Security Technologies Group together with Far-pointe Data have started an advertising campaign de-signed to increase brand awareness and increase sales leads for our channel partners.

Previously the advanced feature set of the Farpointe

range had been the best kept secret in the indus-try so we needed to address this by raising awareness within the security sector.

With many new features and tech-nology advances

in the pipeline, STG re-quired a vehicle to impart this information to the mar-ket.

We selected Professional Security Magazine as they have the broadest reader-ship base and due to their mix of Installers, Integrators,

Security Managers, Consult-ants and End Users

Professional Security Maga-zine has run several adver-tisments from both com-paies together with Press Releases and a Case Study.

For further information on this range please contact:

marketing@s-t-g.co.uk.

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 3

August 2010

TO INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS OF FARPOINTE READER RANGE

NewsletterNewsletterNewsletter

Inside this issue:

Special points of in-terest:

• STG Launches Marketing and Advertising drive

• Stone Street Club up-grades security whilst streamlining membership subscription

• STG Launches Heavy-Duty Request to Exit Push Button

• G2 Security Launches revamped Web Site WELCOMEs MTS SECURITY

STG are pleased to an-nounce the appointment of MTS as a Pan European deployment vehicle for its advanced range of prod-ucts.

Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with satellite offices in various locations, they specialise in EMEA rollouts for global multinationals.

They focus on the

commercial and corporate sector and currently offer service and technical sup-port to a number of high profile clients, both in Ire-land and internationally.

They have access to a net-work of tried and trusted suppliers and service pro-viders in addition to their own team of engineers and technical support staff.

Their clients include Boston Scientific, Élan Pharma, Hitachi Data Systems and renowned multi-national software and hardware manufacturers.

They have hit the ground running by supplying and installing a number of STG long range readers to solve vehicular access to a distri-bution depot.

Brand Awareness 1

MTS Security Appointment 1

Stone Street Club Case Study 2

G2’s New Web Site 3

Stone Street Club Case Study 3

Request to Exit Button 3

Stone Street Club was founded in 1887, it has been a Maidstone land-mark for more than a century and is moving itself forward at quite a pace under the new management team.

Being a Private Members Club, it is owned by those who pay their sub-scriptions. Little did a small group of businessmen who got together to found the club, over 120 years ago, envisage the success it would enjoy over all these years!

This successful club has also been dubbed “Maidstone’s best-kept secret”, as many people have often wondered what lay behind the black door at the bottom old Gabriel’s Hill - the entrance to their lovely Grade II listed building.

Nearly 600 members know exactly what goes on; snooker, entertainment, fine foods, and most important of all, a relaxing atmosphere in good com-pany. The business people of Maid-stone have looked upon the Stone Street Club as a haven through two world wars, and are still using the Club’s spacious premises for business lunches, meetings and drinks after work on the way home.

The current President, David Brooks, leads a dynamic management team w h i c h i n c l u d e s A l b e r t Sopata (Treasurer) and Mike Loft (Secretary) along with twelve Committee Members.

The Club boasts a relaxing atmosphere in both the bar and lounge areas and, on most Saturday evenings, is the venue of free, live entertainment.

The Problem

The previous security system was anti-quated and was no longer supported by its supplier. It had a problem with the data input termi-nal making it impossi-ble to add, remove or edit cards without the charged attendance of an engineer to carry out program-ming works.

As the Club relied on the subscriptions from its members to aug-ment their revenue requirements it was imperative that these subscrip-tions were collected on time. Previ-ously subscriptions were managed via a manual card index system with mem-

This manual process not only ad-

sorbed considerable administrative time and effort but also meant that as there was no real incentive to renew subscriptions some renewals slipped through the net meaning a loss of revenue.

The Requirement

Consequently the Club was looking for a system to close this loop hole and protects its income and so the Club’s committee decided to tender for a suitable solution. An additional pre-requisite was to utilise the existing door furniture, CCTV cameras, intruder alarm detectors and wiring and utilise within the new system.

