the interview Vanderbilt managing director Joe Grillo: “So far, the cloud is more talk than action” A year and a half has gone by since Vanderbilt acquired Siemens Security Products, and managing director Joe Grillo says that the company has already established its name in europe and is now looking further afield. “we have the opportunity to grow organically by adding sales and marketing resources in parts of the world where Siemens held back during the period when they were trying to sell their business”, he says. By Henrik Söderlund Vanderbilt’s managing director Joe Grillo. Vanderbilt closed the acquisition of the Siemens Security Products business in June 2015, and the transaction multiplied the Vanderbilt turnover by a factor of about three. Since then, Vanderbilt, which previously only operated in North America, has put a lot of focus on building its brand name in Europe. At this summer’s Ifsec show in London, Joe Grillo was named the most influential person in the security industry. How is the brand building going? “It is very difficult to build a new brand, but I think it is going extremely well. We have more than doubled the marketing budget for this business than Siemens appropriated to this business when they owned it. I think people know who Vanderbilt is.” How are you positioned in the market right now? “We are where we want to be, even though we are not one of the huge companies, people can tell we are not one of the little guys. We are independent and that gives us a great deal of flexibility, and many options, in terms of how we grow and make other strategic moves in the market. And we are 100 per cent focused on security.” How fast are you growing? “I think we are growing roughly in line with the industry: middle single digit percentages. Much of it depends on which product line and which geography we are talk- ing about, because we are certainly not experiencing the same growth rates in Southern Europe as we are in the Nordics and some of the central European countries like France and Germany. And our intrusion business is growing faster than our video and our access control business.” What are the growth opportunities for your business? “We are a product oriented company, so as we continue to invest in building the brand, we will also continue to invest heavily in R&D, and particularly on the development of new products in all our different core areas. We also have the opportunity to grow organically by adding sales and marketing resources in parts of the world where Siemens held back during the period when they were trying to sell their business.” Which regions? “I think Latin America and South America given that we have products in the Spanish and Portuguese languages. There are opportunities there. We also have customers in the Asia Pacific region but we do not have a focused sales and marketing approach there.” You recently acquired the Dublin based Access Control Technology Ltd (ACT). Why? “It boosts Vanderbilt’s reach in the access control market and enhances our product portfolio with the addition of a cloud-based access control system and a tightly integrated VMS. With the integration of the Siemens business complete, it was time to look at new opportunities.” Are you looking for further acquisitions? “I think we have some opportunities for some further international growth. We are moving on, we are well financed and there are various opportunities out there to add to our growth.” What is the top trend in the security industry? “The top trends are, continued fast growth in video, even though it is a very difficult market to operate in for manufacturers, and the continuous influence of IT, the trend to make sure there is more openness, more open platforms. We want to make sure our products integrate with each other and that is what the consultants and end users want more of in this industry. More so now than we had in the past. And finally the cloud, even though I think it has been more talk than action, but we are now experiencing the first tentative steps along the way in an industry which tends to move relatively slowly.” What is your view on smart buildings and smart cities? “If I look at the largest types of projects, like smart cities or very large critical infrastructure projects or a large building with an integrated platform of fire, building automation, etc., I see great op- portunities to work with some of our largest value added partners. We will never compete with the largest companies like Schneider and Siemens, which offer the complete package. So, we like those projects but we will fit in to those applications by offering kind of a partial solution, providing one of the disciplines that are required when monitoring a smart city or critical infrastructure.” What will the physical security market look like in the future? “I think we will be talking less about specific products and more about solutions and I think the industry will continue to grow. I think we will see more consolidation but there is also a lot of room for smaller entrepreneurial companies that bring new technology, like biometric technology for example, more cloud based companies and interesting little start-ups.” What do you think about external companies entering this business, for example Canon and Huawei? “In the years I have been in this business, very large companies have come and gone from security. I am not saying these companies will not stay, but if you go back to the post-9/11 era, GE got into security, now they are out. As long as those companies are coming in, that is good because it shows that the industry is interesting. But over the long term, let’s see what happens.” Security News Every Day – www. securityworldhotel.com 24 • d etektor internati onal