Convergint CEO talks latest buy, bright future

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—Security Systems News caught up with Convergint Technologies’ CEO Ken Lochiatto to talk about the company’s latest acquisition of Advantage Medical Inc. (AMI), its strengthened position within the healthcare safety and security market across the U.S., and its bright future coming off approximately $1.4 billion in revenue last year.

Advantage Medical Inc., a leader in the deployment and support of wireless patient security systems in acute care hospitals, brings Convergint more than 30 years of healthcare industry expertise, with a specialization in patient security and Real Time Location Systems (RTLS). AMI’s commitment to delivering innovative healthcare solutions is supported by its comprehensive approach to providing security solutions to mitigate risk and enhance protection in healthcare facilities. The company’s dedication to meeting each customer’s unique need aligns with Convergint’s culture.

“Advantage Medical embodies similar values to Convergint; they embrace a culture-first community centered on colleagues and are committed to being their customers’ best service provider,” Lochiatto said in the announcement. “We look forward to joining our teams, learning from one another, and further deepening our expertise to continue to deliver best-in-class safety and security solutions across the healthcare industry.”

AMI excels in providing various healthcare solutions, including infant and pediatric patient protection, patient security, staff protection, asset tracking, location and environmental, hand hygiene compliance, and automated monitoring. Together these solutions help improve patient and staff safety and security, efficiency, equipment utilization and compliance.

“There is an amazing alignment between the organizational cultures of AMI and Convergint Technologies,” said AMI President and CEO Dan Rea. “We have both centered our businesses around a similar philosophical approach: the customer comes first, and failure is not an option. AMI is looking forward to the opportunities this new relationship will bring to existing and new customers alike.”

Expanding Expertise in the Healthcare Space

Lochiatto told SSN that Convergint generated more than $100 million in revenue in the healthcare space in 2020. “We’re already in the healthcare space in a very significant way, both on the security side of things and fireline safety,” he explained. “As the healthcare industry evolves, we see great potential. Emerging from the pandemic, this is going to be a space where hospitals, in particular, are going to look at how they ran through the pandemic and what they learned from it. Hospitals want to think about operations going forward and how they can be more efficient and operate better in delivering healthcare to the patients who come in.

“While they’re not-for-profit organizations, that doesn’t mean that they don’t want to run efficiently. Security obviously plays a major role in hospitals. When people go there, they’re not feeling well or having a serious issue, and the last thing you want to worry about is that there could be a security problem. You want to make sure that everyone feels good, safe and secure.”

Lochiatto admitted that security in the healthcare space is not an area where Convergint has seen a lot of success, but he thinks that there are technology advancements and evolutions that are at hand that will allow it to be a much more effective competitor to a company like STANLEY Healthcare.

“While we had access to the technology, we didn’t have the unique depth of knowledge and execution that both AMI and IMS [Innovative Medical Systems], that we acquired in December of last year, have,” he noted. “These are two terrific companies that, as with all the acquisitions we do, are extremely well aligned from a cultural standpoint, focused on being our customers’ best service provider. They bring a depth of expertise and capability in this RTLS space that will help us work with hospitals on how to better execute and deliver for their patients, and at the same time open the doors for us to compete against STANLEY in a space that we have not historically been able to do.”

Lochiatto added that Convergint will continue to look to expand its presence in various market verticals. “We’ve seen terrific growth, and this will further drive that growth,” he said. “We have about half a dozen market verticals that we bring a vertical market focus to, such as the financial vertical, data centers, state and local education. We’ve seen outsized growth where we not only have the local execution, you add acquisitions to it and then a vertical market strategy and implementation, and it drives some pretty terrific growth.

“You take the combination of all those different things – the right time, the right companies, the right technology; we think we can continue to drive success.”

Looking Ahead

Last year, Convergint Technologies generated approximately $1.4 billion in revenue as a global systems integrator that designs, installs, and services electronic security, fire alarm, and life safety systems. The acquisition of AMI brings the total amount of Convergint acquisitions to 41.

“I think one of the key things about where we’re at is the consistency of both leadership and the strategies that we have,” said Lochiatto on his company’s success. “We don’t go into each year saying, ‘What’s our new initiative this year?’ There’s about a half a dozen areas that we generally tend to focus on. Acquisitions have been part of our growth over the years. Over the next few months, you’ll probably see one, if not two, acquisitions per month, that will allow us to continue to grow into verticals that we’re already established in, that we’re having great success in.

“Geographically, we’ll look to add to our resources around the world to make sure that, as best we can, wherever we are around the world, our Convergint colleagues are meeting the needs of our customers.

He continued. “I think acquisitions will be strong. We’re continuing to invest aggressively in the vertical markets to support our customers and drive the growth where we see the potential. These are strategies that will continue.”

Lochiatto also pointed out the ability to hire great new talent as a key contributor to Convergint’s success going forward.

“Internally, we continue to hire great talent in our organization, not only from within the industry, but quite frankly, attracting a lot of talent from outside the industry who are helping us evolve and get stronger. We’ve also had a lot of focus over the past couple of years from an inclusion and diversity standpoint. We should be an industry that is attracting the very best talent from across all industries and representing the communities that we all work and live in. This is an opportunity for us to be a lot stronger and better at that, and we’re working hard at that. We think it fits perfectly within our culture, and we’re very focused on that.”

Convergint is celebrating its 20th anniversary in June, and Lochiatto noted that his company is “as excited and thankful for all of the success we’ve had over the last 20 years. We look to the future, and we’re extremely confident about the opportunities, the potential, the excitement for our colleagues and the potential for them, and thankful for all we’ve achieved. We’re going to keep focusing on our culture and making sure that we improve it, continue to attract great talent and give colleagues great opportunities.

“We believe that 2021 will be another incredible year for us.”