PSINovember2018

INTERVIEW
The inside story on external security
In mid-October Optex held an Open Day at its new EMEA Security
Headquarters in Maidenhead. Afterwards PSI caught up with Masaya Kida,
MD, Optex EMEA to find out more about the UK market and the trends he
is seeing in the industry
ptex sold over 900,000 products in EMEA
Olast year with a sales figure of about
£83m for the region across the various
markets (security, traffic, measuring,
automation etc). That's a big slice of the
company's global sales total of £257m so no
one can begrudge them a new security HQ just
down the road from the previous premises in
Maidenhead. In total the company
manufactures around 3m
sensors a year across their
Japanese, Chinese and
Vietnamese manufacturing
plants for various
applications from rail safety
through to factory
automation. PSI readers will
know the company for its
range of security systems and
also as the parent company of
UK brands such as Raytec and
Farsight.
Following a number of
presentations at the Open Day,
PSI sat down with Masaya Kida
and began asking about the
event itself:
What was the idea behind
the Open Day?
It was a combination of two
things; the fact that we
moved into a new office
building, for which we have
designed our own security
system and the fact that we
had some reorganisation in
our management and UK team with new people
on board. We thought it was a good time to
invite people to see our new premises and meet
with the team. The Open Day was also the
opportunity for the press and our customers to
see what Optex as a group can provide in terms
of security products, LED lighting and remote
video monitoring service. By including
www.psimagazine.co.uk
presentation on how our customers are using
our technology to provide solutions, we hope to
generate new ideas on how to solve specific
security problems. This can lead to the
generation of new ideas and help to forge
partnerships.
How have you changed the UK security
business since you came on-board?
I started working in the
UK in January 2018 and I
soon realised that our UK
sales structure hadn’t
adapted and evolved at
the same pace at the
market’s requirement and
we needed to rethink our
approach to the market.
After conducting a market
analysis and a customer
satisfaction survey, it
became evident we had
to re-engage with our
customer base and build
on our core strengths,
which are providing
installers and system
integrators with the right
product portfolio for their
needs, new ideas on how
to solve intrusion
problem and the right
training and support. To
enable this, Ben
Linklater, Sales Director
and I restructured the UK/
Ireland team to make it more
customer-centric. The team includes four
regional managers and two newly created roles,
internal sales executive and a national key
account manager. Be more customer-centric
doesn’t only relate to our sales structure but
also to the products we are bringing to the
market. It is key for us to engage with our R&D
to validate that new product ideas will suit the
(continued over)
Masaya Kida
“In the UK, the
external security
market is largely CCTV
driven and as such
intrusion sensors are
mainly used for indoor
security”
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