing? Also, what might it portend for the roadmap moving forward with Tyco?
Ryan: The global video market is just enormous. It is still very fragmented. If I characterized our video business strategy, I would say it’s based on customer segmentation. What I mean by that is if you think about American Dynamics, that brand or product occupies a specific space. It has a good presence in retail. If you look at applications that require real-time interactive video surveillance, we’ve done well there. Certainly, if you think about the American Dynamics historical analog customers, and their transition, it’s strong there.
Exacq occupies a completely different space, one where customers need an intuitive video solution for post-event searches vs. more of the 24/7 active surveillance environment. They came out with a very simple, easy to use, easy to install product that was specifically designed for attractiveness in the U.S. distribution market. The success those guys had, whether you’re a big or small company, it was very impressive. The market widely accepted that product. We saw it as an opportunity to serve a different segment in the video market.
Then the other truth is the majority of Exacq sales were in the U.S. Tyco Security Products is a big, global company. To our integrators, distributors and channel partners around the world, we really had an opportunity to take that offering and distribute it geographically all around the world. We’re working really hard on being able to do that. It’s still the early days. The Exacq performance and growth rate have continued over the first six months we’ve owned them. We see some opportunity to leverage this, just based on our global scale and global reach.
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About the Author
Scott Goldfine
Scott Goldfine is the marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions. He is the former editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He can be reached at [email protected].
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