The Solution

Seven companies were invited to ten-der for the required works and Secu-rity Technologies Groups Systems Inte-grator, Vision Security Services Ltd., was selected as “the quality of their bid submission was significantly better than the other six responders. They outlined the problems together with their proposed solutions and provided a detailed offer which also included schematic floor plans. To cap it off they formally offered to work in part-nership with the club to resolve the outlined issues. When all of the quotes were put to committee all members chose the Vision bid due to its quality, detailed content and thor-ough appraisal of the issues to be re-solved. Vision Security Services had the foresight to incorporate member-ship management into their offer which no other tender invitees had considered. Merging the functions of the subscription management opera-tion with an access control system

P A G E 2

ber’s subscription details recorded on the index card and a receipt being issued to the member, by the Club’s administrative staff, that entitled them to 12 months access to the Club and its facilities. Each member was additionally given a 2 month grace period thus if a subscrip-tion had not been renewed access to the Club should have been denied after 14 months. The previous system, even when working, could not automatically revoke ac-cess rights to the facility based upon this 14 month criterion.

This presented the Club with several problems to solve. As the integrity of the previous system was compromised it was as-sumed that everyone in the club was a bona fide fee paying member. As some members were not issued with cards they would depress a buzzer at the entrance door and bar staff, in periods of high activity, would re-motely unlock the door and automati-cally let people in without checking their credentials.

Once inside the Club people were rarely challenged, if a person was known to Club staff, other than admin-istrative staff, it was assumed that they were paid up members even though they could have let their subscription lapse for many months. If it was dis-covered that these people were bene-fiting from the clubs subsidised facili-ties at the expense of the Club and its members it was not felt to be in the spirit of the club to evict these people as it could cause resentment towards the Club staff.

There was no way of automatically knowing whose subscription was due

for renewal. This meant that on a weekly basis, s o m e o n e would need t o g o through 600 paper mem-bership re-cords to as-certain who

had and who had not renewed their subscription. Having done this the Club would then have to write to the relapsed member requesting their dues.

N E W S L E T T E R

VISION SECURITY SYSTEMS UPGRADES CLUB

The Stone Street Club is a Private Members Club founded over 120 years ago. Dubbed as “Maidstone’s best kept secret” it provides a relaxing atmosphere for its 600 members.. The club was looking to replace a labour intensive manual subscription system and defunct security system with an advanced solution designed to meet specific requirements and at a price that remained within their budget.

would reduce administrative over-head, improve efficiency, and reduce the overall costs to the Club”, stated Mike Loft (Club Secretary).

Vision offered to source and deploy a solution including the following spe-cific requirements:

• • Automatic expiration of mem-bers Access rights after 14 months of payment if not re-newed.

• • Customisable Database with multiple, user defined, search fields which would assist the Management Team to run reports based upon multiple criterions.

• • The ability to import over 600 members details into the new system without manual entry.

• • Assistance with the deploy-ment of the system with a high degree of hand holding during the “going live” pe-riod.

Security Technologies Group, the EMEA distributor of access control systems and peripherals, worked closely with Vision to select systems that would solve the problems identi-fied. For the access control system the Keyscan System VII was selected due to its flexibility, ease of use and cost effectiveness. “With over 40,000 sys-tems installed worldwide it was a tried and tested solution, which was an important consideration for us”, noted Chris Bedding, (General Manager for Vision). To augment the Clubs security initiatives, proximity readers from Far-pointe data were selected. These read-ers, when utilised in MAXSecureTM mode, ensure that each card is totally unique and cannot be duplicated and utilised unlike others on the market.

is therefore in the club. If that person is not in the club or the car number plate is not registered, the club can ask their parking contractors to deal with the matter.

Loft went on to say “The system is highly graphical, so an added bonus that we were not expecting was the ability to lock and unlock doors from a graphical representation of our build-ing on the PC Monitor. There are oc-casions, such as family days, where we would like to open the doors for sev-eral hours to allow family member to enter the building. This can be easily achieved via 2 clicks of a mouse but-ton.

We find the system very intuitive and easy to use. This was an essential re-quirement for us as we have multiple part time operators of the system and so each had to learn very quickly. The main screen is arranged with the most frequently used areas of the system set as icons around a “dial”. Rather than navigating through a hierarchical se-ries of menus to get to screen, it is merely a case of clicking a mouse but-ton on an icon.

I was impressed with the speed of the installation of the system. In just 1 day the system was commissioned and operational. STG sent a person to site to manipulate member records to pro-duce a file which could be imported into the new system. They also de-signed and loaded a floor plan which could be imported into the system and used as a “map”, detailing the location and status of doors within the build-ing. To date the system has not only met but exceeded all of the objectives we set out for it”.

