PSIMay2017

INTERVIEW
(continued from previous page)
“When you talk to the majority of the industry these
days about security and fire service and install
engineers, most people will tell you that there is a
shortage of quality engineers so the only step you
can take is to develop new recruits”
in-depth and that is under the control of Ray
along with James Haigh who is the Combined
Services Delivery Manager, running all of the
engineers in the field. James is particularly keen
to get all of his team as highly skilled as
possible. In the last six months, for example, we
have put all of the engineers through the NSI BS
5839 course for designing a basic fire detection
and alarm system. We want to offer use the
facility for running courses where companies are
looking for a midlands venue.
What about older technology such as
analogue - will you look at that?
There is still very much a market for analogue
security systems so we are actively looking to
get service contracts for those systems for when
they come to be replaced and so we can bring
people up to speed with new technology. This
might be through any of our partners, be it
Avigilon or DVS for Hikvision which allows us to
cater for all types of surveillance systems and
applications.
Are the people you train up from scratch
going to be the first choice for jobs at
Securenett?
It depends what we are looking for at the time.
Obviously like any business we need a good mix
of personnel, some highly skilled and also new
blood. When you talk to the majority of the
industry these days about security and fire
service and install engineers, most people will
tell you that there is a shortage of quality
engineers so the only step you can take is to
develop new recruits. It's like the
apprenticeships we all remember from the past;
taking someone on to learn the basics and
incorporating college work and field based
training. Having our own training academy will
give us a real advantage.
Can you really teach an old dog new
tricks?
The industry today is prescriptive, where we all
have to stay within NSI and EN guidelines and
you have to adapt to the changing commercial
and economic landscapes. The people who don't
adapt really do not have a future. Technology is
moving at such a fast rate, which is really
exciting, and the capabilities of some of the
systems we see from partners is amazing, but if
you just carry on doing things the same way you
always have, with no awareness of what the new
generation cameras and panels can do, then you
won't last too long in business. We've got great
support from partners to ensure that we can get
our own people up to a level where we want
them and we're also in a position to help other
companies achieve the same results, so that
we've all got a bright future.
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