The Necessity of Training

• By Ralph C. Jensen
• Jun 15, 2009

We all need training from time to time. It's often in the best interest of the company and the client. Training is the life blood that ensures that your company's product or service remains the industry standard.

Last week, I attended a media day at Siemens Building Technologies in Buffalo Grove, Ill. While it wasn't all about training, the bulk of the tour gave business journalists a look at how this company provides an inside advantage to its customers, clients and workforce.

Siemens built its customer center about a year ago. The purpose was to ensure customers could experience a hands-on demonstration of products and services. The 6,000 square foot center includes an all-interior conference center that amazingly filters the outside atmosphere through its glass-walled interior. Advantage one: A stimulating learning environment.

One of the world's largest—if not the largest—integrators, Siemens included a product room where students or clients are encouraged to pick things up and try them out. For instance, they had several biometrics products on display with the intention of demonstrating how biometric products interact with card readers, and how the customer can best install and integrate various products.

Now, all of these products are not Siemens brand, but the concept is to give the customer relative comfort in knowing that various products integrate well together, ensuring a strict and strong security solution. What company officials are saying is that third-party products and integration will work seamlessly with what the customer already has in place.

What Siemens officials are looking for with their customers is exactly what every integrator should determine. What are the customer's needs? Can we provide what the customer wants? And, of course, can various products provide interoperability?

Not every customer will likely get to see what I witnessed at the customer center in Illinois, but the company so strongly believes in training and customer satisfaction that they have similar, smaller centers at regional briefing centers throughout the country.

I appreciate tours like this. It proves to me that security integrators care about their customers and will go to great lengths to ensure that they are getting the right product for the right application.