By Kevin Swann, Kentec Electronics’ Managing Director

Strong relationships are the foundations of strong businesses – and Kentec has the proof. Since it shifted its international business from being largely distribution-based to a partnership strategy six years ago, the fire alarm control panel manufacturer has had to expand its UK factory three times to meet the increased demand.

Nowhere has this success story been more apparent than in the Middle East and North Africa, where the company has seen business more than double in recent years.

Here, Kentec Electronics’ Managing Director, Kevin Swann, explains how working in true partnership has been the key to success.

Value-added working  

A partnership approach, which allows a manufacturer to work more closely with clients than relying on distributors alone, allows Kentec to provide truly tailored solutions and high-value, ongoing support and training. All of this enhances product effectiveness and builds customer loyalty, says Swann:

“Kentec’s approach includes comprehensive training on our products, including ‘train the trainer’ modules, making all our partners experts in our products,” he said.

This comprehensive training means the company’s partners can offer their clients a high level of expertise and compliance assurance, helping them to stand out from their competitors. They also have access to Kentec’s expert team on the ground, which includes industry-leading figures such as Ibrahim Ariqat, Business Development Manager for the Middle East, and Costas Constantinides, International Head of Sales.

“We and our partners choose each other. We guarantee premium support and free training, and our partners commit to commercial targets. There’s a huge amount of mutual respect and teamwork there,” says Swann. “We have built deep relationships with partners who understand our products, and who choose them because they know they’ll get the support they need.”

Since its inception, the model has proved something of a runaway success, and the company is now looking to expand the approach ever further.

“We are now entering substantial new markets – sectors with major growth potential that we may not have known anything about if we were still just working through distributors alone,” Swann explains. “We now support partner companies in about 90 countries around the world, but our biggest growth areas so far have been the Middle East and North Africa.”

Part of the community

For Kentec, there have been numerous strategic benefits to the partnership model. Chief among them is that, through their close relationships with partners, the team is now embedded in local markets.

“Having those partnerships helps us to understand the market and their core requirements, so if some new trend is emerging, we can be on top of it,” notes Swann. “It means we can direct our significant investment in product design and national approvals in the most effective way to meet the needs of our end users.”

In the Middle East, for example, the team on the ground realised that, while installers often speak English, the people who use Kentec’s products on a day-to-day basis may not. This insight prompted the team to ensure its multi-award winning Taktis fire panel, which has been shortlisted for Intersec’s 2025 Excellence in Fire Prevention prize, features more than 20 built in languages, including Arabic.

In addition, the close relationships with local partners have revealed that those in Middle East and North African markets often need to comply with European Norm (EN) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) standards, rather than just one or the other. Unique to Kentec, this has informed the design of products that are designed from scratch with product variants to meet EN or UL standards, making them a more attractive product offering and supporting the business development efforts of Kentec and its partners alike.

“Overall, the partnership models mean Kentec can leverage local conditions to design and offer unique solutions that meet the specific demands of the markets we serve. While distributors will always be important to Kentec, with a distribution-only approach, we simply did not know what we didn’t know,” says Swann.

Embedded in the future

Through the partnership model, Kentec has transformed its relationships with suppliers and distributors around the world, and now they are all working together to future proof the fire safety industry.

Come see the fruits of Kentec’s efforts at Intersec 2025 (Hall 3, stand E-20), where it will be showcasing the functionality of products including the Taktis Fire Panel, winner of the 2019 National Safety and Health Excellence Awards’ Fire Innovation of the Year Award and Fire Project of the Year at the 2022 Security and Fire Excellence Awards. We will also be demonstrating Kentec’s Voice Evacuation system.

What is the Taktis Fire Panel?

Developed by Kentec Electronics, the Taktis Fire Panel is a state-of-the-art analogue addressable fire alarm control panel designed for complex buildings. Its advanced functionality makes it suitable for schools, hospitals, multi-site retail, critical national infrastructure, and various commercial and industrial facilities.

Taktis prioritises system reliability by incorporating high levels of redundancy. Multiple backup microprocessors eliminate single points of failure, ensuring that even if the touchscreen display fails, the system continues to operate in reduced functionality mode. Detection loops remain active, and alarms are communicated across the network.

For large installations, Taktis enables full compliance with EN 54-2, which mandates that a system fault should not result in the loss of more than 512 detectors. By networking up to 127 control panels and using a fully redundant signal path with INS, Taktis enhances fault tolerance and ensures alarms reach the Alarm Receiving Centre.

The latest version also meets the highest standards of BS 7273-4, concerning door control mechanisms in fire events. Through advanced programming, Taktis satisfies Category A requirements – the highest level – ensuring door release mechanisms function even under severe fault conditions.

To combat false alarms, Taktis features a ‘hotel mode.’ In this mode, only the sounder in the affected room activates initially, allowing time for investigation and preventing unnecessary evacuations in places like hotels and student accommodations.

Ease of use remains a focus, with a full-colour seven-inch touchscreen that is customisable and supports multiple languages. This intuitive interface ensures that even users with minimal training can operate the system effectively.

“The latest version of Taktis rubberstamps our commitment to providing the most advanced fire alarm control panel technology possible,” says Derrick Hall, Director of Sales and Marketing at Kentec Electronics. “Its features make installers’ lives easier and offer significant benefits to end users. We encourage other professionals to take another look at Taktis.”

This article was originally published in the January 2025 issue of International Fire & Safety Journal – to read your FREE digital copy, click here.