Having recorded a healthy performance in 2016 by expanding its security and fire product portfolio significantly last year, Honeywell is planning to maintain the momentum in the New Year too by being one step ahead of the competition.

“Our focus will remain on being the customer’s partner of choice by developing differentiated offerings ahead of others and anticipating market needs. Whilst we are specialists in many areas, we will be working on integrating our numerous offerings to create best-in-class connected solutions for homes and buildings,” said Fahmi Jabri, strategy and marketing director for HSF, Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META), while laying out the company’s focus for 2017.

A global leader in providing a wide range of innovative fire protection products and solutions, Honeywell has been in the Gulf region for over 60 years. Well-known for its innovative fire alarm systems, emergency communications and advanced detection solutions, Honeywell has a wide portfolio of fire safety solutions and brands aimed at small-to-medium size buildings to large-scale projects such as airports, university campuses, oil refineries and stadiums.

“We have a very strong regional presence in the GCC markets with a number of offices across the region. We are proud to offer our customers comprehensive local training and technology support via our experienced teams,” he said.

According to Jabri, Honeywell performed very well in 2016 and has expanded its product offering significantly. Last year, Honeywell acquired Xtralis, a leading global provider of aspirating smoke detection along with advanced perimeter security technologies and video analytics software, for $480 million. This acquisition has further strengthened its security and fire portfolio, allowing it to offer a leading solution for critical infrastructure and high-value assets, further adding to its presence in the Gulf region.

Xtralis aspirating smoke detection solutions protect many iconic sites and critical infrastructures worldwide and can be found in data centers, historical buildings, airports, industrial sites and manufacturing facilities. Designed to provide very early warning and verification of threats, Xtralis solutions can speed up response time, minimising facility damages and potential injuries.

The company said it has continued to grow its sales and market share year-on-year, witnessing a good increase in 2015 over its 2014 numbers.

“The GCC region is a very important market for us, and we are committed to delivering cutting edge technology to our customers here and across the world,” Jabri said.

In the year 2015, the Middle East region contributed 4 per cent to its total global sales of $38.6 billion. “We expect similar growth in the coming years,” he added.

Of the entire region, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the Gulf region’s two largest economies and the two largest markets for its fire safety products. “However, we enjoy strong sales across the region, and look expect continued growth across Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain,” he said.

BRAND PORTFOLIO

Its popular brands in the region include Esser, Gent, Notifier, and Morley-IAS through which it supplies the simplest alarm systems to the most sophisticated network applications, satisfying both UL as well as EN specifications.

“Honeywell products are very well-received in the industry and we have a number of long-term loyal and committed customers which, in turn, leads to well executed projects for the end users. Thanks to the high quality of our products they are currently in use across a number of high profile public venues such as hotels, airports, schools, stadiums, and shopping malls,” Jabri said.

Talking about its best sellers in the region, he said: “Our portfolio of brands are intentionally targeted to a wide array of market segments. Each brand offers products which are a really good fit for either small-to-medium size buildings, enterprise projects or infrastructure requirements. Our strength as a company comes from our ability to draw on a deep pool of solutions to meet the needs of our customers, and to tailor our technologies to meet specific requirements.”

Out of the new products introduced in the market over the past two years, Voice Alarm and Public Address systems have been very well received. Voice Alarm is increasingly important in the safe and productive management of buildings.

FOCUS ON XTRALIS, SIL

Going forward, in addition to its new Xtralis product lines, Honeywell plans to increase its range of SIL (Safety Integrity Level) systems for high-risk industries such oil, gas and petrochemicals.

“SIL is a measure of safety system performance and there are four discrete integrity levels associated with SIL. The higher the SIL level, the lower the probability of failure on demand for the safety system and the better the system performance,” Jabri elaborated.

Talking about the marketing and distribution of its products in the region, he said the company uses a wide network of channel partners. “At Honeywell, channel partners are our number one go-to market strategy, and we have a wide network. We operate in this way as it provides flexibility and enable a faster route to market. We work very closely with our partners to foster growth, differentiation and value with channel revenue growth and operational effectiveness being a key priority,” he concluded.