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 The
Repworks Training Day
In recent years, the security industry has experienced rapid
changes in both the products now becoming available, and in
the ways our customers expect to use them. Many factors have
combined to challenge our cherished, traditional services
delivery methods. It has become apparent that no longer can
sound and security systems integrators be assured that just
because it possesses technical core competencies, it can prosper.
Many have learned that there is not an inelastic demand for
their services, nor can they succeed by merely answering the
phone and respond to customers' requests for the new and wonderful
devices manufacturers are bringing to the table at an ever
increasing pace. Instead, they have learned that they must
"bring it to the customer" to ensure being viewed as cutting
edge and responsive to their needs.
It has become painfully obvious to many that the very rapid
rate of change our industry is undergoing is both an opportunity
and a threat. We have, at every level of our industry, whether
manufacturer, rep or dealer or specifier, learned to improve
our business practices, or suffer the consequences. One aspect
that has become obvious, but previously paid scant attention
to, is the necessity for a systems integrator/dealer to field
a professional, well trained sales force, and for specifiers
to be empowered with the very latest in security design knowledge
and tools.
Many integrators have based their past success on a definition
of customer service centered on their technical abilities
to successfully install and maintain highly complex, technically
challenging, and rapidly evolving access control, CCTV and
communications systems. Many came to realize, however, that
their main link to their existing and potential customers
was through their sales force, and that to maintain continuous
contact with their significant customers and to ensure that
unfolding opportunities were recognized and responded to,
a technically proficient outside sales staff is mandatory.
Since this search for quality sales force members often leads
to seeking personnel from outside of our industry, a way had
to be found to take professional sales people and make them
into professional security and sound salespeople. Few integrators
can find these resources internally.
Another aspect of today's ever more enlightened customer is
the requirement that integration of the many elements of systems
design be incorporated smoothly into a homogenous entity…one
that minimizes the necessity of the user accepting the responsibility
of blending several systems, from multiple vendors, into a
successful whole. Today's systems contractors and spec writers
must consider adding systems elements into their offerings
that were previously excluded. Many have come to add proficiencies
such as fire, intercom, sound, structured cable, network/data
integration, CCTV, etcetera, to their offerings, in order
to better meet the end user's demands for single vendor responsibility,
further challenging their existing sales force.
Our industry, however, offers few sources for comprehensive
training services that are targeted to meet the above requirements.
While manufacturers will frequently host factory training
sessions, they are centered on their own sometimes narrow
product mix, and require expensive, time consuming trips to
their facilities. Occasionally, traveling road shows are held,
reaching wider audiences, but offering significantly less
content when compared to comprehensive factory training. Generic
classes, available from training companies, are usually limited
to the narrow spectrum of PC and/or networking techniques,
all but useless to a sales force. Added to this, many factories,
faced with more economic challenges, have elected to reduce
their field trips into their sales regions, reducing opportunities
for integrators to meet with factory sales and technical personnel.
The combination of these issues, faced with an ever increasing
need to be kept informed of new products and techniques have
frustrated many sales and technical staff members in a wide
variety of firms.
Several years ago, as these forces were strengthening and
emerging as a true paradigm shift, Repworks started to receive
an increasing number of requests for product training. At
first, the demand was for specific product "update" training…"What's
new from this factory?", "What products are available to solve
a particular requirement?" It soon became apparent during
these sessions that more was required than just specific product
line information. Questions were being asked that required
information about customers' buying trends and motivation,
integration requirements, and industry trends, while mixed
together with questions about basic technical knowledge of
system elements.
While responding to these ever expanding topics, what began
to emerge was a seminar designed to provide techniques to
enable a firm's sales and technical personnel to successfully
understand a prospect's requirements, translate these defined
requirements into a design proposal, be able to access demonstration
equipment and systems, and learn how to obtain assistance
in closing the larger projects. Another observation was that
once trained, salespeople reported back to their sales managers
about the lesson plan, and we received even more requests
for training. We were soon scheduling these classes on a routine
basis, and bringing in over 500 people a year to our facility
in Western Massachusetts. Some managers now routinely call
us to schedule training for new hires to their sales staff,
as part of their initiation into our industry. Specifiers,
from a wide range of disciplines, are also attending in increasing
numbers as they find their customers ever more asking the
tough questions about the building security packages they
will include in their designs.
Today's requests for training from the New England security
and sound community are greater than ever, and our course
continues to provide badly needed front line training for
our industry's professional sales forces. As new products
and techniques come in to play, they are added to the curriculum.
We maintain a fully functional CCTV system consisting of internal
and external fixed and P/T/Z cameras, a wide variety of PC
and non-PC based digital recorders, tied together over an
internal network, and externally accessible from the Internet
via T-1 service. Our graduates are able to demonstrate to
their customers actual viewing conditions for cameras and
recorders/servers remotely via Internet connection. External
low light level cameras are enhanced with infrared illumination
to help demonstrate performance under diminished lighting
conditions. Our doors have installed on them a wide array
of electromechanical locking and control devices to enable
attendees to see first hand how access control devices are
applied and interconnected. CD's are distributed containing
PDF's of product specifications and installation/operation
instructions. Various manufacturers' "wizards" are demonstrated
and distributed to aid in automating system design. The Repworks
2005 Training CD provided contains a hard drive storage calculator
to assist in determining best practices for meeting customers'
video storage requirements, camera wiring distance calculations,
sample CCTV designs, and other useful aids, together with
documented examples of how to use them. Additionally, the
CD contains remote software that allows Internet connection
to a Digital Video Recorder and our camera system, allowing
field demonstrations of the full use of digital video access
via LAN/WAN/Internet services.
Particular attention is also paid to the understanding of
data network techniques, and the deployment of CCTV systems
onto them. Finally, actual designs are done to help tie the
knowledge gained back to practical day to day selling opportunities.
We also make available our extensive custom Visio designs
and stencils to those wishing to produce their own proposal
drawings in the field.
We continue to modify our training day curriculum, and offer
specialized group sessions tailored to fit individual firm's
needs. Many companies bring their entire staff in for focused
and customized sessions. As a follow up, we are often asked
to provide guest speaker activities for specific end user
customer groups, presenting topics such as "New techniques
in digital recording", or "Today's trends in modern security
systems design". Installation and service personnel are also
feeling the need for increased training, and we offer on site
focused technical seminars on the installation and programming
of modern digital recorder and camera systems, access control
systems, and video door entry systems.
As the needs for modern product knowledge increases, we continue
to evolve our training techniques to increase our value as
manufacturers' representatives to our clients and factories.
Ted Curtin, CPMR
Repworks, Inc. |
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