We had the great pleasure this month of catching up with our very own Buzz Coates, Norbain’s IP Project Manager, to understand the man inside our Pocket-size Buzz video animation series. Oh, and we managed a discussion about the speed of technological change too!
A complex beginning
Over his 30 years in the industry, Buzz’s career path has certainly not been straight! He started out working part time for Europlex in Malmesbury, pulling together their intruder and access control solutions. It wasn’t long before they offered to send him to college to obtain an Electronics HND with an emphasis in software engineering. Buzz showed an aptitude straight away for software coding and ended up writing & testing new technology for them, combined with a bit of Tech Support.
Buzz observed that this was an exciting time to be in the security industry, with increased integration starting to happen, initially seen through intruder systems being integrated into access control solutions, so that they could be operated from the same panel.
His next venture saw him move sideways into Product Management projects, to support the roll out of fibre networks across Europe for KPNQ west. He spent a lot of time on the continent, working in a very supportive team, but it was still challenging for Buzz with a young family at home, particularly during school holidays.
This experience combined with the considerable knowledge he built up of how to integrate 3rd party CCTV equipment into bigger solutions lead to him being head hunted by Norbain in 2001.
Since joining Norbain, Buzz has been a key point of call across the business for video surveillance expertise, and now combines this with being the in-house expert for Intruder and Access Control.
The pace of change and the distributor’s unique position
When Buzz himself started out as a Product Manager in the security solutions industry, it was a much simpler marketplace, educating yourself and the customers about the solutions available wasn’t very complicated and the pitfalls were normally obvious. Recording was still done over VCRs using a multiplexer and there were very few manufacturers in each of the divisions of CCTV, access control or intruder.
Just as in many other industries such as TV, these manufacturers used much the same technology. As things advanced though, more options became available along with new platforms to deliver solutions. Speed forward to today and the plethora of choice offered in today’s marketplace, means at times it has become difficult for security installers to navigate and decide the right solution for their end customers without the help of a 3rd party.
The increase in choice in the growing security industry marketplace is fantastic on the one hand, but it can also lead to confusion. Where to start accessing information on what’s out there?
Of course, this presents opportunities and Buzz pointed out that cutting through the wealth of solutions to establish the most appropriate option is the number one reason our customers use a distributor like Norbain.
Buzz explained that we are in a great position to guide them through the different routes they could take to get the best fit for the customer based on a number of different factors, such as price, requirements and availability as well as compatibility with existing systems.
And this is something Buzz really loves about what he does – navigating through the growing number of choices with the security installer to get what the customer wants. And because Norbain works with such a large range of suppliers, designing a solution to fit their requirements is a satisfying exercise for him.
From the manufacturer’s perspective, having distributors in the marketplace also allows entrepreneurial development because they can form a close relationship with one or more distributors as a route to market without having to worry about directly targeting security installers themselves.
Security as a profession
Buzz remarked that there’s another reason that the role of the distributor and similar trusted advisors are needed more than ever: Cyber Security. Technology is advancing so fast that he regularly sees instances where best practice has not been followed, potentially leaving end customers and installers wide open to the threat of crime. For example, passwords being set and left as ‘Admin Admin’.
The skillset in this crucial area is still lacking in our industry according to Buzz and he’s amongst a growing group who believe that the only way to tackle these sorts of issues is to make the industry a profession.
“Safety and security shouldn’t be compromised; we must raise standards across the sector to protect against malpractice or just plain ignorance”, he stresses.
Buzz sees that the exponential growth in demand for access control, video surveillance and intruder systems has led to plenty of poor practices: “Whenever there is high demand for services, this attracts those who just put stuff up willy nilly”, he comments. And this happens in spite of the best efforts of industry bodies like the BSIA and The Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner to provide guidelines and frameworks.
By making it necessary for security specialists and installers to gain a professional qualification, this offers protection to both the end customer and those carrying out the work.
He points out that this is what happens in most markets – development of technology outpaces the skillsets and regulations. We only have to look at a recent news story of a 3-year-old being injured by an E-Scooter in a public park to see an example from another sector of where technology has advanced before rules are in place to manage safe usage.
