WESTMINSTER, Colo. — PSA Security Network will present its PSA-TEC 2011 on May 16-20 at The Westin resort hotel in Westminster, Colo.

Now in its 31st year, PSA-TEC is distinguished for providing industry-leading education for systems integrators, plus nightly networking activities.

The event’s exhibit hall and training sessions will once again be open to all electronic security professionals, not simply members of the more than 200-strong integrator cooperative. In all, more than 400 course hours will be held during the conference of which SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION serves as the official Elite Media Sponsor.

The PSA-TEC curriculum will be sectioned into four categories and instructed by subject experts from all segments of the electronic security industry. A total of 14 courses will be presented, focusing on business optimization, physical security, IT and managed services.

Subject Experts Featured

Among the conference’s most popular courses each year is “Value-Based Selling” led by instructor Paul Boucherle, CPP, CSC, principal of Canfield, Ohio-based Matterhorn Consulting. While the course has been updated for the convergence market, attendees will continue to receive fundamental instruction on how to sell business value instead of product and price.

“It’s significant because of the process you must go through to identify business value, not in your terms, but in the customer’s. Too often you can get caught up trying to emboss your value on the customer,” says Boucherle, who is a new contributor to SSI‘s “Convergence Channel” column. “This rarely works and can often lead to customers defaulting to the lowest common denominator they can understand – product and price. That is a recipe for low closing ratios and even lower margins.”

Representatives from ASSA ABLOY, G4S, Integrator Support, SureView Systems and others will lead courses in the managed services track. Designed to assist systems integrators with developing their managed services offerings, the studies will cover a variety of RMR-generating opportunities to improve end users’ protection and enhance the value of their security systems.

Attendees will also receive insights from industry specialists regarding the state of various market verticals. For instance, Don Erickson, director of government relations for the Security Industry Association (SIA), will examine the government’s impact on the systems integration community. 

Erickson will discuss the uncertain status of federal funding for programs that could be used for physical security enhancements. “The question asked by members of both parties in Congress with respect to federal funding in 2011 and 2012 for security projects is not whether to cut funding, but by how much,” Erickson says.

Of keen interest to many systems integrators, Erickson will also provide an update on the potential for Congress to reauthorize the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) and the Safe Ports Act.

New at PSA-TEC this year is the “Technology Showcase” where attendees can see demonstrations of cutting-edge technology presented by PSA Security Network vendor partners. The 40-minute sessions will offer product overviews by leading suppliers such as Arecont Vision, Axis Communications, Ingersoll Rand, Milestone and Pelco.

All PSA-TEC educational sessions and activites will be held at the resort, including a music jam session, jazz lounge and bowling tournament.

 

If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our FREE digital newsletters!

Related Content