Pacom's new CEO: Magnus Jonsson

SYDNEY, Australia--After three months on the job as the new chief executive officer of integrated security system manufacturer Pacom Systems, Magnus Jonsson is confident he made the right decision. Leaving his position as vice president of business development at access control giant Assa Abloy, "was a hard choice," he admitted, "but I know about Pacom, and I knew its potential." "I see Pacom as a company with great technology, but poor brand awareness," Jonsson said. "I say it's the best hidden secret in the security industry. I come from a marketing background and see the opportunity of letting the market know more about us." He said going forward that Pacom would focus more on large, multi-location customers, who need higher-end solutions and reliable redundancy. "That's where they get the advantage of the product," Jonsson said. "There are a lot of manufacturers that are good at producing good quality product at a little bit lower cost than us because of their volume, but without the possibility of doing as much customization as we can for high-end customers. That's a niche for us: customers with high requirements." "If we look at the system architecture," he continued, "and the real strength of the deployment of the control panels over a large area communicating back to a central location, any vertical that has those requirements is the ideal solution for us, and that's what we're going to focus on." He claimed that's different from typical access control systems offered by Lenel, GE Security's Casi or Software House, which he said are "made for large buildings," where "our system is developed for that job with 4,000 sites." He cited the Royal Bank of Scotland as an example. They've networked as many as 5,000 branches for the bank since 1996. Pacom has a long history in the financial arena, where it once had now-defunct Mosler exclusively selling its products in North America. Diebold then held exclusive rights as a reseller until late 2003, when more resellers entered the picture. "But I think it's important," said Jonsson, "to do more with Diebold to work with the end users as well, do joint development of the market. With a system this complicated, it requires a lot from the manufacturer to go out and help, not just sell a box and say go figure it our for yourself ... We'd like to have a few really good resellers, rather than go the route of the large distribution network." One of those resellers is Securitas Systems, which actually owns Pacom. However, said Jonsson, "even though they own us, we're kept at arm's length." He said the relationship is almost purely customer-supplier. "Customers are becoming more educated and require choices in integrator and product," Jonsson said. "They require open architecture, which we are moving into, and they require open installation, to make sure they get the best service for their money. It's important to remain independent and not really favor Securitas."