Xentry Marks the Security Integration Spot
Xentry Systems Integration executives share their winning ways for starting, operating and growing the business.
Xentry Systems' executive management team (l-r): Greg Birman, Scott Cooley, Mark Ring, John Nemerofsky, Andre Greco and Dan Blend.
Holly saw an opportunity to create a systems integration business by acquiring one to set an organization in place. She went out and acquired AcreeDaily which gave us really the foundation to be a systems integrator and take a lot of the great clients that we had at Matrix, and now all of a sudden an installation, a project management team, an engineering team, and a back office to run that integration business.
Xenty Systems Integration Fast Facts
Today, Matrix operates in a very unique way with Frontier and Xentry, as a shared service provider. Matrix provides a few services for us such as financial reporting, human resource support and IT support. Since we share those services, we’ve been able to invest more in human resource capital. We have great human resource leadership that develops pro-grams for the employees. In IT, we can spend a little more because we’re sharing an IT group to support the systems we run. With financial reporting, we’re able to leverage the strength of senior-level people to get our numbers and metrics. It’s worked out really well.
What have been some of the biggest challenges rolling this out, and to what extent are you still grappling with them?
Nemerofsky: We’ve only been at it since June 1, so there are some big challenges in all aspects of the business. The first one we took on was combining two totally different cultures together with 35 or 36 legacy Matrix people that came to be part of the Xentry team, and then the 50-some AcreeDaily people that became part of the team. It was two different cultures, one a manufacturing company and the other an integration business. That was the No. 1 challenge.
No. 2 was systems. Each company was running disparate ERP systems, so how do we report, how do we have vision into what’s going on with two different systems? So we purchased a system called NetSuite, and that’s going to be our ERP. It will take us through the contact of client, the quotation, into engineering, out to projects, scheduling the technicians, scheduling the service call, billing and collecting.
This ERP does some really unique things for the business, so as opposed to the technicians handling paper and pen out there, they’ll now be carrying tablets and clients will be seeing their service call on the tablet. Just sign right here, and the service call gets billed right away. It automates our process right away at bid. It makes the technician more efficient.
Phase two of that will really differentiate us in service. A client will call for service, or E-mail for service or go to our Web site and place a service call. Through dispatch we’ll find the technicians through GPS on the trucks. The client will get an E-mail right back indicating who their technician is, his or her certifications, along with a photo and an accurate expected arrival time.
We’re excited about where we’re headed with NetSuite. This is really the foundation. We’re not just going to be in Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Miami, and Michigan forever. We’re looking and hungry to make our next acquisition. We’ll have an ERP system to bring a company right onboard with it.
Nemerofsky: We are tracking right to our projections in a stunted year for 2014, since we made the acquisition on June 1. If you looked at both companies for the full year, we’ll end up around $24 million in revenues. The run rate has been picking up in the past few months. We’re looking at 2015 with a $30 million revenue goal, without acquisition; with acquisition, obviously substantially more. We’d like to get one if not two acquisitions complete and rolled under in 2015.
The $30 million is not just thrown out there; it’s planned for. We know down to the detail of who’s going to book what roughly, how we’re going to time it, and what we’ll have in time and material each month, what we’re going to have in service agreements each month, parts’ shipment. For us it’s a clear walk to how we’re going to get there. It’s very mathematical to us. For each 2,080 hours of installation that is sold, we’re adding headcount for technicians. For each 2,000 hours of project management sold, we’re adding project managers.
It’s very tactical and very simple if you’re close to your numbers. Now we just need to execute the plan.
With those acquisitions, what type of companies are you looking for?
Nemerofsky: We’re looking for systems integration businesses that have common alignment to us with product that can expand our footprint. So whether they’re on the East Coast or in the Southeast or Midwest or West, if we have common alignment of technology partners, and we can see some synergies in acquiring that business, we’d be interested in that growth. We’re interested in companies that are growing, and there are a lot of factors. The acquisition game is very much a courtship. So we’ve started to court about a dozen different companies now to acquire. We’re excited to go down that road.
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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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