Power Protection FEATURED ARTICLE

Minuteman UPS/Para Systems, a leader in power protection technologies, has had quite a busy April –heading to Orlando, Fla., for Graybar’s (News - Alert) National Training Conference and to Las Vegas, Nevada, for the International Security Conference (ISC) West.

“Both the Graybar National and ISC have become yearly traditions for us,” Duston Nixon, Minuteman’s marketing communications specialist, told TMCnet in a recent interview. “Graybar’s conference provides us great exposure with the sales people who help users make purchasing decisions – users whom we find typically respond favorably to our products. Our growth over the past two years in the security sector means we seek opportunities to make contacts and educate as many people in the industry as we can about the importance of power protection for security applications.

“Each of these events provided us an excellent opportunity to make new contacts, as well as catch up with old friends,” he added. “It also provides us an avenue to receive feedback on products, our level of service, and overall impressions of our company. Overall we were pleased with the response from attendees, and excited about our prospects both in Graybar and the security sector for the rest of 2011 and beyond.”

At Graybar’s event, Minuteman officials had the chance to interact with the more than 300 sales representatives, corporate personnel and mangers from various companies that gathered together for a three-day conference offering training sessions, team building exercises and exhibitions. Graybar is a Fortune 500 company and its 6,800 employees in 240 locations across North America have helped Graybar become one of Minuteman’s top distributors over the years, according to Nixon.

Representatives from Minuteman included Vice President of Sales and Marketing Rick Hunteman, Telecom Channel Manager David Leos, and Nixon.

At Graybar, the power protection company also made its mark on the event by giving away five Amazon Kindles and an iPad.

“Our message for Graybar was to ‘Win with Minuteman.’ We want them to win business with our products, and to drive the point home we wanted to let them have the chance to win something at the show,” Nixon said. “Both the Kindle and iPad are extremely popular choices for consumers right now, so it made sense to choose them for the giveaways. Winners were selected from across the country – spanning from Omaha, Nebraska to Massachusetts.”

The power protection company also made sure it was in attendance at ISC West, the largest event in the U.S. for the physical security industry, covering access control, alarms and monitoring, biometrics, IP security and video surveillance / CCTV, among other things. It is one of two shows held each year showcasing products from manufacturers covering every facet of the security industry.

“This is a key sector for Minuteman, and ISC provides a vehicle for us to present our products to resellers, integrators, and users who often are not familiar with power protection,” Nixon said.

Minuteman’s Security Channel Manager Elliott Schiller and Director of Marketing Bill Allen attended the show, presenting Minuteman’s full line of UPSs, PDUs, RPMs, and surge suppressors.

In other power protection news, Minuteman recently sat down with TMCnet to discuss whether power protection products are worth the upfront cost. According to Minuteman, the answer is yes.

“One study conducted by J.D. Power & Associates found that the average business experiences 5.7 outages per year,” Nixon told TMCnet. “Without protection, this means that 5.7 times per year business cannot be conducted. Though the average outage lasts only 10 minutes, the time to reboot equipment is much longer, not to mention time lost due to unsaved work and/or corrupted data.