Axis Communications on Tuesday announced its “U.S. Expansion Plan,” which is designed to bring the company closer to its partner network and end user customers while intensifying local resources to meet market demand. The plan, which went into effect on Jan. 1, enables Axis to remain nimble while scaling to meet partner needs during this growth period.
The company has designated six U.S. business areas: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, South Central and West. Operations that thrive on regional knowledge and face-to-face interaction will move to each business area – including sales, field sales engineering, local event marketing and Axis Communications’ Academy training – to provide partners with the maximum amount of local support and business resources.
Additionally, each business area will have a dedicated customer-facing office complete with its own unique Axis Experience Center to provide an interactive environment that best showcases the full range of the company’s network video products integrated with partner solutions and how they apply to the surveillance business. The individual Axis Experience Centers will also feature facilities designed for Axis Communications’ Academy courses and partner trainings as well as boardroom-style meeting rooms to be used by Axis partners.
Three new offices are planned to open in 2014, including the Northeast office located within Axis’ Boston-area North American Headquarters opening today, the Midwest office opening in Chicago planned for Q2, and the West office opening in the Los Angeles-area during the second half of 2014.
“Partners and customers are key to Axis’ long-term success and the Expansion Plan enables us to get much closer to them,” said Fredrik Nilsson, general manager, Axis Communications. “We’ve seen the direct impact opening offices in Canada and Mexico has had on our regional success, as well as how valuable customer-facing facilities like our Boston-area Axis Experience Center can be. This plan replicates our closer-to-the-customer success across the U.S.”
The six business areas will each be run by a business area manager who is responsible for all local operations and will report directly to North American Director of Sales Larry Newman. Reporting directly to the business area managers will be an area sales manager for each business area responsible for managing the sales teams in the 24 newly defined sales regions.
“Axis celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and the Expansion Plan follows our long-term company ambition of thinking globally while acting locally to make the world a smarter, safer place,” said Newman. “The business areas and local offices not only help us better support partners and end-customers but also open new career opportunities for our team. I’m excited that the expansion plan allows us to promote from within and reward the best team in the security industry.”
Axis North America has experienced tremendous growth over the last few years, including the addition of more than 60 new regional employees in 2013 alone. The company currently has nearly 30 open positions in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
“Local offices also make Axis even more attractive to potential employees across the U.S.,” continued Newman. “We’re in great position to attract local talent and scale as a company as we keep up with the fast pace of hiring created by the growing IP video and access control markets.”
The plan follows several consecutive years of new office openings in North America. In 2010, Axis opened the doors to a Canadian office in Ontario, followed by the grand opening of its Mexico, Central America and Caribbean office in 2011, and then the ribbon cutting of a new North American Headquarters complete with the first regional Axis Experience Center in 2012.
