Prevailing on the Integration Battlefield

With many providers offering similar solutions nowadays, distinguishing your business from competitors demands a level of superior service only attainable when everyone is unified and moving in the same direction. This month, discover how to foster teamwork, effectively lead and differentiate your firm.

Unlike conventional products and services you have offered in the past, network-centric and software-specific solutions are complicated, and call for much greater teamwork. At the same time, strong leadership is vital. photography ©istockphoto.com/pixhook3 Signs of Strength for Any Firm

The lessons learned as a systems integrator must be captured and analyzed if you want to distinguish your company in your market. While larger companies have more resources, they also have longer decision cycles and layers of management. Smaller companies are often more nimble in their decision making, but are often led by the founder of the company who may have strong but outdated opinions. No disrespect is intended, just a field observation of working with lots of different clients during the past 30+ years.

So what is the answer to this riddle? OK, my work here is done and yours is just beginning! Actually what I have just shared is not as hard as it sounds if you are willing to drop some of the baggage we carry around and take a fresh look at how you work as a team to accomplish a converged mission. Here are a few pointers:

  • Start by looking at your communication protocols. During group meetings do you allow and encourage new opinions to be openly voiced without fear of political reprisals?
  • Examine the leadership style that is predominate in your company and ask yourself, does this encourage or discourage innovation and decision making? The Marines push leadership down to the lowest level of enlisted noncommissioned officers (NCOs).
  • Do you allow and embrace the concept of “
    making the wrong decision for the right reasons” and then objectively evaluating that decision as an opportunity to add to the lessons learned library?

So whether you work for or run a Mutt- or Jeff-sized company, take time to distinguish yourself and your firm by remembering the lessons you have learned on the convergence battlefield.       

Paul Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is principal of Canfield, Ohio-based Matterhorn Consulting
(www.matterhornconsulting.com). He has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience and can be contacted at [email protected].

 

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Paul C. Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is Security Sales & Integration’s “Business Fitness” columnist. A principal of Matterhorn Consulting, he has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience including UL central station operations, risk-vulnerability assessments, strategic security program design and management of industry convergence challenges. Boucherle has successfully guided top-tier companies in achieving enhanced ROI resulting from improved sales and operational management techniques. He is a charismatic speaker and educator on a wide range of critical topics relating to the security industry of today and an accomplished corporate strategist and marketer whose vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable enterprise growth in the security industry sector.

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