Security Sales & Integration April 2022 - 24

EXCLUSIVE!
Management
Security-Net Executive
Roundtable
We are
continuing to
struggle with our
industry's
absolute failure to
prepare for the
supply chain
challenges that
have occurred. It's
been one of the
most unforeseen
frustrations.
- Dave Sweeney,
Advantech
tivity as the result of all of that. We were able to
manage all of that and get through it. I can't say,
though, that we had growth numbers. We did
not grow into 2021 and 2022. The backlog has
stayed solid and we're managing that.
When we were together on those weekly Security-Net
calls, we were figuring out how do
we do PPE? How do we handle the government
loan situation? What are those forms? What's
the timing? It was an incredible opportunity
for all the partners to come together and share
knowledge so we were collectively a lot stronger
and more prepared.
Dave Sweeney, General
Manager, Advantech: Having
recently evaluating our company's
last two years of key performance
metrics, it was exciting
to see not only did we survive the pandemic,
we've thrived. We experienced everything the
other partners referenced, especially at the onset
where there was a lot of uncertainty. We are very
fortunate to have customers that consider us
partners and critical to their business operations.
We think the outlook is strong in our economy,
in our market. I think there's a ton of pentup
demand, with projects, needs or systems
that may have been delayed or paused the last
18 to 24 months.
Craig Jarrett, President, Netronix:
We're spread out so,
for us, the pandemic's effects
have not been consistent. Our
largest office in Northern California
has probably been affected the most,
and most of our large customers in the Bay
Area have been working from home so they
haven't had a lot of need in their offices. Our
revenues have been flat where one drops but
others have picked up. We've been able to
maintain most of our people by being able to
send them to other office locations that have
been busy. We've been a net neutral.
Barry Komisar, Founder &
CEO, Vision Security Technologies:
We had tremendous
growth in 2020 of 30%.
We maintained that same revenue
in 2021, a lot of that because of the government
and infrastructure that we do.
There were a lot of business lessons learned
24
Security Sales & Integration APRIL 2022
during the pandemic, such as the efficiency of
virtual meetings. We're working on a large opportunity
for a new university about two hours
away from our office. Rather than spending five
hours a day driving back and forth for multiple
meetings we did it all virtually. That was time
saved for other things.
That said, culture at our company is very
important. Not having company or customer
events or the personal facetime has made it
challenging to maintain the culture.
One of the top business ramifications of the
pandemic has been the supply chain issues.
How has it impacted your company and what
are some things you're doing to deal with it?
Sweeney: For sure we are continuing to struggle
with our industry's absolute failure to prepare for
the supply chain challenges that have occurred.
It's been one of the most unforeseen frustrations.
If you'd have given me a crystal ball and said,
" Hey, in 24 months your business is going to be
great, customers are going to pay you to do stuff
and you're going to have tons of healthy employees.
You're just not going to be able to buy the
stuff to put it in, " I would have said, " No way! "
Ultimately, that's what's happened. That continues
to be a daily, weekly, monthly challenge
that our team is overcoming. Our customers are
being flexible, but certainly is yet another lingering
pain in the you know what from COVID.
What has allowed our sales teams to accept
coaching through this predicament for the uncomfortable
conversations with their customers
is that the customer can't go down the street
to get a different answer. We have had a few
customers who have said, " I can't believe that's
the delay time you're giving me. Cancel my order! "
We've said, " Up to you, we totally understand. "
We've not canceled their order behind
the scenes, and then they call back about four
hours later and say, " Can I get that order back
again? " They learn this challenge is pervasive.
As an organization responsible for delivering
a solution to a customer, most frustrating has
been the unpredictability. It's one thing to be
delayed; I can deal with that. But the supply
chain we've been dealing with has been the
most unpredictable I've ever seen. It's really
impacted our ability to be efficient. If we have
95% of the products, do we hold performing
the installation until we receive the other 5%,
or do we go get 95% of the job done and go
back when we have the other 5%?
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Security Sales & Integration April 2022

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