Features of product promotion on the Russian security systems market from the perspective of the marketing department.

Features of product promotion on the Russian security systems market from the perspective of the marketing department.

The Russian security industry is becoming an important component of the global security market, the volume of which, according to international analysts, tends to grow steadily and create new market segments. The Russian security market is not very large yet, but it is one of the fastest growing segments of the national economy, where a wide range of different manufacturers, commercial structures and organizations providing design, installation, security and other services are trying to find their place and gain a foothold.

Overview of the Russian security market

The Russian SB market is considered one of the relatively young and unformed segments of the national economy. However, the domestic SB market does have a general structure, and the main players have already been identified. But so far, there are no professional associations in this sector of the national economy, and there is practically no system of professional training and advanced training for the necessary specialists, which creates serious difficulties in finding, selecting and training marketing personnel. On average, to acquire the necessary basic knowledge and minimum qualifications for effective product promotion on the SB market, marketing personnel need to work actively and study hard for at least 3 years.

Most of the recognized professionals working in this market sector are highly qualified technical specialists trained in special government agencies and special services during the former USSR or involved in security at defense enterprises, laboratories and research institutes. It is these specialists, with a sufficient level of technical education and experience in installing various security systems, who have proven to be able to quickly interact and prepare comprehensive proposals to solve any customer problems.

Basically, the comprehensive offer to customers comes down to the supply and installation of complex SB, consisting of engineering and technical systems and TSO, possessing the necessary technical and operational characteristics. TSO, as a rule, is understood by specialists in the SB market as a set of hardware and software that ensure control, safety and fire safety of the territory, buildings, structures and other types of objects. In accordance with the latest trends in the SB market, the majority of supplied and installed complex SB include the following TSO:

? anti-theft and fire protection systems;
? security television;
? access control and management systems;
? security alarm systems;
?  perimeter security systems.

The impetus for the growth in the number of TSO consumers is provided by the growing solvent demand of the population, ensuring the further development of retail trade, capital construction, the entertainment industry, the hotel and restaurant business and housing construction. But the majority of the need for TSO is stimulated by the growth of public and private investment in transport, energy, the oil and gas and military-industrial complex. The main regular consumers of TSO are still government agencies, the Ministry of Defense, the oil and gas industry, the electric power industry, telecommunications and other industries, as well as the housing sector, which includes cottage villages, private houses and apartments. It can also be added that Russian TSO manufacturers have recently added another large consumer in the form of foreign customers.

Features of product promotion on the SB market

To reveal the main features of product promotion on the SB market from the position of the marketing department, it is necessary to understand the reasons for the emergence of the need, the process of interaction with potential customers and the algorithm for the implementation of the TSO delivery. The classic process of order emergence and the algorithm for the delivery of TSO on the SB market represent the following model, presented in Table 1.

Table 1

The time costs are approximate, but as can be seen from the model, more than 1 year may pass from the moment the customer enterprise has a need for the SB to the moment the manufacturer delivers the TSO. Sometimes it happens that the marketing department of the manufacturer, without conducting any work in advance to interact with the SB, still receives a request for urgent delivery of the TSO from a previously unknown commercial organization or enterprise. In this case, it is necessary to understand that in the SB market, products are sold according to a strict algorithm and any deviations from the order generation model described above are the «creativity» of the following 3 categories of persons:

? swindlers and fraudsters;
? businessmen who want to earn money on tenders, but do not know the algorithms for supplying TSO on the security market;
? manufacturers looking for partners who are obviously losing “sparring” to participate in tenders for their own TSO in security projects already approved by the customer.

The marketing department of the manufacturing company must be constantly vigilant and not waste money, time and effort (ICE) on preparing responses, documents and contracts to requests from various types of swindlers, would-be businessmen and unscrupulous manufacturers. It is also worth noting that such requests with the outcome of the loss of ICE on the international SB market are noticed by companies from African countries, and on the Russian market — from neighboring countries and the CIS.

In its pure form, the process of promoting TSO on the security market is a closed process from development, the subsequent important stage of launching on the market, to consolidation on it in the form of including TSO in the security projects of customer facilities. To reach a new level, it is necessary to receive feedback in the form of customer reviews on the quality of TSO and information on options for expanding the range of possible application, in accordance with the needs of the security market. It is the inclusion of TSO by the targeted work of the marketing department in the security projects of the maximum number of customers that is the key that opens up stable sales on the security market for the manufacturing enterprise.
The beginning of the marketing department's work on participation in the development of products in the SB market, as a rule, begins with an assignment from the management of the manufacturing enterprise, which comes from the following main root causes:

? the need to expand the range of products;
? the need to load production capacities;
? smoothing out seasonal fluctuations in demand for products;
? receipt of a request from the customer for product development.

