What's New At ADT?

• By Ralph C. Jensen
• May 21, 2010

Old news is suddenly the news as ADT completed the acquisition of Brink’s/Broadview May 14. The acquisition also meant a restructuring of sorts, one designed to better serve the customer, whether they be residential, small business or commercial.

ADT Worldwide President Naren Gursahaney said that the company had reached “a pivotal point in our rich history,” meaning that the company will now have two primary service divisions: residential/small business and commercial.

Introducing John Kenning to the business media, Gursahaney said he would take on the commercial side of ADT’s operations, including larger commercial accounts, its federal systems division and specific verticals --  including banking and retail.

The commercial division is responsible for revenues that exceed $2 billion, while the residential unit brings in $2.8 billion.

Kenning will be president of ADT’s commercial business unit in North America. Kenning joined ADT from the telecommunications industry, specifically, Nortel.

Three changes will occur to the commercial unit, unveiled by Gursahaney, with the first being advances in integrating more complex technologies, as well as the firm responding to technology changes; and finally, getting a handle on worldwide economic conditions.

Kenning said the company is pushing forward in leading with new technologies, including IP-connected video solutions and wireless technologies.

“The world is going more than IP,” Kenning said. “It’s going wireless. We’re driving that across the ADT commercial organization.”

The residential/small business group is run by John Koch, who mentioned four business changes that his division will be looking at implementing, including gaining 1.3 million new customers from the Broadview acquisition.

ADT’s residential unit will now have 6.2 million accounts. ADT also plans to integrate channel programs, move head on in facing technical opportunities of integrating monitoring platforms located in Knoxville, Tenn., and Irving, Texas. Finally, ADT plans to unify consumer marketing for a unified presence.

One challenge of the acquisition will be integrating Brink’s/Broadview dealers with ADT’s program where pay is affected, however, Koch said there really are more similarities and differences between the two companies.

“The overall economics of the programs are very similar,” Koch said. “There are differences in what we pay; we pay them [dealers] about the same, but we pay them in different ways.”

The companies will continue to look difference for the next 100 days but an advisory team has been working to design the integration of the two companies as Brink’s/Broadview will slowly be rebranded into ADT as they train on ADT systems.

Worldwide economics plays a key role in company activities, but Gursahaney said the Asia-Pacific region is doing very well, but Europe is facing serious problems, those being connected to the bankruptcy of Greece. The U.S. commercial sector has sent out “mixed signals” with some vertical markets having a promising outlook, but others still mired in a recession.