by Iván Darío Quintero
This engineer started his company, NISSI Systems, in 1991, its purpose was to provide solutions for the information technology industry (equipment for local computer networks (LAN), wide networks (WAN), network operating systems (Windows NT and NOVEL) and structured cabling systems.
Service-focused
From the beginning the company focused on the customer and remained firm in its business vision. He took the opportunity to work and little by little the client compared the quality of their services and the response time of the other companies, in the end they always chose the NISSI company to provide the after-sales service.
The company's path to security integration, as the main axis of its services, opens thanks to a suggestion from one of its manufacturers, Computer Asociettes, they informed NISSI Systems that they were developing a comprehensive security product, which would cover logical and physical security. This meant at that time for the security industry, to be able to have a control center where access to local networks was controlled through both local and remote computers, as well as access to buildings and specific areas of the company.
The knowledge of such a possibility would project the future of the company, Juan Enrique was absolutely committed to his entity being able to provide this integration in security systems such as the flagship program of its services. The Computer Asociettes product eventually never appeared, but this did not stop NISSI Systems.
In the mid-nineties, the company began to make the necessary contacts to implement this service, located equipment suppliers and got trained personnel to perform the integration, finally made the first integration with teams from Axis and Milestone Systems. Since then and until now, the company has continued to market this package and has been adding others to adapt to the needs and capabilities of the client, because as the Engineer said, "this company is oriented towards the end user and that is why we make a lot of strength to the after-sales service, providing other services such as maintenance".
The path of the entrepreneur
Juan Enrique was born on September 18, 1961 in the municipality of Monclava, Coahuila, a city located in northern Mexico very close to the border with the United States. There he spent his childhood next to his parents; in 1978 he migrated to the city of Monterrey with all the intention of studying medicine, but being there his studies in high school revealed in him unusual skills for engineering.
Following what his skills revealed, he entered the U.A.N.L and began the career of Engineering in Electrical and Communications in 1980, he studied at night to take advantage of the day working and thus be able to pay for his studies; his father was the one who most motivated him to act in this way, because he hoped that this would give him more responsibility. His first work quickly related him to the issue of security, as predicted by the old and well-known saying "if you were born to hammer the sky you fall nails".
But the strange paths of life led him to start his working life in a flour company, Harinera Santos, S.A; his father recommended him there with Mr. Ernesto Simroth, who was the plant manager at that time, Simroth was a person of hard expression and demanding with his employees, but in return he knew how to reward the effort of each of his servants with good salaries.
Juan Enrique started there as an industrial draftsman, in the middle of his activities and in his day-to-day tasks as a draughtsman, he ended up reporting abnormal conditions of operation of equipment and machinery in the plant, little by little he was approaching the person in charge of industrial safety, to such an extent that he became an important support in this area, finally his work became so indispensable that he was promoted as an industrial security analyst officially.
For a year, Hernández was collaborating in this new position, until his new boss recommended him with the industrial safety manager of a company in the metal-mechanical industry, Industrias Metálicas Monterrey SA, he moved there and was in charge of fire extinguishing systems and safety and personal protection equipment. willingness and interest that Juan Enrique showed in the new job, he was quickly highlighted and led to take a firefighting training, at Texas A&M University, this preparation then allowed him to collaborate as a trainer of the volunteer fire brigades.
Time passed and brought changes to Juan Enrique's life, a radical one that would impact the rest of his life. He completely changed his type of job and began working in a manufacturing plant for equipment and supervisory control systems called Sistemas Computacionales Avanzados S.A. Here he worked in a branch of security that had much more to do with his career, although he was already moving away from the occupational. A job much more related to what would be his future.
The engineer entered there as an electronic components quality inspector and ended up as head of technical support and customer service. It was there that he obtained the technical bases for control systems and customer service, important aspects that would mark the future of this engineer within the area of electronic security, in his own words, "this experience was like a second technical school for me". And it is not for less, since Juan Enrique worked in this company for ten years.
