For many businesses, the period going into a New Year is the time to sit down, review developments of the past 12 months, plan their future budgets and create a roadmap of goals for the year ahead. The process can be downright daunting with many questioning: ‘Who can foresee what will happen a year from now?’ Yet for San Jose, Calif.-based RFI Communications & Security Systems, a multi-systems integrator in the commercial, residential and enterprise markets, the strategic planning goes even further.
“I don’t think there is a one year plan in business anymore,” said Brad Wilson CPP and president of RFI. “The economy doesn’t allow us to plan that way anymore. We are now deeper into the three-to-five-year planning stages. The commoditization that is occurring—the brokering of products and single-digit margins—they’re here to stay. And the strategic initiatives really have to be focused around programs and service management. There is no secret sauce to ensuring that.”
And with the addition of Dan Kilgore, appointed to the newly created position of managing director of Enterprise Sales, the system integrator’s focus is to continue to develop its business and provide solutions across the number of segments of the industry it represents.
“It’s not so much that I’m going to be driving any new behaviors from a standpoint of what we are selling,” Kilgore explained. “We are looking to grow the business in the areas that we have been already and continue to develop those relationships as well as find new opportunities within the territories and verticals that we were in before.”
A member of Security-Net, Exton, Pa., a network of independent systems integrators, the company expanded its portfolio of products and services in intrusion, video surveillance, access control, network infrastructure and more over the last several years. “The industry provides opportunities now where smaller alarm companies want to capture more market share and some of the larger systems integrators want to drive more service revenue,” said Wilson. “We have developed a suite of products and services that support that scalability. The critical element is to get that type of communication out to the industry and to our clients and Dan’s experience and proven leadership in managing that type of activity is in the best interest of RFI,” he added.
Kilgore has 25 years of security industry experience, with past positions at Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, Johnson Controls, Siemens and ADT Federal Systems.
“What we are looking for is to leverage what it is we do so well and make sure our customers recognize that value as they engage us as their trusted advisors,” added Kilgore. “The customers are changing and evolving with the sophistication they demand of us and themselves. And this is going to change through your vertical and through the industries you’re servicing. That’s something we have to continue to be aware of because we’re in this hotbed of technology. Being customer-centric and to be able to attune ourselves to the demand of our customers is paramount.”
“At 30 years, most businesses would probably be at the end of their life cycle,” said Wilson. “We are just transitioning to the next level and Dan is a critical component of that transition,” he concluded.
