Commercial Integrator May 2021 - 20

COVER PROFILE

of managed services.
However, changing the customer's mindset is, of course, the most important hurdle
to selling managed services. Already, so
many consumer services are on a monthly
payment schedule.
Think of services like Netflix, Amazon
and Hello Fresh, and some business services like Office 365, Zoom, cybersecurity
solutions and even printers and copiers.
" They're already buying a lot of stuff this
way already, " says Ebnet. " Nobody's ever
talked to them about buying an access
control system on a monthly payment. "

Experience and people come first
Effecting that kind of change and overhauling exactly how technology is delivered
takes extraordinary buy-in from employees
and customers. However, that is much
easier to do when employees and customers feel that they're with a trustworthy
organization.
According to Lehrman and Montelius, it
is the company's people and culture that
has kept the business alive for the better
part of a century.
Lehrman, a former board member, came
on as CEO in October 2019, and the employees - many of which have been there
for an impressive amount of time - are her
favorite part of the company.

" When you look at our mission, vision
and values-do the right thing-that's
core to CEC and we really want that to
show up in our communities and add
value, " she says.
Rather than Crestron, Rauland or other
brand names commonly associated with AV
and integrated systems, CEC prides itself
on instead selling the customer experience
as its core product.
To that end, the company got through
2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic without
having to reduce headcount, and the result
was a " pretty good financial outcome, "
Lehrman says.
" But mostly, we had a good people
outcome, " she says. " In all that uncertainty,
we kept the drumbeat going. "
Much of that success in an otherwise
disastrous year for global economies came
because of a strong foothold in the healthcare market, helping customers transition
to remote work with improvements in
videoconferencing solutions and providing
vaccine administrators with cold storage
solutions.
However, it's clear that the company's
foundation is its people and culture, which
bleeds into how the company interacts with
its customers.
CEC provides a career path that affords
employees the opportunity for growth and

CEC's program provides businesses with flexible financing options and helps eliminate
the large up front capital costs often associated with large technology installations or
upgrades.
20  Commercial Integrator  MAY 2021	

CM2105 pp18-21 CEC Profile.indd 20

to decide for themselves what technology
interests them the most, says Lehrman.
Encouraging employees to seek out
new opportunities within the company
and hone their skills to the point where
they become technical masters in that
subset of technology only helps the company establish deep relationships with its
customers.
" We really try to make that experience
positive from setting expectation s of what
the customer wants, through management
of the systems and that system's lifecycle, "
says Lehrman.
" Our continual improvement of work is,
'How do we make that experience better
for our customers, and how do we make
it better for our employees?' That's really
what sets us apart, " she says.
That creates a much happier workforce
that comes to work to do something they
are passionate about, Montelius says.
" To be able to match up somebody so
they wake up engaged to do what they
love to do every day - how powerful is that?
When we can do that, that messaging is
kind of contagious, " he says.
To help find those people in the first
place, the company has representatives
that sit on technology boards of local
community colleges, operates an internship programs at local higher education
institutions and offers other programming
to young adults who may not be seeking a
college education.
" We've got some really talented people
in our organization today because of that
program, " Montelius says.
That passion and natural curiosity for
technology that CEC encourages even
helped the company poach some top talent
from one of its customers.
Jim Anderson, the company's general
manager of network, infrastructure and
audio visual, previously worked in IT at
Loras College, a small private college in
Dubuque, Iowa. However, his passion
wasn't higher education.
Rather, it was the technology that he
helped implement and maintain that truly
drove him.
What he instead wanted was growing
his technical mastery in IT at a company that
prides itself on being in lock step with the
commercialintegrator.com

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Commercial Integrator May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Commercial Integrator May 2021

Commercial Integrator May 2021 - Cover1
Commercial Integrator May 2021 - Cover2
Commercial Integrator May 2021 - 1
Commercial Integrator May 2021 - 2
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