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Leading U.K. access firm comes to U.S.

Leading U.K. access firm comes to U.S. Paxton Access to emphasize design, customer support, distribution channel

BELLEVUE, Wash.--The biggest access control manufacturer in the United Kingdom, Paxton Access, has opened its first sales office here, and is looking to both grab market share and create new markets for its standalone and network-based access systems. "We actually registered the company in California 18 months ago," noted Adam Stroud, head of sales and marketing for Paxton's UK arm and the sole director of the U.S. entity. "We've been slowly increasing our exposure to the U.S. market. We didn't want to go in all guns blazing because we wanted to learn a little bit before we increased our exposure." Anthony Searle is the sales manager here in Bellevue, having moved from the U.K. offices, where he's been for five years. Stroud said Searle will be training installers here and there will be a full-time technical support person as well. In addition, Paxton has set up a night-shift at its U.K. offices to handle service calls from the United States. "That's something we're very strong on," said Trish Bambury, Paxton marketing manager, "our customer support." Stroud said at the moment Paxton is selling directly to the installer/integrator, but "we have a preference to deal through distribution. We believe it really makes sense and fits our business model." He couldn't say which distributors he was currently negotiating with, but said, "When we go to market in a big way, we want [product] to be available next day, at least, to any company in the United States. There are only a few companies that can offer that capability." Other emphases at Paxton include design and simplicity of installation. "We provide a product that's not an engineers' product," Stroud said. "It's something that fits together with a low number of components, in a clear and easy way. We're trying to show installers that this is really easy and the technology and the systems have reached a maturity where you don't have to have egg in your beard to put these things together." Plus, he said, "they look good, they're marketed very well. These aren't just utilitarian lumps of plastic. You spend $20,000 and you don't want a lump of plastic in your nice foyer that you've paid a lot of money for." He said there are elegant options for architects to choose from, which will be on display at ISC West, and a full-color LCD screen is in the works.

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