By Jay Jason Bartlett
This is another article in Security.World?s Company Grows series.

Ten years ago, when I first got into the video surveillance industry, I went to an ASIS show and attended a session delivered by a VP of Pelco. I got to the session about 10 minutes early and it was just the VP and I chatting. I asked what Pelco was and he looked at me strange. Once the session started, the very first thing the VP did was ask the audience, ?who here knows who Pelco is?? Of course everyone in the room raised their hand ? except for me. The VP looked over the crowd and then found me, locked eyes for a second and grinned.

And in case you don?t know either, Pelco Sales was founded in 1957 in by E.L. Heinrich in Hawthorne, California. Heinrich created Pelco Sales as a side project to his already successful mechanical aviation business. Pelco Sales first product line consisted of pan-tilt devices and joysticks designed to remotely control the position of television cameras. The demand for Pelco Sales’ products grew rapidly resulting in Heinrich’s decision to abandon aviation and focus on camera technologies. The company was moved to Gardena, California and then again to Fresno, California to provide adequate work space for product production.

In June 1987, Rod Heinrich sold Pelco Sales to local investor David McDonald shortly after approving plans for an 80,000 square foot facility in Clovis, California. McDonald truncated the name to Pelco, commonly referred to as the beginning of the “new” Pelco. The company continued to expand reaching distribution in more than 130 countries. In 2007, French power company, Schneider Electric purchased Pelco for US$1.22 billion in an effort to enhance their building automation business. Pelco’s security and surveillance systems are most notably protecting Buckingham Palace, The Statue of Liberty, and China’s Presidential Palace.

We caught up with Stuart Rawling, Director of Business Development, Pelco by Schneider Electric and chatted about how Pelco has grown over the years. Stuart has been with Pelco for 14 years now and has seen a fair amount of change at the company over that decade.

?All companies grow and react to market changes. Pelco is no exception,? Rawling shared. ?We were proud to have delivered the world?s first distributed IP based VMS when we launched Endura. Since then we have been evolving further to stay with the changing technology landscape. The launch of our ground breaking panoramic Optera camera last year is a good example of that.?

Rawling believes that the passion of Pelco?s employees to develop quality products and support their customers in the right manner have carried over from the early years. It?s the people that make a company, and Pelco is very proud of the employees and the drive they bring to the office every day.

That passion started in the early days of Pelco when on Fridays anybody who was available would head down to the factory floor to pitch in, pack boxes, and help meet shipping deadlines for our customers. Senior Managers and Vice presidents included.

?From a channel partnership perspective, our support model and dealer program has always been attractive. By offering customized levels we are able to provide the necessary support to all of our partners,? Rawlings explained. ?From an integration perspective, we have built extensive capability by aligning with numerous technology partners both from within and outside of the core physical security industry like IBM and Dell, and open standards such as ONVIF. In addition, we have listened to our technology partners and embraced the open source model with our VideoXpert software development kits, which will allow us to offer increasingly specialized surveillance solutions for specific vertical market applications.?

Pelco has a well-entrenched reputation for quality, support, and technology that was built in the industry?s early days and has helped Pelco with the necessary momentum to transition into the fast-changing world the company finds itself today.

?One of the first lessons a new employee at Pelco would learn was to take care of the customers. Every employee was empowered to do whatever it took to make customers happy. As we have evolved over the years, this passion for providing quality customer support has not abated,? added Rawling.

Pelco has seen significant customer growth in city surveillance, oil and gas, airports/seaports, and casinos and gaming. A core component of Pelco?s business planning is to help channel partners with the necessary expertise into the vertical they are selling. By focusing product development, market messaging, and professional service options on specific segment needs we are able to cater to specific requirements in those verticals.

The company?s manufacturing methodologies have changed substantially over the years. Optimization and process improvements are critical to remaining competitive on the manufacturing side. With a large quality organization focused on ensuring any changes do not impact product quality, Pelco is able to adjust the manufacturing goals according to business needs to ensure they remain at the highest reliability levels in the industry.

Rawling adds, ?Having pride in what the company produces is critical. We as a company make quality a measure of our pride and we will do what it takes to meet quality goals. If there ever should be an issue, it is the way a company responds that customers remember most. Because we approach quality as a top business objective, Pelco has always reacted strongly and quickly.?

In 2017, Pelco is embarking on an ambitious series of worldwide road shows to help promote the Pelco story to their channel partners, A&Es , and end users. This vehicle will help Pelco connect with their customers, show them how Pelco can help them in their businesses, and ultimately grow together.

?We are building long term roadmaps focusing on technology and vertical segments. By looking four to five years out ?and analyzing other industries? growth? we are excited to be finding ways to leap ahead technologically,? Rawling stated. ?We have high expectations regarding the projects and conversations we will be seeing in the 2020s.?

Stuart Rawling
Director of Business Development
Pelco by Schneider Electric