Considering Adding Cctv To Our Portfolio

[Guest DRB Communications]

Hi Guys,

I am looking to maybe add CCTV to our portfolio of Voice & Data Installation Services.

A lot of our installs for structured cabling also have a 3rd party installing small CCTV packages, I am looking to add this as another service we could offer.

We have found that we are being called on to supply the wiring for these 3rd party CCTV suppliers, so my thoughts are if we are doing 50% of their install why not do 100% and offer the client a complete package

What I could really do with is recommendations for UK based distributors/suppliers of CCTV products (especially those supporting IP based products), so any contact names numbers of companies you could recommend that provide a good distribution and support service would be a good start.

Look forward to hearing your recommendations.

Dave

[Doktor Jon]

Hi Dave, and welcome!

I can't personally recommend any distributors as I have to remain impartial ( independent CCTV advisor ), but if you need a listing of UK companies, just send me a PM and I'll forward the link.

No doubt the other guys will be along shortly, with tales of their favourites, not so favourites, and the distributors that are already members of this forum.

A word of caution for you though; although buying equipment and plugging it togethor may seem fairly straight forward given your previous experience, there are lots of potential pitfalls involved in CCTV / IP Video, so be prepared for what can be a very steep learning curve.

D.J.

[Guest DRB Communications]

DJ,

for your kind welcome to the forum

Please send me your link the more the merrier (yay.... soon be Christmas)

I'll take note of your caution, but we wont be running before we can walk on this, at the moment everything is in the early stages of development, what I need is an idea of costs involved for the products and training and of course a list of distributors that can offer the service we would be looking for (and who could maybe hold our hands during the early stages), what we like to do is set up a demonstration unit that lets us play with new products prior to actually offering them as part of our portfolio, we are only a small company but have been in business for just under 7 years, our sales for this year are just over 200K (last year was abysmal) but for a 2 man company we haven't done too bad, but there is always room for improvement

One of our main clients does complete office refurbishments and we have been called on a number of occasions to provide the cabling for the CCTV and Door Access for other parties, what we want to do is take that work from them and offer our clients and the end customer one package that will cover their Voice & Data needs plus their CCTV and Door Access equipment with one point of contact for any concerns, you would be surprised at the amount of times we have been called out because the 3rd parties have said its a fault with the cabling only for us to prove them wrong, this is a wast of time and resources for us and an inconvenience for the end customer because they end up not knowing who they should call out for a fault.

I know it will be a steep learning curve, but it helps if your interested in how something works rather than looking at something as "Oh its just a job" Hence I'm the technical guy who will evaluate the products prior to offering them to our clients, if I'm not comfortable in their set-up and operation then they do not get offered, for my sake and the end clients we try to keep learning on the job down to a minimum.

Dave