PSNI Global Alliance Built on Trust with Eye on Canvassing the World

10 initial PSNI Global Alliance members will help organization ‘stay relevant’ as industry continues to strengthen global focus.

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PSNI Global Alliance Built on Trust with Eye on Canvassing the World

The PSNI Global Alliance will start with 10 members and grow to 100 countries within three years.

The PSNI Global Alliance has been under consideration since 2013, but we can’t help but wonder if it got a little push in February 2016 when we explored the idea of world domination through AV integration.

To be sure, true world domination takes some time, so the PSNI Global Alliance plans to take about three years in planting its flag in 100 countries around the globe, starting with 10 this year and building from there.

PSNI unveiled the Global Alliance last month and plans to share more details about its schematics during InfoComm 2017.

Toby Wise, managing director of Norwich, England-based Snelling Business Systems, sees the timing of the launch as “perfect” for his company, which has resisted working outside Europe.

“We have staff members who have worked internationally with other companies, but as a company, we’ve shied away,” says Wise. “The risk was too high.”

That changes with the backing of a trusted organization like PSNI, says Wise.

“This is a peer-reviewed network so we’ll be working with partners we know are at a credible standard,” he says.

PSNI executive director Chris Miller says the PSNI Global Alliance will start with the companies in the U.K., the Middle East, and Asia and build from there. Dubai could be the next target for the alliance’s growth, he says.

“It’s really a natural progression for us,” says Miller. “Over 30-plus years, we’ve morphed and changed to reflect where the industry is and where we’re going. The model has always been integration-based but we’re shifting rapidly to a service-based model. It doesn’t do anybody any good to monitor service if no one can be deployed to fix something when it breaks.

“You could call [the PSNI Global Alliance] a pre-emptive strike to stay relevant with our members and our customers,” he says.

PSNI president Dana Barron, who is also CEO of HB Communications, says the majority of PSNI’s 35 or so affiliates aren’t doing international work today, but he believe the PSNI Global Alliance opens new doors for them.

“When you look at how we’re servicing our clients, especially our enterprise clients, they have national and international locations,” says Barron. “We’ve been successful with our national clients, but this represents a natural extension of what PSNI brings to our clients. It’s a natural extension of what we do.”

HB Communications has been successful in carving out a global footprint, including opening an office in the U.K., but Barron knows some of PSNI’s smaller members haven’t been as fortunate.

“It’s not so easy and you don’t necessarily know what you’re going to get when you do it,” says Barron. “If you believe in the PSNI methodology, it gives you an extra level of comfort, an extra level of credibility.”

The proliferation of cloud-based solutions helped to spur the alliance’s launch, but just as important was the availability of PSNI founder John Fuchs to serve as a full-time resource who’ll travel around the world helping the 10 new global affiliates get going with PSNI and continue to find new opportunities with and for them.

“We’ve broken the world essentially into 10 regions and overlaid the InfoComm shows with those 10 regions to sort of put together the map we want to cover,” says Miller. “We didn’t do this as an opportunity just for our companies in the U.S. We’re looking at how all cities and companies do business with each other. It’s important they have partners they can trust.

PSNI prides itself on a strict vetting process for its members that includes a peer review, and Miller promises “more stringent” vetting for Global Alliance members.

“The qualifications we’re looking for are very high,” he says. “The risk is too high not to have them fully vetted.”

Fuchs found “a significant amount of interest overseas,” says Barron, and he expects the PSNI Global Alliance to provide its members “value both ways.”

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