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This month Simon Banks talks to James Gribben, Chief Commercial Officer at the BSIA (British Security Industry Association).
What are the main focuses for you in your new role?
I’ve always been passionate about customer service and delivering value to installers and end-users. This has been a focus throughout my career in the security industry and now for the BSIA, I’m keen to ensure we do the same for our member companies. My prime responsibility will be to focus on these two pillars and drive membership retention, growth, and interaction.
The industry is changing. New, unregulated market entrants are appearing all the time. Whilst the industry needs to embrace technological change, we are working closely with members on how we collectively position and protect ourselves. Members don’t want to lose market share, so we need to be agile and adapt to these threats. By ensuring companies are fully engaged with us we can work together on standards and codes of practice, meaning our members are playing a pivotal role in shaping their part of the industry. In doing this, we can differentiate professional security from unregulated, B2C competition.
As an industry, we are stronger together in facing the challenges of the wider world. Advances in technology, ever-changing standards, and the threats of disruptors from other sectors can only be controlled by a strong association and its members. Furthermore, those companies who are engaged with us, are helping us to set the path for the future. I would encourage others to consider how the impacts of this will affect them and ask them, wouldn’t they want to be involved to help influence our collective roadmap?
What are the latest industry challenges that the BSIA is communicating to their members and the wider industry?
One of the key challenges our industry faces is the UK’s All IP project or PSTN network switch-off. Our Director of Technical Services, Dave Wilkinson, has recently received a series of reports from some member companies that migrations from the PSTN phone service, to the new All IP platform, are happening without sufficient time for customers to act. Installers are unable to mitigate changes to their alarm systems before the switchover and this is causing many alarm systems to lose their monitored connectivity to an ARC. The BSIA is focusing on working with and for the industry to ensure a smooth transition, by educating Installers to act now and sharing these concerns with Openreach, Ofcom and Connectivity Providers such as BT, Sky and TalkTalk.
Where can members and potential members meet you?
We will be hosting our BSIA AGM and Networking Drinks event at IFSEC’s HQ in London on Tuesday 26th April 2022. The AGM is for members only, but I would encourage any non-member companies to join us for the networking drinks afterwards. It will give them a great opportunity to meet our team, talk to existing members, and discover all the benefits of being part of the BSIA.
Please visit the BSIA website now to reserve your place: www.bsia.co.uk
YOU SAID IT!
“Good product range to choose from. The equipment is straightforward to install and
set up. Whenever I have had to speak to Tech Support they are very knowledgeable and
polite. Cannot fault the customer service, keep up the good work.”
Deiter Cullen (Anglican Security & Fire)– Google Review – 20 December
