WHEN Central Security Distribution set up as a security distributor and wholesaler in August last year there were plenty quick to suggest the market was ‘over retailed’ and that the venture would fail. But six months on, Central Security Distribution now has 5 branches, met all its short terms targets and is busying itself taking on a tight range of quality products.

Obviously the core of the CSD business is Inner Range, a benchmark lineup of access control and security management solutions for which it holds the exclusive distributorship. But alongside Inner Range’s excellent Concept gear, CSD now stocks a full line-up of Paradox panels and sensors, HID readers and FSH locking solutions. And recently the company began distribution of Dedicated Micros CCTV systems.

According to general manager and CSD director Mark Cunnington, when the company opened in August 2008 with 25 staff there were three key goals.

“Our first goal was to get the doors open without major glitches,” Cunnington says. “Our second goal was to maintain the Inner Range business through sales and support of existing customers. I had budgeted for a loss of 5-10 per cent on what we knew where Inner Range sales at the time we took over distribution and there’s been no drop off so we’re very happy with that.

“The third goal was growing the non-Inner Range sales,” Cunnington explains. “Those sales started off at zero and now constitute 20-25 per cent of total monthly turnover and are growing every month – we’re obviously happy with that as well.”

Cunnington says it’s been hard getting the message out that CSD sells more than just Inner Range.

“Not surprisingly, people do associate us with Inner Range,” he says. “But if you look at the stability of our customer base and you look at sales by product we’ve had massive growth of our new product lines in terms of sales to existing customers. So we say to our customers, yes we do HID, yes we do FSH – when you have a project come to us – and they are coming to us.” 

“Given the close relationship between CSD and Inner Range, the development team knows more than it used to know. Between a manufacturer and a distributor there is inevitably some distance but we’ve eliminated that”

According to Cunnington, there are 2 things that distinguish Central Security Distribution from other true distributors. The first is the link to Inner Range.

“It’s a separate company but having a close relationship with the manufacturer (CSD is owned by Cunnington, Inner Range’s Vin Lopes and Fratech’s Doug Fraser) means that when we get feedback from the field or we get project information we can respond very quickly,” he says.  

“Given the close relationship between CSD and Inner Range, the development team knows more than it used to know. Between a manufacturer and a distributor there is inevitably some distance but we’ve eliminated that,” Cunnington explains.

“That feedback is a very powerful thing for a distributor. We get information from users and get it straight to the engineering team. It’s a very powerful thing. Depending on customer needs, engineers can get to work on middleware for specific applications or other things customers may need – it’s a big advantage.”

But probably the biggest thing about CSD is the fact the company has elevated tech support to the status of religion.

“Virtually everyone we’ve hired is capable of solving problems in the field and knows networking,” says Cunnington. “I’m an engineer myself and last Friday I was out on site – that’s just the way it is with CSD. It’s a mindset that goes all the way through this organization.”

Cunnington says that being tech support heavy is not always ideal when it comes to achieving some business goals but he says it differentiates CSD and allows the company to put its customers first by default.

“We may not yet offer the best tech support of any wholesaler in Australia but if you look at what we’re trying to do, if you look at our training and who we’ve hired, I think we’re well on the way to offering the best tech support,” he explains.

“In most states we’ve got really competent teams and obviously that’s been our goal. When we started we thought if we couldn’t do electronic security distribution a little better than it had been done before we wouldn’t be achieving very much.”

Importantly, Cunnington says the focus of CSD is on intrusion and access control but he says the next step will be to strengthen the company’s CCTV range.

“Now we have access and alarms under our belts we’re beginning to get started on CCTV,” he says. “We began distributing Dedicated Micros late last year and we’ll be extended our video surveillance range this year.

Cunnington says CSD is not trying to take too many products on too soon.

“We don’t want to carry products that we don’t fully understand,” he says. “As a result we’re moving slowly – there’s a model for carrying as many products as you can and we don’t want to follow it. We want to stick to a small number of excellent products and we believe we have the balance right.

“Products like the Paradox range – it’s dynamite,” he says. “If you compare it to the competition Paradox is much superior. And HID is the industry benchmark for access control readers and FSH locks are superb – we’re really happy with all of them.”

CSD product manager Etwell Pausigere says the beauty of the business is that the company is still adding products.

“On the CCTV side we are looking at both analogue and IP,” Pausigere says. “We will be doing both and at the same time we’re also running courses to train the average installer to meet the market demand for IP. Whether it’s Paradox, Concept or IP cameras – we want our customers to appreciate IP because there’s a demand for it.

“We run training for installers on all products nationwide – there are certified courses for Concept, 2-day courses for Concept – we also run 2-day Paradox courses,” he says. “And we also do a one-day network literacy course. All the branches have a training room and training is a big part of our business.”

More growth coming

Cunnington says that despite the challenges of the economy CSD had a good January and a steady February. And rather than taking a negative mindset he says the company will grow in 2009.

“We see WA as a real opportunity – we’ve started from a low base and there’s clearly room for much more growth over there this year,” he explains. “Then there’s Queensland. We’re going gangbusters up there – and we’re hiring. We’ve got 30 staff now and getting the right people was the big thing.

“Most our customers are busy – some are hiring but none we know of are putting staff off. We think part of this resilience is down to the flexibility of the Inner Range product which can handle both large and small applications. Our customers do a lot of 2 to 8 door systems, not just big systems. That is an advantage when thing slow down.”

Meanwhile, Cunnington says in terms of setup the branches are close to fully operational.

“We’re going through phase 2 of the fitouts in terms of the showrooms – it’s a bit of polishing – the branches and the general infrastructure is complete – it’s the merchandising side that needs finalizing,” he says. “We’ve got our VoIP phone system working and the stock system is working well.

“In my brain I thought it would take 18 months to get the business really firing with all our systems up and running and the whole team trained on the entire product range. That’s something you can only do that product category by product category.

“Now we’re six months in and that 18 months still feels pretty right to me – though from a customer’s point of view from about month 2 onwards I think the support has been very good,” Cunnington says.

“For me the real measures of how we’re tracking are people’s perceptions of customer support and tech support – that’s really what CSD is all about.”

“Virtually everyone we’ve hired has been capable of solving problems in the field. I’m an engineer myself and last Friday I was out on site – that’s just the way it is with CSD”