The only certainty is further change
Buzz also enthused about the opportunity this affords to those companies who look to grasp developments, adopting technologies first and then educating their staff across the skillsets. “This is where individuals can really make a difference in an organisation – product specialists whose role is to understand the latest advances and then disseminate this information across the business”, he says
The speed of technological change continues unabated, but one of the biggest changes for the industry that Buzz has noted has been the development of smart phones, starting in 2008 with the launch of the iPhone.
This tipped the balance of power in favour of customers, who can now shop around based on the level of access they want to manage their own solutions.
“Mobile technology has revolutionised our industry”, says Buzz, “And we are heading towards another big sea change, namely cloud technology”.
The advent of security solutions using a cloud infrastructure opens up a raft of possibilities for end user customers – direct access to increasingly powerful management tools, data mining, analytics and solution reviews, along with easier maintenance and anomaly identification.
As we’ve written about previously, (https://norbain.com/news/cloud-storage-no-longer-fluffy-why-installers-and-end-users-need-to-take-another-look-in-2021), the cloud brings security solutions right into the organisational limelight, providing management with useful information that can be manipulated to gain a competitive advantage and increase profit margins.
This is where the big players in the industry are developing their solutions now, but Buzz pointed out that the industry still needs to develop an appropriate pricing structure, because returns on investing in cloud solutions are not the usual 3-4 years, they are more like 7-10 years.
Security specialists are just as in demand as ever according to Buzz, with the complexity of solutions creating its own demand for those who fully understand how to support end users, as well as ongoing maintenance being a necessity for larger systems where clients are happy to pay for this service to ensure they are fully secured, even if this now might involve a lot of remote monitoring and maintenance.
The importance of knowledge/training?
These days, Buzz also gets involved in training Norbain’s internal sales new starters on Level 1 and then Level 2 in CCTV/Access Control/Intruder.
Level 2 ensures the attendee understands how to build up a solution, offering something that’s going to work and meets the given challenge. This stage is becoming more and more important as Norbain are asked more regularly to advise on integrated solutions, looking across existing systems that often involve different manufacturers and technologies.
“By the end of the course the sales engineer should be confident enough to pick up the phone to a customer, knowing they have full support from myself and the team in the background”, says Buzz.
Buzz is genuinely passionate about educating the industry and sharing his insights and knowledge. This is why he’s been busy working on a new range of video resources in the form of an animated series of 1-minute videos called Pocket-size Buzz and a more in-depth 3-minute video series called Tech Talk, as well as consulting on a range of topical articles and interviews
Interesting installations
Buzz chuckled as he shared some of the more unusual installations he has been asked to work on. These have included cameras that can withstand radiation within nuclear reactors, to cameras monitoring the safety of threatened Birds of Prey in remote areas!
Where we can’t provide a solution, Buzz is often able to point the customer in the right direction and his role means he gets to see a lot of interesting projects at their inception. He takes great joy from being asked for his input on a wide range of ventures due to Norbain’s reputation as a trusted advisor.
Work life balance
Together Buzz and his partner have raised very sporty offspring, in fact his two children are also both very keen cyclists, currently competing at National level with a desire to progress further.
Buzz also really enjoys supporting charity whenever he can and is currently part of a team of cyclists taking on a mammoth challenge to ride for the same number of hours as the month of the year in one day each month until the end of the 10th month this year! This is to raise funds for Friends of Young Carers (Swindon).
At the moment, Buzz finds himself extremely busy, as the security industry continues to accelerate out of lockdown and the confines of the pandemic, an encouraging sign for Norbain and the sector as a whole.
Buzz says that he loves the variety of his role at Norbain, where one day will see him working out an integrated security solution, the next learning about a new technology with a manufacturer, then he might be out on a customer site helping to diagnose a problem, followed by a switch of gear to train up our internal sales teams. And now this year, staring in his very own videos!
Our thanks to Buzz for taking time out to talk to us and share his considerable expertise and unique perspective on our industry.