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That’s one of the key messages delivered to over 200 international attendees at this month’s Gallagher Security Channel Partner conference at Wintec, Hamilton.

Hosting key channel partners from 23 countries, Gallagher Security General Manager, Curtis Edgecombe says the objective of the four day conference was to challenge businesses to think outside their standard offers when delivering security solutions to end users.

He says traditionally, businesses are focussed on selling either an access control system or physical perimeter security and very rarely have the two concepts been introduced for a complete integration.

“The message we want to convey is that security is no longer just a product – it needs to be a collaboration of services to win hands-down. Anything else has limited scope for future development. “We want to help our channel partners grow their profit but to do this we need to redefine the security offer.”

Mr Edgecombe says his team is focussed on introducing access partners to perimeter partners – and don’t forget to include third party products in the mix - to offer a high level integration solution, a move he says is part of the overall Gallagher business strategy.

“Gallagher Group is moving towards a single global brand. This means we need to re-align our security division and the brand names we currently have in the market and this will require minimal changes for our channel partners.”

Mr Edgecombe says the conference was the perfect opportunity to present information on the group’s overall business strategy and to provide details on how channel partners would be supported during the transition.

“Gallagher Security has a vision to be a global technology brand and we will be offering our partners strategies to leverage off the global brand.”

Throughout the conference attendees were involved in a variety of presentations from keynote speakers and practical workshops with topics ranging from new product innovations to rapid fire branding. Mr Edgecombe says in planning the event organisers recognised the need to deliver high quality speakers and topics to demonstrate Gallagher Security’s commitment to the new business strategy.

“To make the next step our company needs great people and committed partners on board. We are extremely fortunate that Gallagher Security has a strong reputation for establishing and maintaining high quality partnerships particularly through our internationally recognised Channel Partner Programme.”

He continues, “We maintain a strict selection process for channel partnerships and once they are on board we need to ensure those partners are fully supported and continually updated with new information.”

Mr Edgecombe says feedback during the conference has been extremely positive and he knows it’s up to his team to continue the momentum that has built up over the past few days.

“I’m extremely proud of my team. We’ve presented fantastic ideas, created lots of discussion and received lots of ideas and suggestions that we can work with our channel partners on – that’s what makes a successful partnership.”