A Strong Alliance
Tri-Ed and Aditya join forces to create an alliance that discusses key trends in today’s industry.
- By Jamie Friedlander
- Dec 30, 2013
When Pat Comunale, the president
and CEO of independent security distributor Tri-Ed, began forming
a relationship with India-based
distributor Aditya Infotech, Ltd., it occurred to
him that the relationship should be more than
just a casual one. The two companies had great
conversations regarding current market trends
and the future of the industry. They decided to
make their informal partnership a formal one by
creating The International Alliance of Independent
Security Distributors.
“The more we discussed things, we decided to get
something a little more formal in place where we can
grab other distributors and sit down and discuss—
two or three times a year—trends that are happening
across the world,” Comunale said. “We thought
it made sense to put something more formal in place
than to just have a casual relationship because I
think we can get other members to join our alliance
as well and really become a stronger group.”
Tri-Ed, which functions in the United States,
Puerto Rico and Canada, and is the largest independent
security distributor in North America, offers
similar products and services to Aditya, which is
based in India and has partners in India, Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Nepal and Malaysia. Both companies
are leading global players in the safety products
and solutions and video surveillance industry, offering
products and installations in IP Video Surveillance,
Intrusion, Fire, Home Automation and more.
Though Comunale is pleased with the way the alliance
is currently functioning, he hopes to see it expand
to other areas of the world in the future.
“We’ve been looking to expand internationally
for a period of time now,” Comunale said. “We’re
North American centric—U.S., Puerto Rico and
Canada—so part of our goal here is to continue
to expand, either in Latin or Central America or
in Europe.”
According to Comunale, Tri-Ed has been in
conversation with several key distributors across
the world, including one in particular that has expressed
interest in Europe.
“As we continue to grow, we’ve been communicating
with several different distributors just to
catch trends that are going on in other parts of the
world,” he said.
Aditya Khemka, the CEO and director of the
Aditya Group, stated that the formation of the alliance
shows both Aditya and Tri-Ed’s commitment
to delivering the highest level of security products
and services. Both companies, he said, understand
that the security needs of each business vertical
vary and have different challenges, and these challenges
need to be met with tailored solutions.
The alliance will allow the two companies to
discuss market trends and insights, as well as best trade practices and systems to valueadd
their channel and employees in
an attempt to set new and higher
quality benchmarks in their respective
domains and the industry as a
whole. According to Comunale, the
alliance will function much like a
high-level focus group, and it will be
valuable to vendors in their research
and development efforts by allowing
them to tailor their products to the
market’s current conditions.
“When we look at the industry
today, everything is evolving quite
rapidly, from the lifestyle enhancements
going on in the intrusion
space to [the transition from] analog
to IP in the video space,” Comunale
said. “We’ve been talking about
how cloud storage and everything
that’s happening in our industry
that hasn’t happened over the past
five to ten years is finally moving
fast forward.”Comunale said his
company and Aditya see opportunities
in the market such as these,
as well as different trends with data
and connectivity, as important
ideas in the industry that need to
be discussed.
“Everything is moving rapidly
across all different product categories
today,” he said. “We find it’s important
to be collaborating with other
distributors and making sure we’re
staying ahead of the trends as opposed
to trying to catch up to them.”
Comunale stressed the importance
of being ahead of the trends,
technology in particular.
“Being able to take advantage
of technology to stay ahead of the
trends, I think is important,” Comunale
said. “For our customers,
part of the way that we drive value
is by bringing them technology, and
bringing them technology at the right
price. From a distributor standpoint,
if we can leverage our purchasing
power and deliver the best products
at the right price to our customers,
that’s the kind of the value add that
distributors can bring right here in
North America.”
Aditya places a lot of emphasis on
building strong relationships with its
customers, business partners, channel
partners and associates. Because
both companies are so strongly committed
to satisfying their customers’
needs by delivering high quality
products at a reasonable price, the
Alliance was a perfect fit. The Alliance
will meet a few times a year,
according to Comunale, who added
that the meetings will be rather informal
until more members join. In
the near future, Tri-Ed and Aditya
plan on meeting at IFSEC and hopefully
once before then.
Getting more likeminded companies
to join the alliance is next on
the agenda for Tri-Ed, according
to Comunale. “We look forward
to adding more members and becoming
a global alliance to really
strengthen our position as a manufacturing
community.”
This article originally appeared in the January 2014 issue of Security Today.