Stanley president Jim Cannon talks vertical markets, insights, standards

ANAHEIM, Calif.—Now in its “post acquisition chapter,” Stanley Security is making progress on its vertical market strategy and other internal performance and hiring initiatives, according to Stanley Security president Jim Cannon.

Cannon spoke to Security Systems News at the ASIS show, which took place here Sept. 27-Oct. 1. He said that the integrator has made good progress in the healthcare and retail verticals in particular.

“Eighteen months ago we announced that we were targeting specific markets,” he said. The goal was to have an “operational engine that can deliver [support to those markets,]” he said.

Earlier this year, Stanley announced the creation of vertical operations support teams. “That team is coming together well,” Cannon said.

Cannon became president of Stanley Security in September 2014. Cannon has been with Stanley Black & Decker since 2001, most recently serving as president of Stanley Oil and Gas.

Cannon talked about "Stanley Insights," Stanley's efforts on harnessing data, what he called the "the raw material of our time," to turn it into information for Stanley customers.

Stanley Insights is a software solution (Stanley Insights Software Solution) and a new Stanley Security group comprised of data scientists and business consultants.

The software and the group help Stanley customers “correlate data streams, analyze trends and measure business activities and operations.”

Another initiative, "Stanley Standards," is designed to ensure that installation technicians, service technicians and monitoring staff in all of Stanley's 61 branches are highly trained.

Installation, service and monitoring are the “three places you cannot make a mistake” in the security ecosystem, Cannon said. Launched this summer, Stanley Standards has overhauled 16 branches. “By the end of the quarter, 28 will be completed and by the end of the year, all of them will be done,” Cannon said.

The other initiative Cannon discussed is one to increase diversity at Stanley. He wants to hire more women and more veterans. Currently, about 10 percent of Stanley Security employees are military veterans. Cannon, a military veteran himself, would like to “one-third of our future recruits to come from the military.”