NSCA celebrates its 40th anniversary by sharing 40 ways we help integration companies run their businesses better every day.
This year, NSCA is marking its 40th year as a trade organization that serves the integration market. That milestone isn’t likely top-of-mind for NSCA member companies or attendees of the recent 22nd annual Business & Leadership Conference (BLC) in Irving, TX.
Nor does NSCA want it to be. We’re not big on milestones.
Instead, we want to help integrators and manufacturers run their businesses better. For us, the best way to recognize NSCA’s 40th anniversary is to celebrate 40 specific ways NSCA helps integration companies every day.
“We’re celebrating it our way,” says Chuck Wilson, executive director, NSCA.
In addition to the list of 40 ways NSCA helps member companies, there were a few nods to the 40th anniversary at BLC. We dug deep for archived photos to create a video tribute to NSCA’s early years – along with the evolution to where we are today. (It also serves as an homage to 1980s and 1990s fashion and hairstyles.)
The video “recognizes the people who started the organization,” Wilson says. “It was those people who volunteered so many hours to get this association off the ground. We want to say ‘thank you.’ We’re building this organization on the shoulders of some great people.”
40 Years of NSCA Video
40 Ways NSCA Helps Your Company
NSCA helps you by …
1.) Optimizing Business Performance
NSCA provides tools to streamline operations, set better billing rates, and make the most of manpower – to name only a few tools we offer for member companies.
2.) Providing Accurate Employee Compensation Data
NSCA’s “Compensation and Benefits Report” helps you make informed decisions about salaries and benefits.
3.) Reducing Risk
NSCA helps member companies understand compliance so they can avoid costly missteps.
4.) Doing Things the Right Way
We demonstrate our core values in everything we do. We maintain a strict code of ethics. And we take great pride in representing our members through leadership and advocacy.
5.) Providing Financial Benchmarking
NSCA’s “Financial Analysis of the Industry Report” identifies potential areas of overspending so you can cut costs.
6.) Offering Much-Needed Templates
With our library of over 650 industry-standard documents, NSCA takes the guesswork out of all the forms, templates, and contracts integrators need to know, have, and use.
7.) Conducting Market Forecasts
NSCA’s bi-annual “Electronic Systems Outlook” predicts vertical market and technology performance so you can better focus sales efforts and get more projects in the pipeline.
8.) Helping You Weather the M&A Climate
Our “Mergers & Acquisitions” white paper and checklists offer advice and cautionary tales for those looking to dip their toes into merger and acquisition activity.
9.) Advising on Succession Planning
As company leaders move to the next chapter of their lives, NSCA will help you confidently build transition strategies.
10.) Saving You Money
By reducing your professional services expenses through identifying tax credits, streamlining benefits, and more, NSCA saves money for its member companies.
11.) Hosting You at Our Business & Leadership Conference
No product demonstrations. Very little tech talk. Your business challenges are at the forefront of this annual event, designed to help you run your business better.
12.) Reading the Industry Tea Leaves
We constantly observe the industry landscape from a vantage point that allows for swift action. When customer demands are shifting, we make sure you are aware and prepared to evolve.
13.) Boosting Your Revenue
Bottom-line revenue isn’t everything. Optimize profit margins by using our resources and tools.
14.) Being Your Business Transformation Partner
NSCA helps you understand and navigate industry shifts, such as managed services. NSCA members never have to go through a business transformation alone.
15.) Helping You Understand What to Charge
Tools such as NSCA’s “Labor Installation Standards” guidelines assist you with job costing and accurately estimating projects.
16.) Collaborating with an Incredible Network
Members benefit from the relationships we build with adjacent industries to foster better collaboration. Plus, we are matchmakers who have immediate access to the finest systems integration firms, giving you access to like-minded, non-competitive partners for remote projects.
17.) Helping You Recognize Impactful Regulations
Through tools like our constantly updated Interactive Legislative Map and Legislative Alerts emails, we make sure proposed laws on licensing, prevailing wage, and labor issues are on your radar – and keep you updated about any changes that may impact the way you do business.
18.) Being Dedicated to the Channel
Our focus is 100% on you, the integration community. We protect and defend your company by advocating for systems professionals and our channel.
19.) Offering Continuous Thought Leadership
Through our committees and councils, we keep our finger on the pulse of the industry. Our content, including monthly webinars, offers pragmatic positions on business issues you may be facing.
20.) Improving Your Project Profitability
Is it worth it or not? Enter scenarios in NSCA’s Project Contribution Simulator to find out how a project will impact your organization.
