In his close to 25 years in the security industry, Kurt Takahashi has gained the reputation of being a man of vision. His executive stops at Quantum Secure (HID Safe) and AMAG and previously at Sensormatic Corporation and ADT Security Services were marked by an unrelenting drive to establish salient solutions and unmatched customer service. When Takahashi stepped in as president of AMAG in 2015, he undertook a transformative realignment of not only its technology offerings but its go-to-market strategy. AMAG expanded its boundaries from an access control-focused vendor to a full-portfolio solutions provider to include video surveillance, visitor management, identity management, and fully integrated command and control software.
Now that he has arrived at Pelco, Takahashi admits it’s like coming home. Besides having a large contingent of family members living in and around the Fresno, Calif. area, he interacted with Pelco when he was working with integrators on security projects back in the 1990s. The stellar reputation that Pelco built throughout the industry in its early days is something Takahashi has not forgotten. And now that it is untethered following its sale by former parent company Schneider Electric to Transom Capital Group, he’s confident Pelco can regain a top-of-mind presence in the security industry.
This week I was able to discuss his move to Pelco and the strategic vision for the company. Takahashi spoke on a wide variety of subjects and how his past experiences at AMAG will set the tone for Pelco’s future.
Lasky: You have made stops at AMAG and at Quantum Secure, and at each place, you have certainly left a mark. Touch on how you wound up being offered the Pelco position and what some of that history is.
Takahashi: I was very happy at AMAG. I was extremely proud of the team that we had and it was very difficult, one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. Having to leave the family we established there and leaving my mentor John Kenning, who was my CEO at G4S was not an easy decision, believe me. But the opportunity presented itself out of the blue. When I heard it was Pelco, and then did research on Transom and had the chance to meet the board members, I became very excited about the potential opportunity. I was impressed with the things that they've done and their methodology and process around how they take these companies and really help turn them around through their culture process and efficiencies.
I have a very long history with Pelco back when I was just an account manager and a national accounts manager running around trying to make my way - Pelco was my technology partner. I learned a lot of what I know today in the video surveillance world because of the relationships that I formed way back when. In fact, my brother worked for Pelco for many years in their national accounts program.
Lasky: So, the history you have had with Pelco was certainly an influential aspect of this move, it is sort of ironic you now have an opportunity to influence Pelco’s future history?
Takahashi: I sold millions and millions of dollars with them and Pelco was there for me when I needed them most with some of my largest accounts. It was just a phenomenal experience. Pelco was the gold standard of how you treated people and how you partnered with people and you made those relationships strong. I got time with Dave McDonald (founder of Pelco) on many occasions, and just the things that they did were ground-breaking in terms of customer service and customer support. That was the Pelco way for many years, but then after Schneider came in, I think the culture and the process and a lot of things that characterized Pelco changed.
Our teams had a lot of fun at Quantum and at AMAG. We changed the way that we thought about going to market and what solutions we built and the partnerships that we made. I just thought, "What an amazing opportunity if we could do that here at Pelco." When I spoke to my colleagues and my trusted advisors in this market, everybody said the same thing. They all said that they would love to see Pelco come back to its iconic status in the industry.
Lasky: Obviously you haven’t been on the job long, but at first glance, how do you assess the Pelco landscape?
Takahashi: Many of my close associates are telling me this is going to be a tough challenge, but then they say it is an awesome opportunity if we can turn this around because Pelco was such a household brand for many years and people just loved the relationships and partnerships they had with the people there. I don't want to boil the ocean. What I want to do is meet the challenge and build it brick-by-brick. Fundamentals first, people first, and let's then get our business where we can deliver a great product with amazing service, amazing support and connect with our partners again to rebuild that trust. That's all I'm focused on right now. If we can get the entire organization to buy into this vision of customer first, getting back to the basics, doing what we do, then we will continuously look inwardly at our existing technology and get fundamentally sound. How do we do the next revs faster, deliver things faster, how do we get to the market quicker? We need to tackle these issues.
I'm amazed at how many people and how much business we have today across the world. We have Pelco employees in over 40 countries and we have a very wide customer base. I just think that if we can get back to the fundamentals, get our foundation set right, then we could start looking at the next step and the next part of innovation. When we accomplish it, that's when you will start seeing us grow again and then we can begin looking outwardly at how we become a market leader again.
Lasky: Ok, so, then how would you assess where Pelco technology offerings stand?
Takahashi: I think we're right there in the middle. Our biggest challenge has been our delays in getting the new features into the market at the same pace as our competitors, and I think that just boils down to the lack of investment and focus from the previous leadership.
Our president, Brian McClain, is a phenomenal leader and he has already done some amazing things internally to get us focused properly. We’ve also brought in a new head of product management, Brandon Reich, whom I'm very excited about. I think part of this is just getting the right people in the right roles doing the right work and getting back to delivering what we say can when we say we will. Pretty simple formula.
Currently, it is all about how we provide updates on our firmware, what are we doing with the next release of our Sarix camera, and our next Spectra dome, which is a little late to the market. We know we can't be late. That's the key. We have good development people. The advantage for us is we already have great building blocks, so now the goal is to get better at what we do and support the people we have. They need to be led, they need investment and that's what we're going to do.
And sure, it is going to come down to technology and I don't think that we have a really poor position there. I don't think the industry knows about it. Number two, I don't know if we're necessarily all that proactive in the market educating the consultants and the dealers and the end-users about what we're doing. Take our VideoXpert platform for example. I was very impressed with it and I've seen lots of video platforms over my years. It's a great product. Now, it needs some investment. It needs better support. It needs more innovation built into it. But when you look at a migration path from Digital Sentry and Endura to VideoXpert, it has a great trajectory.
Lasky: What are some of the lessons learned as a CEO at AMAG related to the process, operations, and technology you plan to implement in your new role at Pelco?
Takahashi: From a process perspective, I think we have a lot of great people and that's half the battle. My mantra is; right person, right role, right work. It's exactly the approach we took at AMAG. Our main focus there was putting the right people in the right place, and not just putting them in the right role, but asking them to do the right work. That's something foundational that I bring to Pelco, and everybody in the leadership team is on board with that.
From a technology perspective, one of the things that I think people talk about but don't execute well is sincerely engaging with the clients. I’m talking about engagement done in a meaningful way that strives to really understand what those business-process problems are. What are those business challenges that they're faced with? How do we help address those issues? It’s a process that takes time but it’s what determines your roadmap.
If you look at all the different products and solutions, we delivered to the market at AMAG, I think we did like nine different products over the last three years, that was 100% driven from these engagements we had with our consultants and our end-users. We historically developed product that we were not certain the industry wanted. And I see some of that similarity at Pelco. That solid engagement and understanding about what's the right way to deliver product and more importantly, how to launch a new product and eventually how you bring a new product to market, is a process that can’t be overemphasized.
Then from a marketing perspective, we must be present, we must be visible. We have a lot of great end-user stories out there and few people have heard them. We need to be able to deliver good compelling content to the industry to tell our story and we need to assume a thought leadership position in the industry. We have some amazingly smart people at Pelco that have been here for years. That’s a big wealth of talent when you look at it. The problem is, nobody knows who they are, and that’s a shame since they've got all these ideas and expertise related to our industry. Our goal here is at Pelco is to get the industry talking about us again for all the right reasons.
About the Author:
Steve Lasky is the Editorial Director of SecurityInfoWatch Security Media, which includes print publications Security Technology Executive, Security Business, Locksmith Ledger Int’l, and the world’s most trafficked security web portal SecurityInfoWatch.com. He is a 32-year veteran of the security industry and a 27-year member of ASIS. You can contact him at [email protected].
