Security Sales & Integration January 2022 - 36

Management
2022 Security Dealer
Executive Roundtable
What are some post-pandemic silver linings
your company is finding to improve?
Monroe: It's planning, the need to plan more
effectively, particularly as it relates to materials
and personnel. It was so different before. We
marketed, we drew opportunities, we aggressively
pursued them, we sold stuff, we sent people
out to take care of it, we got those materials
in a few days. The project lifecycle was a few
weeks at most. Now, what used to take days
and weeks is taking weeks and months. That's
driving us to have to make sure we're staffing
for what we're going to need. This is going to
require us to learn how to be better planners.
I had one
fellow who,
because of the
pandemic and all
the things that
happened, took
stock of his life
and decided he
wanted to be a
farmer.
- Patrick Monroe,
TC Tech Systems
Jackson: Realizing that it's OK and effective
for operators and other employees to work
from home is a positive. Yet we learned that all
of one way or the other is probably not the best.
When everybody's at home, there's some efficiencies
but you struggle with culture and oversight.
When everybody's here, you have some
advantages but other things are not as favorable.
Going forward, being comfortable with a
hybrid model of some onsite and some at home
will continue and is beneficial. As mentioned,
planning better, forecasting farther and making
sure you've got products on hand is good because
it's horribly inefficient for guys to stand
around ADI rather than on the jobsite.
Another thing that has been reinforced is having
a really good relationship with your vendor
of choice, as that really pays off when times are
tough. We've been a Honeywell Resideo dealer
for a very long time. Through this, it's really nice
that we have such a good relationship with our
reps and get heads up like, " These parts are going
to be in short supply, " so we can order and stock
up ahead of time. We get first priority when a
new batch finally comes in, things like that. That
was something for which we're very thankful.
Smith: We have two columns, if you will. One
is the client base. I think the pandemic experience
gave them a sense of trust that we're not
going anywhere. A lot of businesses unfortunately
didn't make it. Our customers knew if their
alarm went off we were still calling them, still
dispatching when needed, we still had that contact.
That was huge for us. The other piece of
the client base was the potential additional RMR
with remote services such as Total Connect.
From a business side, it caused us to think
more strategically, looking at the inventory,
36
Security Sales & Integration JANUARY 2022
looking closer at numbers. And, I touched on
it earlier, but we are much closer to eliminating
wasteful paper than we were two years ago.
Going paperless is tough to accomplish. One of
the things we did was bought portable scanners,
very lightweight and small, and gave them to
each technician and person in the office. It's
helped us organize. Even while we're watching
the inventory, our organization is running tighter
and more organized now than it ever has.
Rao-Russell: Our positives mirror what a lot
of people said, like using technology better. And
yes, it also reminded us to plan better because
once upon a time when we became an employee-owned
company, we were heavily leveraged
and had to worry about every dime, and every
piece of product and everything else. Now that
we're 18, 19 years into that and with a very strong
cash flow, that's not so much the case. We weren't
as thoughtful with it. Though if gas prices keep
going up, I don't know how thoughtful I can be.
With the rest of it we'll keep working on it.
The biggest thing I can take out of it is communicate,
communicate, communicate. There
was a lot of times we took for granted that people
understood either our customers or our teammates,
our different departments. Being on more
calls and Zoom calls has fostered better communications
among all departments with everybody
knowing what's going on. That is a silver lining.
Name a technology/service that is helping
you internally, efficiency-wise, and
a technology/service you're finding high
demand for with the customer base.
Jackson: We have really shifted to text messaging
with clients a whole lot more, since that's how
they like to communicate. I would now rather get
a text message than listen to a voicemail myself
so I'm right there with them. We use an internal
tool called Podium, which is subscription-based
and does a number of things for us. It works really
well for being able to receive text messages
through our main number, and text message clients.
On the clients side, the technology they're
looking for is all about video. Previously when
someone called and said, " I want security for my
home or business, " they were talking about an
alarm system. Now that same inquiry means they
want cameras. It's been a significant shift.
Monroe: Teams has been the big thing for us.
Between Zoom and Teams, those were the big
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Security Sales & Integration January 2022

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