Johnson Controls commits to doubling security staff, acquisitions

ATLANTA--Johnson Controls announced a major commitment to the security integration market here on Monday. Lisa Roy, vice president, global security strategy with JCI, said the company would double its security integration workforce over the next five years, by growing organically and through a series of acquisitions. "We decided," Roy said, "that we were going to more than triple our market share in the security integration space." With 500 locations around the world, and a great deal of business in the HVAC and building controls space, Roy said Johnson Controls is well positioned to go back to current customers, only seven percent of whom buy security systems from JCI, and show them how security systems can be integrated with the rest of their building systems. "We want to solidify Johnson Controls first and foremost as an integrator," Roy said, "with the confidence we can go toe to toe with any integrator in the world. But we're not just a security integrator, we use technology to better business outcomes." As part of this initiative, Johnson Controls conducted a survey of security end users and came to the following conclusions: The market is growing at a 10 percent annual rate, with roughly $104 billion in annual spending; of that, $24 billion is being spent on integration alone, and that market is growing at a 17 percent annual rate. Asked from whom he sees JCI taking market share, Joel Lehman said, "We'll take the 17 percent growth on that 24 billion dollars. That would we fine."