Security Sales & Integration April 2023 - 57

EXECUTIVE DECISIONS
Business Fitness by Paul Boucherle
paul@matterhornconsulting.com
@swisssherpa
Outlining Emerging
Integrator Tech Hurdles
▶ MY PREVIOUS TWO COLUMNS have
Smaller
specialty
SIs are the
quickest
movers and
earliest
adopters.
They typically
work in realtime
scenarios
of decision
making, and
are served
by highly
talented,
motivated,
and intelligent
workforce.
focused on the challenges of product suppliers
and distributors developing and delivering new
emerging technology products. Th is column will
focus on the pivotal role that systems integrators
(SIs) play in the complex puzzle of introducing
new security technologies to their customers.
Next month, I'll add insights on the fi nal piece of
the puzzle, the all-important end-user segment.
SIs come in all shapes, sizes, growth phases,
Paul Boucherle, Certifi ed
Protection Professional
(CPP) and Certifi ed Sherpa
Coach (CSC), is principal
of Canfi eld, Ohio-based
Matterhorn Consulting
(matterhornconsulting.
com) and an SSI Industry
Hall of Famer. He has more
than 30 years of diverse
security and safety industry
experience.
securitysales.com
cultures, attitudes, and revenue tiers. You might
assume very large SIs would have processes in
place to enable them to roll out new technologies
faster, smoother, better, and more profi tably
than perhaps mid-tier or smaller integrators. You
would be wrong.
Large SIs have many departments, time-consuming
approval processes, competing priorities,
and agendas. Gaining consensus on a new technology
to be rolled out to their fi eld can take
quite a bit of time. In addition, they can be overly
cautious about new technologies because they are
protecting their brand investors and reputation,
not to mention mitigating potential liability. Th is
makes sense because of the size of their commitment,
the number of people that must be technically
trained, and a sales perspective that it is not
easy to reverse course with strategic customers if a
new technology fails to deliver. Once they are fully
committed, even though it may take more time,
over time they can dramatically improve their
market share over smaller competitors and may
have price advantages at that point to buy market
share. If you're not a large integrator, what is your
advantage when implementing new technologies?
Smaller SIs Are More Agile
Midsize SIs typically move faster within a marketplace
because of a shorter line of decision
making. Th e owner, founder, or senior management
team is generally readily accessible to the
rest of the organization to discuss opportunities
and risks of new tech. Still risk averse to some
degree about new technologies, they typically
move much faster with the decision, testing,
training, and marketing to launch a new technology
into their market. Th eir early adopter culture
or attitude can be an advantage in their market,
moving ahead of large competitors with new
technologies and gaining referrable customers.
In general, their rollout of emerging tech will be
smaller in scale but certainly signifi cant for product
suppliers who need market traction for their
new products. Th is makes for a good partnership
and potential launch for new products.
Smaller specialty SIs are the quickest movers
and earliest adopters of emerging tech. Th ey
typically work in real-time scenarios of decision
making, and are served by highly talented, motivated,
and intelligent workforce. If they are market
disruptors, forward-thinkers and technically
highly competent, they will often attract similar
customers that wish to push the envelope to their
advantage. Th ey generally need the most support
from a new technology provider because they're
getting to the market fi rst in applying that technology
to solve new and diff erent problems -
higher risk but potentially much higher reward as
their customers become opinion leaders within
their various vertical markets.
Also impacting SIs are security consultants, who
are infl uential applying emerging technologies to
their clients, if they solve signifi cant security challenges
in new ways. Truth be told, they're hard
sells. Th ey have heard promises of new technologies
and solutions their entire careers and their job
is to sort the wheat from the chaff for clients. Th eir
reputations are based on the success of a new technology
within their projects; so understand, if you
cannot demonstrate reliable performance past successful
applications, you will be climbing a rather
steep mountain. Security consultants can play a
key role in your dialogue of developing emerging
technologies as far as what the market is requiring.
Th e top three factors in adopting new tech:
▶ Company commitment; waffl e, you lose.
▶Well-executed fi eld implementation, which
is the tricky part to do well.
▶Motivating associates and customers to get
on board with the technology.
APRIL 2023 Security Sales & Integration 57
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Security Sales & Integration April 2023

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