COPS Monitoring, UCC Emphasize Separation of Brands at ISC West Despite Acquisition

COPS and UCC will offer “two different flavors” of alarm monitoring to security dealers after COPS’ acquisition of UCC that was finalized on Jan. 19.

LAS VEGAS — While sitting down with COPS Monitoring Director of Marketing & Communications David Smith and United Central Control (UCC) Marketing Manager Kathryn Schultz on Friday at ISC West, a key detail surfaced at the start of the conversation: This was the first time the two had met.

Sure, the two had exchanged E-mails since the news broke that COPS Monitoring had acquired UCC back in January, but this conversation with SSI was their first person-to-person interaction in a partnership that Smith believes could be ground breaking.

“I don’t know of another time that a monitoring company has joined with another monitoring company to provide two separate brands, two separate services, two separate sets of benefits,” Smith said of the acquisition, which was finalized on Jan. 19. “It’s exciting for us.”


ISC West: COPS and UCC will remain two separate brands, something he thinks is critical to a security dealer’s ability to choose the monitoring company he or she wants to do business with.

“If a dealer chooses to do business with [COPS Monitoring] and I lose his trust and lose his business and he decides to go to another central station, that’s on me,” Smith said. “But then we go acquire another company and you say, ‘Hello, it’s me again,’ it’s always uncomfortable doing business with that dealer because you know he didn’t want to be there in the first place.”

Smith added that he’s excited that the partnership will allow for the offering of two different brands and “two different flavors” to dealers.

Meanwhile, UCC is looking forward to the opportunity to broaden the market and tap into new resources that it didn’t have prior to the acquisition.

“At UCC, we’re really excited,” Schultz said. “It’s a new opportunity for us, and COPS is really well known in the industry. Their customer services levels, their company — it aligns a lot with what UCC has been trying to do so we’re excited.”

In addition to discussing the UCC acquisition, Smith also wanted to point out that Lydia Security Monitoring — the parent company of COPS Monitoring — has its own brand as well. In the past, COPS had been a DBA under Lydia, but now Lydia “is having its identity just like COPS and UCC,” Smith said.

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