Ecl-ips - NSI

Ecl-ips – Aaron Kernaghan Managing Director

Head Office: Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire
NSI Certifications: NACOSS GOLD
Areas of business expertise: Design, installation and support of CCTV systems; intruder alarms; access control systems; smart sensors, network systems and real-time monitoring solutions.

Company Overview

Educonnect Ltd, trading as Ecl-ips, has grown into a leading provider of innovative solutions in security, surveillance, access control, monitoring, power backup and automation systems, drawing on more than two decades of industry experience.

We listen to customers and focus on their needs and combine this with selecting key partners offering IP solutions. Over a decade ago, this prompted Ecl-ips to expand our focus beyond real-time monitoring solutions to include CCTV and access control systems.

More recently the protection and security product mix has been expanded with intruder alarms, density fog generators and the Halo Smart Sensor, a three-in-one health, safety and vape detector. Ecl-ips constantly reviews the latest technologies and products on offer to ensure we are providing the best solutions to our clients. Lately this includes cloud-based security solutions.

Our customers include blue-chip organisations, high-net worth individuals, as well as educational and government establishments throughout the UK. We have an eye for detail and take great pride in the quality of our workmanship – providing our customers with the most appropriate, well designed and installed system is always our highest priority.

What are your company's main drivers for gaining and maintaining NSI certification?

It was a massive step for Ecl-ips to achieve the NSI Gold certification in 2019 having been a NSI Silver- certified installer since 2010. This certification provides proof that we are meeting the highest industry standards. It also helps Ecl-ips to continually monitor and manage quality across our business so we can identify areas for improvement.

What benefits has NSI certification brought to your business?

NSI certification has helped us enhance our back-office processes so that we become more efficient and effective at organising our work and providing support to our customers.

Improved processes and reporting tools enable us to review our achievements and shortfalls, providing the opportunity to remedy issues before they impact our customers’ service and experience.

Having the NSI Gold standard certification also gives us an edge over competitors.

How has NSI certification benefitted your customers?

Ecl-ips is committed to constantly improving its business practices and offering an improved customer experience as well as being able to demonstrate to our clients that we adhere to the highest standards that we can in all areas of our business.

We believe with the audits we have twice a year, and three-yearly renewals, it demonstrates to customers that standards are maintained.

We carry out more regular customer calls as part of our certification and this helps to ensure all their security needs are met.

Customers may also benefit from paying lower insurance premiums because providers can rely on our standards.

What preparation does your team undertake in advance of NSI audits?

We ensure that we are regularly reviewing our processes so that there is less work to do immediately before the NSI audits and that our policies and procedures are kept up to date We also employ an external expert to undertake an annual internal audit, ensuring we are on track. We take previous NSI audit feedback seriously. Thorough reviews of past audit reports are conducted to identify areas highlighted for improvement.

Looking forward, what do you consider to be the industry’s key challenges and opportunities?

Challenges:

Recruiting skilled and experienced engineers is definitely a challenge. However, it is not just a problem in the security industry, there is a skills shortage in the UK.

Another big challenge in the last 20 years for the security industry has been the change from analogue to digital, this isn’t just with camera connectivity but more recently with the BT upgrade from analogue to digital and removal of PSTN exchanges. BT was due to switch off the PSTN at the end of 2025 but the deadline was extended to 31st January 2027. The closure of BT Redcare that will take place in August 2025 has focused minds on those remaining legacy alarm systems that are reliant on the PSTN.

Opportunities:

The move to digital and the growth of IoT also creates opportunities and Ecl-ips can promote its advanced intruder alarm solutions to those needing to switch systems. As we have always offered IP-based solutions we are well placed to take advantage of these opportunities.

The development of smart phone technology and cloud computing, has transformed how easy it is for us, and our customers, to monitor and manage all the security and monitoring systems we provide. Almost all of our CCTV, access control and intruder alarms systems come with easy-to-use apps that enable users to control their systems from their smart phones or browser-based software that is simple to operate as long as you have internet connectivity.

We believe the market for cloud-based solutions will only grow as customers see the benefits of a subscription-based price model, not needing to purchase large storage hardware and of more efficient updates of software that will improve cybersecurity.