Throwing its weight

ATLANTA--Johnson Controls announced a major commitment to the security integration market here on the ASIS International show floor. Lisa Roy, vice president, global security strategy with JCI, said the company would double its security integration workforce over the next five years, with growth both 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 which 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, JCI vice president of security & fire, said, “we’ll take the 17 percent growth on that 24 billion dollars. That would be fine.” Michael Mann, JCI’s director of solution development for the global security team, recently came to the company from IBM, and he said JCI will take some of its lead from the way IBM operates. “We’re going to stop talking about products,” Mann said. “You’ll hear us talking about solutions and talking about customers and their businesses.” Roy also said acquisitions will be evaluated based on an integrator’s capabilities, along with geographic location. “We’re working with partners that focus on complex integration,” she said. “Then we’ll consider further relationships.”