Shanix Technology has record year, despite flood

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—Shanix Technologies, a Cranston, R.I.-based systems integrator, received an award at the PSA Security Convention, held here Oct. 21-25, for having the highest increase in sales of all PSA Security members in the Northeast region in 2010.

“That was the result of a combination of things, winning large jobs and an increase in business overall,” Kekin Shah, president of Shanix Technology, told Security Systems News.

Shanix had a record year despite the fact that it had to abandon its headquarters in March of 2010 for more than two months because of a flood. “There was a big storm in New England just after ISC West. We had 16 inches of rain, and there's a river behind [the office]. We had close to 5 feet of water in the office,” Shah said.

“We lost all of our inventory, computers and office furniture,” he said.

On the day of the flood, Shah and his 34 employees retrieved what they could from the building and relocated temporarily to its former headquarters, a smaller space in a building that was fortunately not occupied.

All systems were backed up offsite. “It was tight quarters, but we made it work. We were up and running one hour after the flood and actually back servicing people within the first two to three hours,” he said.

The flooded office was completely renovated and Shanix Technologies moved back in June. “We sent out a notice to customers saying 'we're back home' and 60 percent came back saying 'we didn't know there was a problem.'”

This year, sales have been even better. Shanix' revenue growth was flat in 2008; it was up about five percent in 2009, up another “six or seven percent” in 2010, Shah said. “And 2011 is our strongest year so far. Right now our revenues are 19 percent higher than they were in 2010,” he said.

Founded in 1981, Shanix employs 22 technicians, three project managers, six sales people and three administrators. It does integrated video and access systems for government and commercial customers, including the DOD, DOT and DOC. Other customers include the Navy, defense contractors, Lifespan Health Care and K-12 and higher education customers.

Shanix has two business units: Presentation Technology and Physical Security. Shah has seen a lot of crossover between the two divisions in recent years and expects more in coming years.

There's more integration of physical security with presentation technology, particularly in the education market, but in commercial settings as well, he said. Also, he said, “as we further develop presentation technology, we utilize that knowledge for large system command centers.”