Post merger, Johnson Controls emerges even stronger

CORK, Ireland—Since the Tyco-Johnson Controls merger was completed in September 2016, the two security giants have joined forces to become an industry powerhouse, leveraging the combined brands to provide innovation on both the product and integration side of the business.

Security Systems News�caught up with Hank Monaco, VP, marketing, Building Solutions-North America, Johnson Controls, who has 17 years of experience with the legacy Tyco businesses. Monaco said that a major post-merger undertaking, and one that proved very beneficial, was the process of integrating two very large companies with such strong brand recognition.

“Both companies have significant histories and have a customer-orientated focus that revolves around themes like innovation and values like integrity and teamwork,” Monaco told SSN. “One of the internal steps that we have taken as an organization is to go through sessions that we call culture mapping, which got teams of people together from different walks of life, different functional areas, different parts of the business and different parts of the world and brought them together to look at a shared history of the two organizations and what the future holds for the new organization.”

He continued, “As we went through that process, what was striking to me were how many similarities there were along the way, and I think that is a testament to why this integration makes so much sense. And as we are going through that from a cultural perspective, there is a lot of work going on in terms of leveraging the terrific relationships that we have with customers across the different lines of business—fire, security, HVAC and controls—where we are now able to bring in a broader portfolio of services to solve a broader range of needs for our customers.”

From a branding perspective, the companies have been working to create a strategy that is “organized around Johnson Controls as the go-to-market brand globally,” he said, noting that that process will take place over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, and will be evident at the upcoming ASIS International show in Dallas next month. “And we also look at the other brands in the portfolio that have strong equity continuing to play a role in different ways. For example, the Tyco brand, which has strong brand equity in security is evolving right now to be a technology platform and brand, and that makes sense when you consider that our Tyco Security Products business is a products business. So those brands will stay a part of what we call our 'famous brands' portfolio.”

In regard to the Tyco systems integration side of the business, Monaco said it “is going to become even stronger, and that [the integration business] is a really big complement to everything that we do. When we look at the scale of the business, in terms of the depth of expertise that we have and the number of technicians that we have in every market around the country, it really is unmatched.”

One area that Johnson Controls will continue to expand is its cloud-based solutions.

“Our customers like that the cloud reduces their upfront costs, provides more built-in functionality over time and makes it easier for them to manage their systems,” said Monaco. “It also gives them greater flexibility in terms of future proofing technology that doesn't require them to rip and replace. We have a variety of cloud-based services that we actually lead with for our customers, because they are very much interested in the benefits that come with that kind of platform.”

The cloud is also helping the company leverage the massive amount of data that is being produced by systems. “We have systems embedded in so many buildings around the world that some of the work we can do, and that we are doing, around leveraging information that we are getting from those systems is helping our customers solve a variety of problems, like false alarms,” Monaco explained.

Overall, the new Johnson Controls is an organization that is “focused like a laser beam on delivering an unparalleled customer experience in support of driving growth,” said Monaco. “So it is this idea of delivering exceptional service bundled with providing innovation solutions, that is really going to spur the growth of the company.”

Johnson Controls has approximately 13,600 employees spread out across 445 office locations worldwide, generating nearly $7.9 billion in gross revenue in 2016.