|
||
 |
In the Boardroom™ |  |
|
||
 |
SAMSUNG | GVI Security |  |
|
||
|
In the Boardroom™ | |
|
||
|
SAMSUNG | GVI Security | |
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Thank you for joining us today, Steve. Please give us an overview of your background and a brief company history of GVI Security.
Steven E. Walin: GVI was founded in early 2000 when it formed its relationship with Samsung Electronics. We became public in 2004. I have been in the security industry to 26 years. GVI is the third company that I have led or participated in growing to be a very valuable entity. The first was Casi-Rusco (now part of GE Security) and the second Security Technologies Group (acquired by Siemens).
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: We read with great interest about your strategic partner, Samsung, and their plans to rapidly grow their worldwide security business to over $1 billion in 3 years. Please elaborate on GVI's strategic relationship with Samsung. Any other strategic relationships you care to mention?
Steven E. Walin: GVI, effectively, is the Samsung Electronics video security business in the Americas. Samsung is an electronics giant, with annual sales of over $100 billion and their goal is to be a leader in every market they participate in. They’ve done that in a wide range of product categories including wide screen LCD televisions and mobile phones, and now they are committed to doing the same in security.
Samsung does the R&D and production at their facilities in Korea, and GVI markets the products and solutions in the Americas which comprise a significant percentage of the worldwide security market. Our partnership with Samsung has been expanded to the point where they are investing $1.5 million in our sales and marketing plan – and that is producing strong results, with our third quarter net sales up over 13% over the same quarter last year. Expanding our sales and marketing team and programs has opened up new opportunities for us moving forward.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: We understand that GVI offers a full suite of video surveillance and integrated security solutions that enable intelligent video surveillance. Please give us an overview of GVI's solutions and product line.
Steven E. Walin: GVI is currently seeing an accelerating shift in the video surveillance segment from analog to digital equipment, which meshes with the company’s expanding digital and IP products line and our increasing emphasis on sophisticated higher margin digital products. During the third quarter, GVI launched the Samsung Electronics NET-i™ I IP Video Security Solution that ties together all of the company’s IP product ranges including cameras, software, encoder, DVR’s and LCD monitors to deliver a full end-to-end branded Samsung Electronics IP video security solution. We also introduced new Samsung High Resolution 3 Mega Pixel IP, anti-vandal Dome IP and WDR IP cameras, a new dual-codec IP video encoder and a new line of Samsung Electronics high resolution LCD monitors. GVI’s suite of video surveillance and integrated security solutions includes a full line of cameras, lenses, color LCD professional monitors; real-time and time-lapse digital DVR’s; switchers and video management systems that enable intelligent video surveillance.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What are your target markets and what is your perspective on the market drivers for GVI solutions at this time?
Steven E. Walin: Due to rapid sales cycles and attractive margins, we are focused on the commercial middle markets. We have been particularly successful in winning large deployments in the banking, retail and educationalverticals. We also have been seeing growing success in wining some large enterprise level projects, particularly in Latin 
America where we are easily one of the top three brands in video security. A good part of our business throughout the Americas comes from our everyday sales through distributors and integrators. That sort of business doesn’t generate headline grabbing press releases, but it does keep the registers ringing every day.
There are a number of trends driving the market that are favorable for GVI. The first favorable trend is growth in the overall security market, the fastest growing part of which is video security. Within the video security segment, the fastest growth, which is projected to accelerate even more, is in the IP space, where our strategic partnership with Samsung gives us an enormous advantage over competitors who just can’t match the kind of resources that Samsung brings to driving new technology. The security market is a “bad news is good news,” kind of market. Terrorism, rising crime, incidents in schools all spur growth in demand for video security. The economy, with rising unemployment and possibly rising crime, fits well into that kind of scenario.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Congratulations on your recent win to provide 4,000 Samsung surveillance cameras to the largest public bank in Latin America. Without divulging any proprietary or confidential information, of course, can you tell us a bit more about this success story? Any other “wins” in the financial space you’d like to mention?
Steven E. Walin: The 4,000-camera order was from Caixa Economica Federal, the largest public bank in Latin America. It was actually a follow-on order from a customer that has seen excellent results from their prior deployment of our products. The order brought our sales to them to over 14,000 cameras. Also in Latin America, we provided a complete video surveillance solution for the largest bank in Central America, and a complete video surveillance solution for 50 Banco de Guayaquil one of the largest private banks in Ecuador. In North America, we announced a comprehensive video surveillance solution for a major U.S. Financial Institution with over 100 investment centers across the US.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: We understand that the retail market is also an important market segment for you and that GVI was selected by a leading multi-national retail chain to expand deployment of GVI’s video surveillance systems in the customer's locations throughout Mexico. Care to elaborate on this project for our audience? Any other wins in the retail market you’d like to mention?
