Pro One aims to grow national accounts biz

DALLAS—With the goal of growing its national accounts operation exponentially, Protection One CEO Tim Whall announced at the ASIS show that the entire national accounts group had been moved under one roof, in the neighboring town of Irving, Texas.

“Protection One did about $6 or $7 million in national account last year. Over the next three years we want to take that upward of $100 million,” he said.

The office is set up so the national account teams work in pods.  People with diverse responsibilities—order entry, billing, project management and service—for one account all sit together, he said. The management team believes this set up “creates a better environment for team accountability versus department accountability,” said Jamie Haenggi, chief marketing officer for Protection One.

Marty Hale, formerly with ADT, was hired to run the national accounts business for Pro One. The Pro One management team are all products of big companies, Haenggi noted. “We've done good things at other companies, but we've also learned from our mistakes,” she said. 

Protection One considers itself one of three major national accounts companies (along with Stanley and ADT). They believe that national accounts customers will welcome a third choice, and they're touting their new team approach as an improvement over other ways of managing national accounts.  

Logistically, moving the organization to Irving is less complicated than it may sound, Haenggi said, “we really are building out the team in Irving. We're hiring new people. When you go from $6 million to a vision of $100 million, you need more people and we can easily put them where we want them.”

Whall and Haenggi said they consider the Pro One platform the perfect size for growth. “We have a national footprint, but we're nimble enough that we can design the customer experience,” Haenggi said.