CMS' Tony Wilson talks about DragonFly

I recently got the chance to have an email conversation with CMS' president Tony Wilson about the company working with Honeywell's DragonFly DIY offering. The DragonFly product is a self-installed system that is tied to professional monitoring. Wilson said the company hopes to have dealers on the DIY program by the end of June.

Wilson said that this is the first DIY solution that CMS is offering its dealers, adding that the company is also “considering adding an additional DIY program that will offer a more traditional security system solution.”

CMS has been looking at the DIY offering since April 2015, according to Wilson. “In April 2015, CMS hosted a small dealer meeting, where one of the hot topics was the growing DIY market. I invited Keith Jentoft, president of RSI/Videofied at the time, to speak at that dealer meeting. Keith introduced the DragonFly offering to the group, and there was a fairly positive response from that small group of dealers.”

“Once we knew the majority of our dealers were interested it was a no-brainer,” he said. “We ramped up the integration of DragonFly with our monitoring platform, and started educating our Business Development team about the product.”

“After a year or so of discussion with our dealers about the DIY business model, and the growth of DIY as a competitor in the security market, we're hoping that this is an easy way for them to combat against sales they're losing to DIY only companies.”

Wilson also said that the offering could help CMS dealers enter new markets, “like renters, and all those millennials who don't see the value in a traditional security system.”

The company announced the DragonFly offering at ISC West, alongside its new proprietary dealer portal, CMS Compass. “Our dealers are excited about the mobile app, the real time data entry, and easy access to reporting.  They realize that CMS Compass is going to be much more than a dealer portal, it's going to help them navigate their business in a whole new way. … [It] should be ready for our dealers by the end of July.”

CMS is a wholesale monitoring company under Protection 1. Concerning the recent deal merger with Protection 1 and ASG, a company spokesperson declined to discuss the deal, saying that not much has changed at CMS.