In The Boardroom™ With...

Mr. Mark W. Schnarr
CEO and President
Alpha Technologies Ltd.
www.alpha.ca

FROST & SULLIVAN RECOGNIZES THE ALPHA GROUP FOR INNOVATION IN COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

"The Alpha Group has recently been recognized by well-known international consulting and market research firm, Frost & Sullivan, for one of its highly coveted Best Practices awards. On September 11th, representatives of The Alpha Group proudly accepted the 2011 “North American DC Power Systems Competitive Strategy Innovation Award” at a gala celebration in San Jose, California.

Frost & Sullivan used the following criteria to benchmark The Alpha Group’s performance against key competitors:

• Uniqueness of strategy
• Improved market position
• Leveraging competitive intelligence

This is Alpha’s second consecutive year to receive such prestigious recognition from Frost & Sullivan, building on its earlier success of having been awarded the “North American Industrial UPS Product Strategy of the Year Award” in 2010.

“Both these awards confirm the leadership position that Alpha has achieved in a highly competitive market,” says Dave.

Boroevich, Vice President of Marketing at Alpha. “They serve as a validation of our strategy of understanding our customers’ unique powering challenges and developing innovative and reliable power solutions that address them.”

For more information: www.alpha.ca/web2/news-room/media.html

ABOUT ALPHA TECHNOLOGIES LTD.

The Alpha Group knows all about POWER. For over 35 years we’ve been at the forefront of Power Electronics innovation – driven by an unparalleled understanding of our customer’s powering challenges. With hundreds of technical experts, we are dedicated to delivering solutions that solve unique powering challenges in the world’s biggest and most advanced communications networks.

From power conversion, power protection, uninterruptible power supply products and alternate energy solutions, Alpha has created millions of working installations around the globe for today’s largest high-tech corporations such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cox Communications, Time Warner, IBM, Siemens and many more.

For Alpha, no powering challenge is too complex, big or small. By achieving an intimate understanding of your powering needs we have the ability to design the optimal power solution specifically tailored to your business, be it of AC, DC, Renewable Energy or Hybrid design.

With Alpha as your trusted power solutions partner, your powering challenge becomes your competitive advantage!

Visit Alpha today at www.alpha.ca

Watch our new corporate video at our exclusive Youtube.com channel: www.youtube.com/alphatechnologiesltd

Alpha Technologies Ltd. is a member of the Alpha Group - a global alliance of independent companies that share a common philosophy - create world-class powering solutions for communication, commercial, industrial and renewable energy markets.

Mark Schnarr: Thank you for having me. My role is the President and CEO of Alpha Technologies Ltd., a rapidly growing company which designs, manufactures and distributes power protection and standby power solutions around the globe.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Tell our readers a little about Alpha and its history.

Mark Schnarr: Alpha Technologies began over 30 years ago designing task-specific powering that would improve network reliability in the cable broadband sector. Today, The Alpha Group is a global consortium of companies, all dedicated to creating world-class powering solutions for communication, commercial, industrial and renewable energy markets. Alpha Technologies in Canada is the provider of exceptional powering solutions for the worldwide Telecom, Cable TV, Traffic, Security and Renewable Energy sectors. I am proud to say we have an impressive product portfolio that includes rugged uninterruptible power supplies and next-generation backup power solutions such as power rectifiers, converters, inverters, indoor and outdoor power system enclosures, generators and batteries.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What would you say makes Alpha unique in the market place?

Mark Schnarr: Alpha’s distinctive excellence is our ability to develop solutions tailored to solve our customers’ unique powering challenges. By focusing on a small number of markets, we are able to develop an intimate understanding of their specific powering needs. We then leverage our 30+ years of powering innovation and expertise to design and build solutions that deliver outstanding value and reliability. In our target markets, nobody does this better, as demonstrated by our strong growth and the loyalty of our customer base. Alpha’s vision and leadership permeates throughout the executive team and general workforce. A passion for customers, technological innovation, excellence and a commitment to continuous improvement drive the business and motivate the entire Alpha team.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What was the most significant event or series of events affecting your company in the past year?

