The ASIS International Conference and Exhibitions in Orlando 2011 had its share of excitement-new products, services, solutions, training, education and so much activity. But the real joy of the show for me was meeting a really cool Diebold Advanced Dealer Program integration partner, Trae Carney, president of STOP Alarms Inc. in Memphis, an independent company that's been in business since 1970.
Carney is young, soft spoken but direct. He understands the way the market is headed. He's a traditional dealer, if I dare say, who has caught the wave of technology and is riding high with it-with the help of the Diebold Advanced Dealer Program. He offers hosted video and managed services and signed on with Diebold several months ago-and hasn't looked back since.
Embracing new technologies
"We specialize in hosted and managed video platforms and remote management," Carney said. "I was introduced to the program and really was attracted to it because of the central station services and the strength that Diebold brings in leveraging their name with ours against the competition," he added. Diebold's Monitoring Center is Five-Diamond Certified by the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) and is UL and UL-2050 certified. It was named CSAA's Central Station of the Year in both 2007 and 2011.
STOP Alarms offers residential and commercial systems as well as wireless products and even identity theft programs. It currently has about 5,000 monitored accounts and some 500 streams of monitored video, according to Carney. Other services offered by STOP include two-way voice; Alarm.com interactive monitoring, video verification, personal emergency response systems, managed access control and heat, smoke and carbon monoxide detection monitoring.
"We have an IT business person on staff and have received great training from Diebold. They have so many training programs online, everything from technical to business topics," Carney said. "The biggest challenge for us is learning new technologies, and the Diebold Advanced Dealer Program helps us do that. Diebold has definitely harnessed what's a good dealer program."
Steve Ipson, director of Advanced Dealer Program Development, Diebold, said that the company "filters out the noise for the systems integrator." "We help them with access control, managed access control, video and hosted video and fire systems. We are still in a year of recruitment but the program continues to grow. Some of the other topics we help with is how to implement a services-based model and we provide a template for a compensation program for the services model."
Any program is what you make of it and how it fits with your current business model. Dealer programs aren't necessarily there to take over your business, and they shouldn't be, but help you navigate through technology and tough times. Take a look at what the industry has to offer-there's business out there just waiting for you when you find the right fit!