21.) Evaluating Candidates’ Technical Knowledge
Use NSCA’s Technical Assessment Tool to gauge the proficiency of technicians and installers before you hire them. (Also great for your existing team.)
22.) Helping You Hire Next-Gen Talent
NSCA Education Foundation’s Ignite program is the answer to our industry’s exasperating struggle to make qualified, young candidates aware of career opportunities.
23.) Reimagining Your Business Model
To help you keep up with new business models, services revenue, and changing customer needs, we crafted an annual event, Pivot to Profit, which provides you with a step-by-step approach to transform your organization so you can keep up – and even get ahead.
24.) Fighting Alongside You
You’re not alone when local, state, and federal regulations threaten your profitability or right to work. NSCA organizes the industry against legal threats and advocates on your behalf.
25.) Giving It to You Straight
We help integrators identify and remove constraints from their business that impede growth or profits: sales compensation structures, pricing policies, and project management shortcomings, to name a few.
26.) Offering an Industry-Specific Job Board
Our research shows that most NSCA member companies have open positions. Post jobs on IgniteYourCareer.org to reach candidates already learning about great careers in integration.
27.) Being a Phone Call Away
No member company is too small. Learn to better manage the business challenges of running an integration firm by spending one-on-one time with NSCA leaders.
28.) Providing Access to Trusted Advisors
NSCA will connect you with vetted partners through our Business Accelerators and Member Advisory Council partners – addressing marketing, sales, tax credits, ERP, discounts, and more.
29.) Training Your New Employees
NSCA’s Certificate as a Systems Integration Professional (C-SIP) program helps you get new employees started on the right foot with industry- and job-specific online training.
30.) Giving Back to Our Industry
NSCA Education Foundation advances educational opportunities by providing scholarships and awards to assist existing professionals and those pursuing careers in our industry.
31.) Helping You Manage Inventory
NSCA’s StockroomExchange.com is a centralized, online resource that integration firms can use to sell parts they no longer need to other integrators that do need them.
32.) Providing Product Development Input
NSCA leverages strong relationships with our manufacturer partners to help them understand the solutions our integrator members need.
33.) Helping You Make Schools Safer
Security Industry Association and NSCA’s Partner Alliance for Safer Schools (PASS) lays out best practices for securing school facilities, vetted extensively by experts across the education, public safety, and industry sectors. Adding further credibility, the PASS program was recently included on the U.S. federal government’s SchoolSafety.gov as a recommended resource for developing and implementing plans for physical security in schools.
34.) Helping You Recruit
NSCA Education Foundation’s Ignite is much more than an internship program. It helps you educate your community – high schools, technical schools, employment fairs – about our great industry with PowerPoints, brochures, and more.
35.) Paying It Forward with Us
You work hard and you deserve a little fun. NSCA organizes and hosts golf outings and concerts to raise money for our Education Foundation. These funds benefit Ignite, Randy Vaughan Founder’s Award scholarships, and more.
36.) Working for You – Our Members
We respect your privacy and strive to earn your trust.
37.) Implementing Strategic Plans
Through one-on-one coaching and customized advice, NSCA helps you create goals and implement strategic plans so you know where your business is headed – and what you need to do to get there.
38.) Improving Employee Morale
Creating and maintaining a positive corporate culture helps you recruit and maintain top talent. Our tools and resources help you shape an environment that employees love being part of.
39.) Enhancing Specific Departments
Whether you want to redesign your project management department, help your sales team get to the next level, rethink your HR practices, or assist your marketing team in making the most of its limited resources, NSCA has connections to in-house and third-party experts to help every corner of your business excel.
40.) Being Good Listeners
When times are tough for an NSCA member company, we’re there to help. When times are triumphant for an NSCA member company, we’re there to celebrate.
Focus on the Next 40 Years
We choose to recognize our past and appreciate the efforts of so many industry pioneers – but we’re celebrating what we offer members now and into the future. “We’re thrilled about the capabilities we have today to help integration companies,” Wilson says. “We’re excited about the future and how bright it is.
Certainly, there are business barriers. “We find ways to get over those barriers,” he says. “We have the types of members that are true winners. We provide resources to help them, but it’s this network, this community, and the relationships we build that will create excitement for the next 40 years. That is evident at this year’s BLC.”
By the way: There are a lot more than 40 ways that NSCA helps member companies. But hey – it’s our 40th anniversary. We’ll list 80 for our 80th anniversary!
