Pelco Powers Up

Scott Schafer: We have a lot of systems integrators, dealers, resellers and distributors around the world that we needed to get on board with this new product offering from both sides. So the Integral resellers now have a chance to get access to the Pelco line of products and the Pelco resellers have a chance to get Integral products. The merging of our sales and support organizations and training operations to be able to take orders, deliver orders, make certain the proper certifications are in place before we deliver those orders — those were all things that needed to be worked out.

Have there been any surprises?

Schafer: On the Pelco side, one of the surprises was just how well-run of a company Schneider Electric is and the executive talent that we’ve witnessed on their visits here, their understanding of the market opportunity, business solutions, and integration of video into a broader category, not necessarily building automation only. They are identifying what we’ve seen as additional applications for video technology into operations and other areas.

It’s been quite an eye-opener to see how an internationally-based company acts, how they view strategy, the challenges they’ve overcome, their facilities footprint, intellectual property acknowledgement and other areas. I think there’s a tremendous upside for Pelco being a part of Schneider that perhaps we didn’t see at first. We saw a new parent, but we didn’t see all the facilities and capabilities that this new parent had that could help us grow even faster, especially internationally.

Meyer: Let me drill into that one more layer. Integral, with the products they had available with their sales, was primarily a U.S. company in terms of sales and revenue stream. So some
pleasant surprises is we have the ability with the Pelco reach, and on top of that the Schneider reach, to take some technologies and push them and support them much better than maybe we were capable of doing in times passed at Integral.

Another positive that’s come out of this for Pelco is we have had some prior discussions on how we can better serve our customers in the U.S. market, particularly in the aspect of our training institute and physical locations, and how to bring training closer to the customer.  We are also building a training center in Indianapolis, which was the home of Integral.

Size Does Not Matter

Let’s address Pelco’s reputation for superior service. Is there a point where growth makes it impossible to maintain customer service excellence?

Meyer: If that was true, no one would ever want to get bigger! To me, it’s not a financial question. It’s an attitude question. If you believe it’s a fundamental differentiator to your business, then size doesn’t matter. If you’re committed to it and you believe it’s the difference maker, then it shouldn’t matter how big you are.  But it is a legitimate concern. As you grow and expand, the logistics of how you deliver the same level of quality service and support globally becomes more and more complex. You have to be committed to following it through and resource it appropriately because you can’t provide the same level of support in China from Clovis that you do for Las Vegas from Clovis. Sometimes that’s an investment you have to make. I think that’s where some companies fail; you have to be local. Part of what provides that good customer service and support is a local presence and that is the difficulty when you expand.

Schneider Electric recognizes that fanatical customer service is a foundational element of Pelco and something we need to be extremely cognizant of, support and maintain, and grow with.

Schafer: It’s part of our fabric from when people are hired and go through an orientation that includes a dialogue from Dave MacDonald relative to the importance of fanatical customer support and service. They are instructed if you’re called on by a customer to do A, B and C, the answer is to do whatever the customer requests to make them happy. It’s more than just a directive and part of our process; it’s the internal DNA of our company.

What are Schneider Electric’s ultimate aspirations in electronic security?
Meyer: Schneider has demonstrated the past four or five years a very large appetite for acquisition – with APC and Pelco among the more significant ones. But there are also a number of acquisitions that don’t make the headlines. Schneider’s ultimate goal is to own the infrastructure of a facility or building, everything from the power side to the control to the security to the safety to the energy management. If you go look at the acquisitions they’ve done over the years, it’s been mostly about maximizing their footprint into the control of infrastructure.

More Product Lines, Resources

How is the new Pelco going to benefit or offer enhanced opportunities to the installing integrator?

Schafer: First of all, the installing integrator will see even better products from Pelco. This converged opportunity of taking engineers from Integral and Pelco together to formulate an even better class of recording platform is very important. We now have a new access control product, Intelli-M, and we’re excited about that. Some product additions happened because of the merger, and product enhancements are going to happen because of the work that was being done on both sides on things like IP cameras, IP recording and network-based products. All of that is going to benefit the installing reseller.

The training we offer is enhancing not only the product and certification training aspects; we’re expanding our selling skills training aspect, too, with more value-based selling training to integrators, more on how to sell the solution. We now have more expertise in the field. We’ll go out and work on the business case, the demonstration, the configuration and the proposal with the installing integrator.

We recognized three years ago that individual selling was dead, team selling was the way to go and we needed to be more at the hip with our installing resellers to help them through the process. Not only because the technology is more complicated, but because there’s a need for someone from Pelco to be at the hip with these people and really act as a partner through their cycles and help them develop their business. All of that is an enhancement to the Pelco program.

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