To meet customer needs, this company’s co-founders had to stray from their original business plan.

Dan Moceri and Greg Lernihan are proving what can
happen when executives tinker with their original business plan: a company can make a whole lot of money.

Moceri and Lernihan co-founded Convergint Technologies LLC, a Schaumburg, Ill.-based systems integrator for non-residential properties, back in May 2001. They planned to bring in equal revenue from each of their three core service areas: building automation, electronic security, and fire alarm and life safety.

Dan Moceri

Just a few months later, however, terrorist attacks of September 11 had spawned a brisk demand for upgraded security systems. As the months and years wore on, a snowballing revolution in digital technologies was enabling business owners to envision new possibilities for leveraging security as a business-enhancing tool.

“Security always used to be perceived as overhead, a cost of doing business, something you had to have but that was a drag on your business,” Moceri said. “Today, people are seeing that it’s not just a cost of doing business; it’s something that can help you do your business better and be more proactive in certain areas.”

Greg Lernihan

Moceri and Lernihan saw the writing on the wall almost as soon as they got started. Convergint would need to overhaul its plan to allocate far more resources to security. If they could do it quickly and effectively, they figured, their fledgling enterprise just might make a real name for itself.

Their calculation has paid off. By putting nearly two-thirds of their focus on security, they’ve positioned Convergint as a serious player in an industry where some of the competition has been in business for more than 100 years. Three years after its launch, Convergint became profitable and counted about 2,000 corporate clients. Now, the company counts some 5,000 clients (including such big names as Boeing, Hyatt, and the University of Southern California) and brings in $100 million in revenue.

Remain flexible
The story of Convergint’s conversion reads as a lesson in the merits of remaining flexible. As a startup, Convergint could have turned to venture capitalists or banks for financing. But the co-founders worried that neither of those sources would give them sufficient latitude to build the necessary foundation and adapt to market conditions.

“We’re trying to build a long-term, sustainable company,” Lernihan said. “We didn’t want to have the shackles on us that you might get from venture capitalists who are looking to turn their money very quickly.”

Convergint draws instead on the financing of its strategic investor who plans to stay with the company for the long haul, Moceri said. It also draws on the insight of its two founders, both former senior managers at Siemens.

Moceri and Lernihan have long recognized that, even though they work with brick-and-mortar structures, their chief asset is their people. So being nimble enough to recruit the best in the business has served them well. Unlike a business invested in heavy equipment that’s hard to liquidate, they’ve been able to bulk up quickly in
specialties that are in demand.

“As an integrator, our real value-add is the people,” Moceri said. “We have very seasoned, experienced business leaders. As a result, we’re able to go out and attract very good people within the industry.”

Take advantage
Convergint’s specialty comes in customizing, installing, and servicing systems that enable commercial buildings to run smoothly. The team integrates building environmental systems and life safety systems, as well as high-tech software for monitoring the identities of everyone who comes and goes.

In this industry, Convergint needs all the advantages it can get. Larger, more established firms tend to dominate in real estate-related services. Yet Convergint continues to gain marketshare in spite of its relative youth as a firm.

Part of the secret to Convergint’s success has been the organization’s ability to compete for customers on value. The company aims to provide a superior level of service than a customer would get elsewhere. From there, Convergint counts on word of mouth, not advertising, to shore up the firm’s reputation.

Convergint still works hard to maintain visibility by participating in industry conferences and making sure prospective clients are familiar with the list of satisfied customers. That list includes such recognizable names as Capital One and Chicago’s Midway Airport.

But as much as strategy counts, fortunate timing can be part of the mix. Just as Convergint has been developing its security services, Lernihan said, retailers have found they can learn a lot about traffic flow in stores by monitoring video security cameras. Hence, security systems are gaining appeal for buyers whose concerns reach beyond safety.

At this point, Convergint does 60% of its business in security, 30% in fire safety, and 10% in building automation. Those proportions seem to provide a winning formula. The company has won lucrative government contracts to provide security at seaports and dams. It was also ranked 14th among the nation’s top 100 systems integrators by Security Distributing & Marketing.

According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, Convergint ranks among the nation’s best in customer service as well. And since security seems poised to be a growing field for the foreseeable future, Convergint appears well-positioned for even better days ahead.

G. Jeffrey MacDonald is a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. Based in Newburyport, Mass., he can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .