Split From Ip Alarm Signalling Thread

[james.wilson]

ARCs will have to raise their game as far as services are concerned too.

Jim can you expand on this?

[jimcarter]

Will give it a go.

Whilst IP based systems provide cost savings, they are not going to come for free.

Introducing a new service into an ARC, or any other organisation for that matter, requires investment. In signalling this means hardware, software, training and setting up new administration etc. The ARC needs to be able to explain these costs, and what they mean.

On the training front I include Commercial training, this means (and this applies to all sectors in the Fire & Security Market where signalling is concerned) that those selling the services need to know the differences between them, in addition they need to know what are the differences in the reporting times and polling frequencies and how these affect risk. As I think we have found from the recent posts there is a lot of miss-information in the industry and there is a general miss-conception of what communications is all about. It is a complex subject and the most important component in a remote alarm signalling solution. I would suggest that cost is the least of ones considerations for the most critical part of the system, and if you are selling critical services you need to know what their strong and weak points are. I think that some ARCs are weak in this area, and this means that the installer/end user is not as informed as maybe they could be.

Whilst signalling systems (at a basic level) protect the circuit(s) and deliver alarms, there are many differences between them. For instance our Service and Hardware platforms are completley different from say Chiron or Emizon, even more so when comparing our service to RedCARE or CSL to the lowly Digi. Our methods of communication differ, as do our approaches in many other areas. It is our job to train and educate the commercial teams, but they in turn need to make sure they understand why x costs more than y and what the benefits are of one over the other are. They need to be able to communicate these to their Installers/End Users in a way that an informed decision can be made, and the client understands what the benefits are.

I also think there is a lack of understanding of what SIA can do for the client and especially remote maintenace via UDL and more importantly remote diagnostics of faults. Cost savings are not confined to equipment and monitoring costs. Having a remote support capability can provide operational cost savings (for the Installation company) that "may" be passed to the client, or "may" be retained as margin. The ARCs, in conjunction with their providers support teams should be able to help in fault diagnotics and advise remedial action. In our business we take on a lot of this, some do it themselves. But at the end of the day there must be a partnership between End User, Installer, ARC and Service provider.

Broadband services offer greater levels of integration capabilities over PSTN. The ability to be able to describe what these are is key to the upsell of services.

And last but not least, maintaining Customer Service, this applies to us all of course but IP based systems provide us with so much more information that the ARCs are learning how to use this and supply it to their clients, some of which they may even be able to charge for.

So raising the game is about the ability to describe the new services correctly against existing ones and being able to educate Installers and End Users so that they can make an informed decision that is not based on price alone. But it's a two way street...I think the Independent Installers (possibly) need to question more about what signalling services actually provide and what value add they can give the business and ultimatley the end user.