Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/31791
SECURITY SYSTEMS NEWS JUNE 2011 www.securitysystemsnews.com COMMERCIAL & SYSTEMS INTEGRATORS 19 Pennsylvania-based integrator’s interests grow Unlimited Technology, Inc. not limited to critical infrastructure; now into health care, education, national corps. Continued from page 1 in 2008. Sales dipped to about $9.5 million when the economy tanked in 2009. Since that time the company has “regained its momentum,” and did $13 million in sales in 2010, Franklin said. With more than 50 employ- ees, 15 of whom are in the New York City area, Franklin said the company does not aspire “to be huge ... we’re a smart, well-run company that has decent margins and doesn’t chase the bid oppor- tunities as a lot of integrators do to survive.” He expects the company to sustain 10 percent to 12 percent annual growth, however, and his goal is for the New York metro region and national reach to gen- erate as much revenue as the headquarters office within 18-24 months. The company’s strength is its engineering and design expertise. “Every project gets an engineered set of drawings, whether the cus- S.D. biz Continued from page 18 in the last three months.” In recent years, “the increased commoditization of products we sell makes it incumbent on us to demonstrate our value beyond the product lines we sell,” he said. “The name of a brand is much less important than developing a solution and demonstrating real security expertise.” Yunag said he’s been working with his sales staff to “change the way we sell [moving away from a products focus] and how we approach targets and prospects ... I challenge our sales people to establish relationships across verticals and we’re working now on referral networks,” he said. His staff has a visible and active presence on the LinkedIn social media site. It’s an initiative Yunag himself has taken the lead on at Dakota. Dakota staff’s LinkedIn activities also link back to the Dakota Security web site. “As opposed to the traditional cold call where you contact hundreds of people, with social media, you have the ability to determine who’s related and connected, and that can take the cold nature out of that contact.” Yunag can point to several specific examples of how social media contacts have directly, or indirectly gained his company business, and he expects that trend to continue. “While [social media] hasn’t had a life-altering affect on our business yet, I think it has the potential to do that in coming years.” SSN SNV-7080 • Up to 3 Megapixel • Full HD Capability • Remote Auto-Focus and Zoom Control • Smart Codec • Vandal Resistant IP66 Advertiser SNZ-5200 Peer into a world where solutions are achieved from groundbreaking technology… Researched and developed by an innovative global leader… Born from a culture where problems are solved… by improving on the answer. • Up to 1.3 Megapixel • 20X Optical Zoom • HD Capability SNB-7000 • Up to 3 Megapixel • Full HD Capability • Smart Codec tomer wants it or not ... We think that’s the key to standardization, support and maintenance, follow up and servicing in the future,” he said. “We do things differently.” He said the company has a “huge training budget” and its employees “are experts on the products we use.” UTI, which is a Software House Enterprise dealer, “doesn’t sell everything under the sun,” but it does work with manufacturers and customers on custom projects. It does factory acceptance tests for some customers including a recent pilot project for a municipality in New York. “We set up a test bed, where we brought all the pieces together [situational command and control, access control, intrusion detection and video], and programmed it ... so before we install it [the cus- tomer] knows it works.” An important element of UTI’s operation today, Franklin said, is its 4-year-old, six-person IT department. “It’s one facet that’s more important than anything else,” he said. “More and more customers depend on us for IT [know-how],” he said. SSN SND-7000 • Up to 3 Megapixel • Full HD Capability • Remote Auto-Focus and Zoom Control • Smart Codec TEL: 877-213-1222 VISIT US ONLINE AT: