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Ontario entrepreneurs get spotlight on ASIS show floor

The Ontario-Canada delegation was housed in 20 X 20 booth that brought together the busineses from Ontario under one banner.

The booth featured companies looking to expand their business in the
U.S., including Amika Mobile of Ottawa which was promoting its
emergency mass notification system and seeking system integrators,
hosting partners and VARs, while Cansec Systems Limited of Mississauga
with their access control and biometric products, was looking for
installation dealers for access controls and HVAC in the U.S.

Sentry Security Systems of Kingston, Ontario, a CCTV and access control
vendor said he was looking to expand distribution into the US and was
seeking dealers and installers of CCTV and networks.

Ken Allsopp of Sentry Security said the $2,000 U.S. fee he paid to be
part of the booth was a small fraction of what it would cost a vendor
to exhibit on its own at a venue such as the ASIS International show
floor. The smallest booth available at the ASIS show is about $4,000
U.S., not including the shipping and other expenses required to attend
the show.

KeyKeeper, a high security key control systems from Bolton was looking
for customers who need to control the collection and distribution of
large quantities of keys and Waterloo, Ont.-based Dalsa, a maker of
high-performance digital imaging technology and semi-conductors was
looking for OEMs in need of imaging technology.

“The Ontario pavilion worked out great for us,” says Jonathan Weeden of
KeyKeeper. “We generated some great 
leads, some of which we would
never have stood a chance of getting had we 
not exhibited,” says
Weeden.

KeyKeeper left the show with 60 “highly-qualified leads”.

“They  cost us about $58 per lead including all of my costs of exhibit
and 
travel, an amount that can be made up with maybe two or three
product sales,” Weeden says, adding he landed opportunities to
distribute products in Europe as well as 
through two of the largest
security distributors in the U.S., as well as some good leads on
Canadian businesses and government agencies.

The province also arranged for the companies to have an audience with
members of ASIS Los Angeles and held a reception featuring Ontario ice
wine, which drew about 100 people to the booth on the second day of the
show.

Ministry of International Trade and Investment area director, Mauricio
Ospina, drew on the Ministry’s database of business names to invite
security-related companies to the show. The five companies collectively gave the experience a 94 per cent satisfaction rating and estimated they were exposed to 140 leads and about $4 million in potential sales.