Product development is a very complex organizational and technical innovation event, involving almost all departments of the organizational structure of the manufacturing enterprise. It is extremely rare that a potential customer, without preliminary work of the marketing department, independently sends a request for product development to the manufacturer. Such an event can only occur at very well-known manufacturing enterprises with a wide range of manufactured products and a world name, as well as with an active marketing policy aimed at developing new segments of the SB market. All the features of the algorithm of the marketing department's work in the SB market for an active search for customers for the development of a new type of product cannot be fully described in this article and are the subject of a separate study.

On the part of the manufacturing enterprise, due to the specifics of the SB market, most of the products developed and manufactured in this market fall under the category of «Initiative development». This is primarily due to the fact that most customers in the SB market are not interested in investing in the development and production of specialized TSO and prefer to use well-known and generally available products that have been tested by time and have positive reviews from various customers and experts. Although for some customers, as well as for state facilities of the first and highest categories of importance, the use of well-known and generally available products for the creation of SB is unacceptable, but not all manufacturing enterprises' marketing departments are capable of working in this segment of the SB market.

As before, manufacturers in the SB market, as in any other market, have the following ways to develop new products:
? create a fundamentally new type of product;
? create an analogue of an existing competitive product at a more competitive price;
? create a modification of an already manufactured product.

The creation of a fundamentally new type of product is a very difficult and thorny path for any manufacturer. This type of innovative activity is always associated with long-term investments of internal combustion engines, as well as significant financial, production and human resources. As a rule, a new type of product arises deep in the depths of the scientific department of the manufacturing enterprise, based on an understanding of the market, technological capabilities of production and the «ideas» of the developers. Basically, after the completion of the developers' activities, the efforts of the marketing department in this direction are reduced to the following main types of work:
? discussion with the developer of the possibilities of using the new product;
?  market analysis for the application of new products;
?  interaction with regular customers for the need for new products.

In this process, the marketing department is mainly intended to collect analytical information for the management of the manufacturing enterprise to clip the wings of the engineering and technical thought of its own developers who do not want to listen and delve into reports on the prospects for the development of customer demand for new types of products. As a result of such work by the marketing department, not all new «brainchilds», to the great regret of the developers, remain «viable» or effective at the first stage of a simple discussion.

Creating an analogue of an existing competitive product is a fairly trivial task for a manufacturing company. The solution to this problem comes down to organizing the work of the marketing department to analyze various Internet resources and sites with posted requests for quotations, tenders and auctions for the supply of TSO related to the group of products manufactured by the manufacturing company. After providing the management of the company and the scientific department with a list of identified main technical and operational characteristics of competitive products, together with an analysis of production capabilities and possible volumes of demand of potential customers, the work of the marketing department in this direction is temporarily terminated until the end of the developers' activities.

The creation of a modification of an already manufactured product, as a rule, on the SB market occurs at the manufacturing enterprise after the marketing department has carried out work on interaction, technical support and establishing feedback with regular customers, design and installation organizations. To perform this work, the marketing department conducts surveys and analyzes the needs of SB market participants during exhibitions, seminars and presentations in order to provide developers with systematized information on the need to improve and modify the manufactured TSO. This work is always beneficial, since it provides an opportunity for a strong foothold in the developed segment of the SB market and creates the image of a dynamic manufacturing enterprise that constantly grows, modifies and expands its product range.

The process of organizing the work of the marketing department to promote products on the SB market is a complex multi-level process, the purpose of which is to inform in the shortest possible time the maximum possible number of market participants about the emergence of new types of TSO, their technical and operational characteristics. From the position of the marketing department, the classic algorithm for promoting TSO on the SB market includes the following stages of work.

The preparation of a set of advertising materials should be regarded by the marketing department as a necessary stage of work on the production of the main tool for promoting products on the SB market. Correctly selected technical and informational material should be the basis for visualizing the capabilities of the TSO, understandable even to the most uninitiated representative of the potential customer. Ideally, a set of advertising materials for one unit of TSO should be a booklet, the basis of which is a schematic picture giving the potential customer an accurate idea of ​​the appearance, installation method and main technical characteristics of the TSO. Without such a set of advertising materials, the effective work of the marketing department in holding exhibitions, presentations, seminars and other options for interacting with customers is impossible.

