6 minute read
An acquisition in focus
NEWS EXTRA
In early November, Comelit Group UK announced its acquisition of PAC GDX. We take a closer look at what this means for current and future customers of both companies
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Under the newly formed and re-branded Comelit-Pac company, the acquisition of PAC GDX will enable the company to offer total integrated solutions, inclusive of networked access control systems together with door entry, CCTV, home automation, intruder alarm and fire detection systems.
Managing Director Francesca Boeris said: “This is an exciting time for Comelit together with PAC GDX. Combined, we want to provide our installers and commercial partners with a complete solution for everything related to the low voltage package. From video door entry systems to CCTV to fire detection systems, from anti-intrusion to home automation and now networked access control. Moreover, everything can be integrated together.”
Further investment into a new 12,500 sqft Manchester office, which will be the new home for the PAC GDX division, complements ComelitPAC’s office, training facilities and warehousing in Luton.
Steve Riley, Comelit-PAC’s newly appointed Business Division Director added: “We know how strong Comelit’s current offering is and we’re excited about the synergies of combining forces.”
To find out more, PSI spoke to Francesca Boeris about what this means for customers now and for the future.
Why did you buy PAC GDX? Was there a specific reason for the purchase? PAC GDX is a highly recognised UK company. During the last 40+ years, the company has earned a reputation for the development and manufacture of cutting-edge, end-to-end access control solutions and door entry systems. Today, the company offers a complete range of access control solutions including readers, controllers, ID devices and management solutions that can be integrated with video surveillance, time and attendance, intruder, and staff protection systems.
Combined, Comelit-PAC will benefit from shared research and development capabilities alongside significant investment in all aspects of the new business, from personnel to physical office locations to of course, product development. Here, we will be able to benefit from our united strengths and knowledge.
Do you intend on maintaining the brand and day-to-day running of the business as it currently exists? From now, our entire staff (90+ employees; all previous PAC-GDX and all previous Comelit UK employees) will be part of the newly formed Comelit PAC Ltd company.
Our headquarters will be based in Luton, which will encompass Comelit technical and sales support, along with the Comelit-PAC finance team and warehousing for all brands.
A new office in Manchester will be home to PAC GDX marketing, technical and sales support along with research and development and HR.
The newly aligned company and offices will work closely together to guarantee the natural continuity of business.
In the UK, I will continue in my role as Managing Director of the newly formed ComelitPAC company and I will be joined by Steve Riley as PAC GDX Business Division Director. We have also made changes within the business, promoting Justin Hawkesford to Operations Director over Comelit-PAC to ensure seamless processes from a technical, product and service perspective for the benefit of all our customers.
Which of the PAC GDX technologies are you particularly keen to be working with? We strongly believe that by adding access control to our portfolio it will enhance our offering
Francesca Boeris
NEWS EXTRA
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to our worldwide customers. A comprehensive global solution to suit all their security needs, PAC GDX is the perfect mix of innovation and reliability in the access control and door entry range. And perfectly complements Comelit’s door entry portfolio.
How do you see the companies PAC GDX and Comelit working together in the future? Is there a natural synergy there? The newly aligned company and offices will work closely together to guarantee the natural continuity of business. But more than this, it positions newly-formed Comelit-PAC as a manufacturing facility, whereby we can offer support to our customers right from initial design and specification through to project completion, with all the products required and services needed to ensure a smooth delivery to end users.
We have put our investment in to ensure Comelit-PAC can continue to leverage our capabilities and deliver the best security technologies across sector specialisms.
Ultimately, together we are stronger and able to serve our customers better.
The pandemic will probably have more of an impact on access control choices than any other technology, so do you see contactless solutions becoming the norm over the next few years? The events of the last couple of years and effects of the pandemic have undoubtedly shaped the access control sector. The biggest impact has been the focus on going mobile. Whilst the shift to mobile access control was certainly forefront prior to the onset of Coronavirus, it was accelerated through the concerns over health, safety and sanitisation brought to the fore by the Coronavirus.
Certainly Comelit has seen increased requests for its smart security systems to be monitored and controlled via our dedicated app and voice activated solutions. Alongside requests for the practical benefits of mobile credentials using BLE (Bluetooth low energy,) that enable both multimodal and multi-factor authentication.
Biometrics was another big adoption, especially contactless technology. Facial recognition has come into its own as organisations adopt it for identity verification and access control. Moving forward touchless fingerprints, iris, palm, voice, and even vain pattern may also impact the market.
The world of cloud and SaaS services is another big trend which we see coming through. Traditionally, organisations would purchase hardware such as readers, panels, and cards, then wire the system to an on-site server. Installation, testing, and maintenance were manually conducted.
With subscription-based systems, hardware like readers and panels remain on site, but servers, software, and data reside at the provider’s data centre. It’s a centralised way to manage all access, have 24/7 support, and receive the benefits of a large solution provider.
Do you expect to continue with acquisitions, maybe once the dust has settled on this one? We are committed to growth, for the benefit of our team, our customers and the industry as a whole. Moving forward our investment is a commitment to research and development.
As a group, we already invest eight per cent of turnover as part of a constant desire to innovate across our portfolio. And we will combine all our shared skills and expertise and jointly focus on product development of access control, door entry and security, together with fire safety across our sector targets.
We know that the investment that needs to be made to bring PAC and GDX back to being market leaders does not end with the purchase of the business unit. So much will need to be invested to start growing and earning market share again, but Comelit UK is ready to do it and get involved.
It means investment in research and development to make the products as innovative and modern as possible. Likewise a commitment to marketing, sales and customer support to leverage the product portfolio as much as possible. And finally an investment in the whole company infrastructure to allow Comelit-PAC to grow significantly.
We are ready to grow and continue to deliver to meet industry requirements for innovative security and fire safety products.