Steven E. Walin: That customer had been using our products and solutions in some of their locations. They had been so impressed with the quality of the products, and with the superior service and support that they had received from GVI and our systems integration partners that they approached us to expand the deployment of our Samsung Electronics video security solutions to encompass the entire scope of their operations in Mexico. That is a trend that we have been seeing more and more; existing customers who greatly expand their deployment of our products and solutions after smaller initial deployments. That really highlights the importance of the “everyday” type of business that I mentioned earlier. Given our emphasis on service and customer satisfaction, today’s non-noteworthy order often transforms into tomorrow’s major sale.
Getting back to the retail market, we just announced a new project for one of the largest grocery retailers in the US. That is a market were we have really been seeing a lot of success. It is also a market where for security reasons and client confidentiality we can’t always release all the information that our investors would like, but I can say that we now have two of the top three retail grocery chains in the United States as major customers.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Let's turn to the Government-Law Enforcement market for a moment. We see that GVI has been selected for a major National Security 12 city surveillance project by the Colombia Ministerio del Interior, the North Carolina Department of Corrections, and a prison system for one of the largest Nations in Latin America. What would you like our readers to know about these "wins".
Steven E. Walin: We have a very strong sales team in Latin America where GVI Samsung is easily one of the top three brands in video security surveillance. Being one of the largest participants in the Latin American market gives us the presence to secure the kind of large enterprise projects in the LA region that company’s like GE and Lockheed go after in the US market. The sales cycles on large enterprise projects are defiantly longer than commercial middle market projects, but we continue to be actively pursuing additional government enterprise level projects in the region. In North America, the additional resources from Samsung that we have been using to expand our marketing team are bringing forward more new projects like the North Carolina project.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Steve, are there any other “wins” or success stories you’d like to talk about perhaps in the education space or with stadiums and public arenas?
Steven E. Walin: We continue to see strong sales in the educational sector, where, unfortunately, bad news drives sales. Whenever some sort of incident happens in a school, it provides a sharp reminder to school and government officials on the need to be pro-active and put in place the kind of video security that can prevent or help improve a situation before the event takes place – rather than after. We’ve seen strong new and follow-on orders from a number of school districts and educational institutions, and we’ve also been winning a number of stadium contracts including the second largest soccer stadium in South America.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: What resources are available for investors and end-users at GVI’s website www.samsung-security.com?
Steven E. Walin: For investors, the new website delivers enhanced access to company information including conference call archives, event information, investor presentations, profiles, financials and share data in an investor friendly format. It also helps investors see how we drive our sales growth by providing superior service for our customers.
For our distributors, integrators and end-users, the new website provides interactive tools designed to enhance the customer service experience. The website provides extensive support for sales and product selection. Industry professionals can quickly and easily navigate the website to find full product feature sets for all products, complete with sales brochures and interactive videos, as well as highly detailed and sophisticated A&E specifications that provide product images and line drawings. Very few people have the luxury of working 9 to 5 anymore. We find that our integrators often work long hours putting together projects and proposals. That is why we provide industry leading 24/7 live technical telephone support lines. The website takes things to the next level by providing highly effective on-line support tools such as quick start guides, DVR speed, storage and network bandwidth calculators, product bulletins, online product demonstrations and training materials as well as instant access to RMA and Shipment notifications. Having these resources and access to documentation available 24 hours a day is definitely a strong sales tool that helps us help our customers drive their sales.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: We read your recent announcement regarding GVI Security’s 7th consecutive profitable quarter on strong revenue growth. That’s really impressive. What does the future look like?
Steven E. Walin: We don’t give any sort of formal guidance, but I can say that we are very well positioned moving forward to build upon the results we have delivered over the past seven quarters.
SecuritySolutionsWatch.com: Thanks again for joining us today, Steve, are there any other subjects you’d like to mention?
Steven E. Walin: At GVI we are firmly committed to driving shareholder value. One of the ways we demonstrate our commitment is by successfully running the business, growing sales and driving profit. The recent market conditions have created a situation where the Board of Directors and I clearly felt that the company's shares are undervalued, and we announced the establishment of a stock repurchase plan in early December, in the interest of maximizing shareholder value. The turmoil in the markets has clearly created opportunities where buying the company's shares is an attractive use of capital, not just for investors, but for the company as well.