The development and «promotion» of the enterprise website is an endless complex of works of the marketing department, which must be constantly developed and improved. The presence of a competently composed website filled with the necessary technical and operational information is a guarantee of rapid attraction of an unlimited number of potential customers, both in the domestic and international markets. To perform this stage of work, the marketing department must at least once a week take an active part in the development of the design and optimization of the information content of the site in accordance with the statistics of search queries, trends and interests of Internet users. It should be noted that in order to increase the attention of experts and market participants to the proposed TSO, the marketing department must necessarily carry out work to create specialized sections of the site, including technical support containing answers to customer inquiries about the use of products, and analytical articles by enterprise specialists about the products of the SB market.

Participation in major industry exhibitions is a responsible and most expensive stage of the entire list of works on promoting products on the SB market. At this stage, the marketing department carries out work on the development of:
? concepts of participation in exhibitions;
?  design and content of the exhibition stand;
? programs for the preparation, holding and processing of exhibition results.

High-quality performance of the above-mentioned works will allow the marketing department, without a doubt, to increase the efficiency of the enterprise's participation in exhibitions, attract the interest of a large number of potential customers, increase the overall sales volume and gain additional competitive advantages.

Holding presentations and seminars is a continuation of the work of the marketing department on participation in the main industry exhibitions and «promotion» of the company's website. This stage of work is necessary to establish feedback with potential customers and prepares a platform for work on creating a dealer network. It is most advisable to hold presentations and seminars on the territory or in the office of a potential customer in order to attract the attention of the maximum number of specialists and employees of the potential customer to the new product. This set of works is carried out by the marketing department in a planned manner at a rate of at least 4 potential customers per month.

The creation of a dealer network is a temporary work of the marketing department to promote products, which is subsequently transferred to the sales department or stopped altogether. Basically, the work of the marketing department in this area includes sending a package of advertising and information materials about TSO to the most well-known commercial and installation organizations on the SB market and holding a series of presentations and seminars in the offices of the most interested potential partners. As a rule, after 3 years from the stabilization of the sales volume of TSO, further work of the marketing department in this area is ineffective and inappropriate.

Advertising in industry catalogs and magazines is necessary for the fastest possible informing of experts and target potential buyers of the SB market about new products. At this stage of work, the marketing department takes an active part in the development of banner designs, as well as in writing informational and analytical articles about the proposed TSO. A unified style and constant focus on informing about solving the problems of the SB market using these TSOs should be the basis for the information content of printed advertising. In order to optimize financial costs and speed up advertising processes, it is advisable to place information about the TSOs for 3 years with a frequency of at least 1 publication annually in a catalog or magazine of a well-known industry publisher.

Distribution of a set of standard design solutions is necessary to establish feedback with regular customers and provide timely technical support to design and installation organizations. The complete elimination of possible future problems during installation and operation of the TSO as a result of errors due to inaccuracy or lack of information during the design of the SB depends on the high-quality performance of this stage of work by the marketing department, which will ultimately have a positive effect on customer feedback on the product and the level of sales volumes. At this stage, the marketing department carries out work to form a database of regular customers and key organizations that design and install the TSO, then prepares a set of materials and sends it by mail or electronically.

Mechanism for increasing sales volumes in the SB market

The algorithm for promoting products on the SB market mainly consists of the so-called «passive part». The name «passive part» is quite conditional, since the main calculation of the marketing department is that most potential customers will come themselves to the site or exhibition stand of the enterprise, which is full of various attractive information. After the results of the implementation of the conditionally «passive part» of the product promotion algorithm approach their maximum, as a rule, such a moment occurs after 3 years of active work of the marketing department according to the above algorithm, the increase in potential customers stabilizes, the sales volume stops growing, and a tendency towards a decrease in the number of orders appears.

From this point on, in order to increase sales volumes, the manufacturing company needs special targeted active actions from the marketing department. It is quite difficult to ensure explosive growth in sales volumes without having broad opportunities of state or administrative resources, but even in such conditions there are several methods for systematically increasing sales volumes. One of these methods is reaching out to large customers (LC). This stage of the marketing department's work comes down to developing a LC model and an individual program for promoting products in the direction of each identified LC.