The taste for electronic security became increasingly wide and tangible in Hernández, he wanted to deepen his knowledge in the subject of electronic security but it was not easy for him since there was not much educational offer related to the subject in Mexico. He took a diploma in optical fibers at the Technological Institute of Monterrey, in 1985 he finished his studies and graduated as an Engineer in Electronics and Communications, he continued working in Computer Systems until the end of 1990 and in 1991 he began to set up his own company Sistemas NISSI.
A slight marketing lesson
What I learned at work, at the university, in the direction of NISSI Systems added to an experience of more than 20 years in the security industry make Juan Enrique an authority on the subject, therefore we decided to transcribe here what I answer the following question: What, or what are the objectives that a manager must achieve in the field of a security company?
"I consider it important to mention that the manager or director of a company that integrates electronic security systems, must perform what is called "strategic marketing ". This means the following; you can not take steps of advantage of your competition, or be innovative, if you only dedicate yourself to doing day-to-day marketing . This is the marketing of the urgent, while strategic marketing is "the marketing of the important." I will expand on more of this because I have been putting it into practice for several years now. Strategic marketing focuses on innovation or value delivery and includes at least the following:
1) The business model you want to make.
2) The dynamics of the industry and its environment.
3) The reinvention of the prevailing rules of the game.
4) Detection of new market segments and their re-configuration.
5) Constant rethinking of the value proposition in order to discover and exploit opportunities.
The strategy demands a definition of the "what", and then a planning of the "how"; it requires an orchestration between the parties involved, both internal (employees) and external (customers), and a forceful alignment of the entire company towards the same core activity that is in favor of the target market and against the competitor.
To do the above, as a strategist-manager, I seek to move in four dimensions of opportunity:
•Same customers-same products (penetration)
•Same customers-different products (product development or solutions)
•New customers-same products (market development)
•New customers-new products (diversification of products and solutions)
"For me, strategic marketing is not about making things better, or making them cheaper, but it's about being different and relevant to the target market; being unique is much better than being better."
This is how Juan Enrique sees things in Monterrey and Mexico
Likewise, the engineer Juan Enrique Hernández commented on the evolution, the current market and the economic environment of electronic security systems in Monterrey and Mexico.
On the side of the implementation and evolution of the use of technology , the professional of the month opined, "The evolution that the security industry has had in Mexico has been very good, since at this moment a company like ours has the possibility of developing solutions with the same security products that are sold abroad. It used to be impossible to get the product and the support of the manufacturer to do that."
"I have seen how it is possible to have state-of-the-art products and integrate them into our electronic security solution packages. This allows foreign customers to feel confident to request the specific brand and product that they are specifying for their places of origin, in Mexico we can sell them exactly the same and with the same technical capacity or sometimes better than the one they have. In my personal opinion, from several experiences I have had, it is satisfying to be able to have this scope or capacity to integrate solutions, since according to them, Latinos are more creative with electronic security solutions. I've been told they regret not being able to have the same level of service on their home sites."
In the case of the state of the market and the expectations for this year in terms of business, Juan Enrique opined as follows. "According to the latest available figures from 2007, the U.S. industrial production index grew at an annual rate of 2.1% in November, and Mexico's manufacturing production index grew at an annual rate of 0.9% in October. As for the growth of the manufacturing production index in Nuevo León, the latest data published by INEGI indicates a growth of 1.1% in the first eight months. However, in Nuevo León, formal employment in manufacturing has not slowed as much. According to IMSS figures, manufacturing employment grew 3.3% from 2006 to 2007. It is estimated that in 2008 GDP and manufacturing employment in Nuevo León will grow at more moderate rates than the previous year, since both variables will depend on the evolution of the North American industrial sector."
"The worrying thing about this is that with a slowdown at the door and increasing unemployment, levels of insecurity are increasing throughout the city, due to the lack of money flow. The presence of criminal groups that dispute, areas of drug market, brings as a consequence more violence. This combination of risk factors is worrying and generates a certain feeling of insecurity in the population and lack of control on the part of our authorities. Companies want to invest more in security systems to avoid being surprised or mitigate the damage, however the lack of flow in many of them prevents them from doing so."