Said Denis Kane, Director of Security Technologies Group, “it is our philoso-phy to assist our installers and end-users alike with this type of high end support. This is what really differenti-ates us from the regular security dis-tributors they encounter in this market-place”.

P A G E 3

The Result

With the Keyscan/Farpointe solution the decision to allow or deny access is carried out at the entrance doors auto-matically and without human interven-tion and so this proactive approach solved this issue of staff having to chal-lenge the credentials of a person be-fore it became a problem.

It is now extremely easy to search the system via any number of fields to find a members details. Once these details

are displayed on the System screen it is possible to view all other information held on that member and so the ad-ministrative duties of the club have been considerably streamlined. “Vision Security Services Ltd. and Secu-rity Technologies Group worked very closely with us to develop and define these custom fields so that we could make maximum benefit of the system”, added Mike Loft.

Due to its location in the centre of Maidstone some people would be-come members and use the clubs parking facilities without entering the club thus depriving attending mem-bers of parking facilities. It is now pos-sible to search via the car number plate to ascertain the owner’s name. From the search screen it is instantly possible to see if that person has used the access control system that day and

N E W S L E T T E R

LAUNCHES A HEAVY DUTY REQUEST TO EXIT PUSH BUTTON. (DRGD001)

We have seen an increase in the adoption of cheap “bell pushes” for Request to Exit buttons in Access Con-trol Systems. Although these will al-low installers to win projects based upon price they are designed for peri-odic usage for ringing a door bell.

The Request to Exit button is used far more frequently than a bell push (once per door egress). This will

Result in the cheaper option failing and thus not allowing egress. This not only entails a maintenance call out, which will erode any initial cost savings, but will also frustrate the cus-tomer.

To address this we have launched a heavy duty unit with a green dome button that is also supplied with a green surface mount .

Security Technologies Group (STG) was founded by a

group of Industry veterans who had been through the

pain barrier of dealing with large corporations who had

more interest in their profit margins than customer ser-

vice. Additionally having had to deal with telesales peo-

ple with no product or installation knowledge became

increasingly frustrating.

We felt that if customers could have a one to one rela-

tionship with knowledgeable people who understood the

industry and its products then that was exactly what was

required hence STG was formed.

With well over 100years of experience in

disciplines such as sales, marketing, instal-

lation, servicing, project management,

product management, etc. STG is ideally

poised to fully support their channel and

provide the comfort factor previously miss-

ing within the large distribution houses.

9 Nags Head Lane Hargrave Northamptonshire NN9 6BJ United Kingdom Northamptonshire

Phone: +44 (0) 1234 865004 Fax: +44 (0) 8709 162 940 E-mail: marketing@s-t-g.co.uk

Specialist Access Control Peripheral Suppliers

unique and cannot be duplicated, and their fleaPower technology ensuring that their readers have the lowest car-bon footprint of any reader on the market, were the driving force behind our decision to consider their prod-ucts.

This, together with a vastly increased read distance and multiple vandal proof and resistant readers, meant that the product portfolio was ideally suited to the extreme environmental require-ments of our local market.

Having determined that, on paper, these readers seemed to meet our requirement, we conducted extensive product evaluation and found that these were quality products backed up by a lifetime guarantee.”

Denis Kane of STG commented, “The launch of this revamped web site and the prominent positioning of our offer-ings shows the commitment that G2 have towards their vendors. We have found that this commitment is also extended to their customers. Being

STG‘s African Sub-Distributor have launched a new web site which heav-ily features our advanced product set.

In a part of the world where security is taken very seriously G2 was set up to provide the best of breed technologies in both the fire and security sectors to meet the demanding local require-ments.

Based in offices in northern Johannes-burg, they supply customers through-out South Africa and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to pro-viding quality products, they pride themselves in offering pre and post sales support, as well as training and product repairs.

Stated Nichola Allan of G2, “we have been searching for innovative technol-ogy to augment our existing product offerings for some time. The unique features offered by STG’s Farpointe reader and card range immediately appealed to us.

Their MAXSecure option, guarantee-ing that each and every card is totally

technically competent and more than the traditional “box shifting” distributor is exactly the ethos that we appreciate within our channel partners as it mir-rors our own”

In their constant endeavour to bring the world's best to South Africa, they have new and innovative products to launch, so check their site regularly for updates on http://g2security.co.za

G2 Security launches new web s ite