Carter Brothers focuses on national accounts

ATLANTA—National fire and security integrator Carter Brothers is realigning its business to focus on national accounts and it's partnering with S2 Security as part of that process.

“We have over six thousand different buildings under contract across the country, we already do business nationally. Now we're going to go after national accounts in fire, video and access. It's the logical next step for us,” John Carter, Carter Brothers CEO and president told Security Systems News on Feb. 18.

Carter Brothers has 12 branch offices and through its project managers it operates in 26 cities and 50 municipalities across the country. It has more than 250 employees and FY10 revenues in excess of $70 million.

Its major clients include Pepsico, FritoLay, Bank of America and Standard Register.

Carter Brothers is one of a handful of well-established fire installers with a national presence. Carter believes this will be an important differentiator for Carter Brothers as it seeks to establish its national accounts business.

For its current large customers, Carter Brothers will seek to get all of the fire, video and access control business in all locations across the country. It will also be looking for new opportunities.

End users with a national presence are looking for “one throat to choke,” he said. And, the fact that Carter Brothers has an established fire division provides a “barrier to entry” for integrators who do not have a major fire division.

As part of this effort, Carter announced that the company is partnering with S2 Security, a provider of IP-based integrated security systems. Its products are network appliances that require only a web browser to use. Its systems support access control, alarm monitoring, temperature monitoring video surveillance and intercom.

“This is a strategic alliance for us [to work with] a major national player,” said John Pierangeli,  national sales manager for S2 Security. The partnership came together quickly after the two companies met at the ASIS show in October of 2010. “We just met in October and we've done all of the basic training in all of the branch offices,” he said.

Steve Board, VP of national accounts for Carter Brothers noted that both S2 and Carter Brothers are “service-based businesses, and there are synergies to be had with both companies.”

Rob Costello, SVP operations & General Counsel for Carter Brothers, said Carter Brothers likes the open architecture, scalability and IP network features of the S2 system. “We love this product for national accounts and otherwise ... it has large scale capabilities and it's affordable to for smaller locations as well.”