"Where Do You Have Offices?"

How SAGE Is Subverting An Old Understanding Of The Need For Multiple Offices 

Offices Everywhere, Experts Nowhere

 Maybe you've recently been walking or driving around town and recognized the office of a popular security company you've heard about.  You might even have thought something like, "Wow, those guys are everywhere."  

Now a small industry secret: that reaction is by design.  

Many security companies open up small offices, often in commercial spaces, to increase their brand visibility and boast an "Offices Everywhere" kind of message.  It helps to make companies seem of a higher quality and also gives an illusion of support being readily available to clients in their city or neighborhood.   

But that's precisely what it is – an illusion.  

After nearly 30 years of expertise in this business, we've found that most of those offices are staffed by non-experts.  When an actual need or emergency arises, those “Offices Everywhere” companies will call in an unknown sub-contractor to do the work, because the people in their local offices aren't actually specialists who deal with integration or client services. They're placeholders, often like the companies themselves.

At SAGE, we believe propagating an "Offices Everywhere" message is a misleading marketing tactic and doesn't demonstrate the true nature of a company's expertise or quality.  In fact, in our experience, it often betrays just the opposite – a company’s troubling lack of quality.  And we see people fall for it all the time.    

So how do we at SAGE combat this old understanding and create a more knowledgeable clientele?   

Offices In a Few Places 

In the 1960s and 1970s, security companies needed to have offices in specific cities due to direct lines. Companies would run a physical wire from their offices to central stations, with telephone providers being the link in-between.  Meaning that a security company wanting to provide services to their customer had to be local because of the need for a physical connection between the two offices.  

But as the industry evolved alongside the advent of digital phone lines, the need for central stations lessened. That's when security companies realized that saying they had thirty or forty offices across the country still sounded impressive, even if it didn't actually mean anything substantive about the quality of their services. 

At SAGE, we have three offices.  
One, Two, Three.  Not thirty or forty…three.  
Why is that? 

Well, for one thing, it means our clients aren't trying to figure out who to call if something happens or if a need arises.  They know which of our offices services their account, and who to talk to.  They don't get a stranger on a local number who will refer them to a main national office, because each of our offices IS the main office. 

Another reason for three offices is it allows us to be near specific regions.  With offices that split the country, there are few places we can't be quickly if an emergency or need arises or if we need to help implement a new security integration.  Whether it's access controls, physical security, or some other kind of need, three offices give us the flexibility to be close at hand.  

One final reason for three offices and not thirty - it would cost our client's more money.  Creating the illusion of omnipresence is expensive, doubly so when you can't back it up with actual in-house expertise and have to spend even more money finding questionably proficient outsourced assets to service your client's jobs.  

To keep the cost down for our clients and actually provide them with the experts they need to implement their security integration requirements quickly and efficiently, we stay at three offices.  

When organic growth allows for a fourth or fifth office, we'll open it.  The same is true if we find that client need in a particular city or state is exceptionally high.  But we won't open offices trivially at the cost of our clients or their critical needs.   

Security Integration When and Where You Need It 

You might be wondering – why are you telling me all of this?  

Part of our work at SAGE isn't merely creating better-integrated security solutions. It's also helping to develop a more discerning and informed client.  

Whether you choose SAGE or not, you should be equipped with all the information you need to fully understand your security needs and know whether a company can solve those needs or not.  It’s not just knowing which questions to ask that’s important it’s knowing why to ask them.  

It's our privilege at SAGE to shed some light on some industry "norms" and allow you to decide how that information affects what services you seek and who you seek them from.  Because a better, more informed client means a better product.  And we're in the business of making that better product. 

Interested in more integrated security insights that could help keep you and your business safe?  Click here to learn more about how SAGE Integration is working to help you.

SAGE Integration – in all the places that matter.