Mark Schnarr: Alpha Technologies Ltd. is the product of the merger of Alpha Technologies Ltd. and Argus Technologies Ltd.; two Alpha Group companies which had both been in operation for over 20 years and merged effective Jan. 1, 2010. Coincident with the merger, Alpha consolidated its operations from three disparate facilities into its new 113,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility in Burnaby, BC. This impressive structure is home to Alpha’s 500+ employees, corporate offices, customer service, R & D labs, AC and DC product production, warehousing, circuit board design, prototype development and final assembly and testing.

As a merged company, the new Alpha builds on this shared pedigree of product quality, technological innovation and customization. As a combined entity we are in an even better position to exploit operational synergies and leverage a combined product portfolio in uninterruptible power supplies, power conversion, protection, backup and generation technologies. In particular, it’s afforded us the opportunity to invest more in R&D and strengthened the Alpha Group values of continuous improvement, technology leadership and customer focus.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What distinguishes Alpha’s products from the competition?

Mark Schnarr: Our products are designed and manufactured to satisfy the specific needs of our target markets. We have over 3,000,000 power systems in place around the world and most are operating in harsh, outdoor environments supporting critical applications where reliability is paramount. We understand these conditions better than anyone else and have evolved a product portfolio that enables us to provide our customers with total power solutions.

Mark Schnarr: Each and every customer project offers the potential for us to demonstrate our value add by designing and delivering power solutions that meet the customer’s unique requirements. One project that comes to mind involved the installation of thousands of our ruggedized UPS’s to support one of the world’s largest deployments of security cameras and related devices in the City of Mexico. Another involved the integration of our products into security systems protecting one of the world’s busiest ports in Long Beach, California.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com:We read with great interest about the recognition for Alpha Energy by the Southeast Pennsylvania Chapter, Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Association regarding a 1MW Elevated Solar Racking system installed by Alpha on a major Auto Auction facility in Northern NJ. The worldwide market for solar seems to be stronger than ever. Care to elaborate?

Mark Schnarr: The beauty and distinctive excellence of the Alpha Group is that we can draw from a diverse range of solutions from across the scope of our expertise. Be it renewable energy solutions from Alpha Energy, large power plant systems from Alpha Industrial Power, AC or DC solutions from our own portfolios, or others, Alpha has the power solutions building blocks to solve pretty much any customer’s powering challenge.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What resources such as “white papers”, product and technical information are available for end-users at www.alpha.ca ?

Mark Schnarr: We’ve invested a lot in our new website, www.alpha.ca . There is a vast array of information on our products and services, case studies on some of our customer success stories, and answers to pretty much any question you might have concerning our business.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Any particular strategic relationships you care to mention?  

Mark Schnarr: Our new Company tag line is ‘Your Power Solutions Partner’ so we are all about forging strategic relationships, be it with customers, channel partners, suppliers or our other stakeholders. We view all of these relationships as strategic and have an enterprise-wide focus on strengthening each and every one.

SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Thanks again for joining us today, Mark. Are there any other subjects you’d like to discuss?

Mark Schnarr: Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to explain a little bit more about Alpha. The Security sector is a key growth market for us and we look forward to continuing to deliver innovative and high quality power solutions to address the full gamut of security applications.

About Mark W. Schnarr

Mr. Mark Schnarr is the President and CEO of Alpha Technologies Ltd., a company which designs and manufactures power conservation, protection, and standby products. Prior to that, Mark was Executive Vice President, Corporate Development for TELUS and President of TELUS Ventures. With 30 years of business management and marketing experience, Mark has held a variety of executive positions related to the creation and growth of new business ventures, marketing of products and services, management of international operations, and introduction of emerging technologies. He has been a board member of a number of organizations including TELUS International, the TELUS Foundation, MediaLinx, Rapport Interactive, Science World, Vision Critical, IP Unity, Apparent Networks, Argus Technologies, ePost, Pacific Place Communications, and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He is currently a Board member of Alpha Technologies and Mitra Innovations (Belgium).