Since it is impossible to develop a universal customer model for the entire product line presented on the security market, I propose, for greater clarity, to consider the KZ model using the example of promoting perimeter security means (PSM), which are one of the components of the TSO. The KZ model is the result of the transformation of the customer image, based on the concept of an indispensable constant need for the products of the manufacturer. The main indicators of the PSM regular customer model include the following summary analytical values, presented in Table 2.

Table 2

Model of regular PSM customer on the security market

The model of a regular customer is presented in this article in a shortened and generalized form without specifying precise analytical and marketing data. To transform the model of a regular customer into the KZ model, the marketing department must apply it as a filter when analyzing the database of large structures and organizations in the territory of the selected country, state or region. A striking example of such large structures falling under the KZ model for promoting almost any product on the Russian SB market is the majority of enterprises included in the list of 250 strategic enterprises of Russia.

In order to develop an individual program for promoting TSO to the KZ, the marketing department must carry out work to identify and interact with departments within the structure of the identified KZ that participate in resolving issues of providing security facilities. The classic organizational structure of the KZ in the security sphere involves the following interacting links.

The Security Department is the entry point, the center of influence and decision-making on the use of TSO for the security needs of the facilities of any large enterprise. The main goal of the Marketing Department when interacting with the Security Department is to obtain a list of TSOs approved for use at the enterprise's facilities, discuss the possibility of test operation, and understand the certification process and inclusion of the manufacturer's products in the above list. The first steps in interacting with the Security Department are the beginning of a long journey, with a possible start date for regular TSO deliveries no less than 3 years from now.

Interaction with the SB certification center is a mandatory step in obtaining a permit document that gives the right to include TSO in the SB projects of a large enterprise. This stage of the marketing department's work is associated with the preparation of the required package of documents, participation in tests and investment of funds in the amount of up to 500 thousand rubles per unit of TSO. Ideally, a series of tests of products for SB at the certification center's testing ground should last at least one year in order to conduct full-fledged tests in all climatic seasons. But in practice, if the TSO has already been successfully used in the SB market for more than five years, such tests last no more than one quarter, after which the manufacturing enterprise receives a test protocol and a certificate giving the right to supply TSO for the needs of the KZ within the next three years.
Establishing two-way connections with SB design institutes is the most important task of the marketing department, directly affecting the increase and stability of sales volumes of TSO in the SB market. The key to a stable increase in sales volumes is the inclusion of TSO in the maximum number of CB projects. 50% of the successful operation of the SB facility depends on correctly drawn up design documentation, therefore the main work of the marketing department to establish interaction with SB design institutes includes:
? holding presentations of TSO and promising developments of the manufacturer;
? providing a package of technical and operational documentation, as well as standard design solutions to facilitate the inclusion of TSO in SB projects;
? establishing feedback to provide prompt technical support.

The remaining 50% of the successful operation of the facility's security system depends on high-quality installation in accordance with the project and correct adjustment of the security system. Therefore, the interactions of the marketing department with the security system's capital construction department practically repeat the process and stages of work on interaction with security system design institutes. The only difference is that when interacting with the security system's capital construction department, information is provided with a greater emphasis on the specifics of installation, adjustment and operation of the security system. It is mandatory to provide a full package of technical and operational documentation required for installation of the security system, as well as to establish feedback to provide prompt technical support.

The planned production process of the manufacturing enterprise, the absence of emergency work on sudden large orders and the freezing of funds invested in excess products in the warehouse depend on the successful resolution of the marketing department's issues on interaction with the purchasing department. To this end, the efforts of the marketing department in interaction with the purchasing department must be directed at the timely completion of the following work:
? discussion of the price, configuration and delivery terms of TSO;
? conclusion of a long-term contract for the supply of TSO;
? organization of document flow and logistics.

All over the world, the majority of TSO customers purchase only a comprehensive solution for creating a security system for their facilities. Due to the huge variety of customer requirements and TSO capabilities, any large or serial purchase in the security system market is carried out only in accordance with the facility security system project, completed according to the customer's specifications by the design organization. Therefore, mobilizing efforts to include TSO in security system projects by the majority of design organizations is the main goal of all activities of the marketing department to promote TSO in the security system market. The presence of a TSO of a specific manufacturer in the specification for a security system project is an indicator of work efficiency and a 100% guarantee of TSO implementation in the short term for the marketing department, and also opens the way for the manufacturer to stability in the long term due to the possibility of replicating security system projects to other facilities.

________________________

D.A. Skirnevsky,
Marketing Director
ZAO NPP SKIZEL

Journal «Peace and Security» No. 6, 2010