The Direct Alarm Supplies division of Hills’ Electronic Security and Entertainment Group will offer the Beonic Traffic Pro people counting system to its business partners in Australia and New Zealand. Traffic Pro is an advanced people counting system that is used by retailers, shopping centres and public facilities throughout Australia and overseas.

The distribution agreement with Hills Industries will dramatically increase the number of companies selling the Traffic Pro system. Hills expects as many as 200 of its more than 3000 business partners to sell Traffic Pro. Hills will also train its own staff to support the product in both Australia and New Zealand.

Hills Industries Electronic Security General Manager of Direct Alarm Supplies, Mr. Gabriel Daher, said Beonic had leading edge technology in its sector. “The Hills Electronics Group searches the world for this type of technology, so it’s very nice to discover it in our own backyard,” he said.

“The main benefit is that Beonic has been able to take a very complex application and simplify the whole installation process which benefits distributors, integrators and end-users alike. Traffic Pro has good synergy with our market and product direction.”

Mr Daher said it would be exciting to integrate advanced people management technology from Beonic into more traditional Access Control systems. “I believe end-users will benefit from the increased functionality and information Beonic-enabled Access Control systems could provide,” he said.

Hills Industries is an Australian Stock Exchange-listed company (ASX: HIL) that last year reported annual revenues of $931.8M. Electronic Security and Entertainment Products is the company’s most rapidly growing division, reporting sales of $263.8M in 2005-06 – a 27 per cent increase on the previous year.

Beonic is a Melbourne-based company that develops world-leading people counting systems that assist retailers to learn how to convert store visitors into actual customers. Beonic reports enable retailers to make more effective decisions about advertising, merchandising and checkout service levels, leading to happier customers, more sales and greater profit.

Clients using Beonic technology include IKEA, Hutchison ‘3’, Optus, Telstra, Angus & Robertson Bookshops, Jeans West, Clark Rubber and Adidas as well as Mirvac, AMP, GPT, CFSPM (Gandel) and Centro shopping centre groups. Beonic is also used by Star City Casino, SA State Library, the Sydney Opera House, Sydney's Queen Victoria Building and Melbourne’s Federation Square.

Mr. Daher said Beonic was a very professional company that really understood its market. “Traffic Pro is an attractive solution in many areas, but the obvious one for us is retail, so we expect our partners to continue focussing on selling to retailers,” he said.

“We will start off with business partners in every one of our locations. We are in every state of Australia and we have four outlets in New Zealand. We are currently delivering training to our staff and partners.”

Beonic CEO Peter Cohen said the Hills Industries partnership would rapidly grow Traffic Pro’s installed z_base. “We expect it to more than triple the number of Traffic Pro sites in the next few years,” he said.

“Together, we have so much more to offer existing customers as Hills specialises in many other areas such as Video Surveillance, Access Control, Carpark, Security, PA and Entertainment systems.

“The new distribution agreement will also allow Beonic to get some soon-to-be released products into the marketplace more quickly. Beonic innovation combined with Hills distribution reach is the perfect business synergy. This relationship really works well with the larger projects that require systems that are fully integrated using turn-key type products such as ours.

“Hills is offering support through a nationwide and New Zealand distribution agreement. To date, we have missed out on sales because we simply can’t be in all places at once. Hills is training its staff and resellers to support Traffic Pro, so it will extend our reach and improve support for existing and new customers.

“With Hills taking on distribution of Traffic Pro, Beonic can focus its resources on selling its Traffic Insight system, which is a higher-end enterprise solution aimed at customers wanting integrated solutions such as queuing and behaviour management systems.”

For more information about Beonic, visit www.beonic.com. For media assistance, call John Harris on 08 8431 4000 or email jharris@impress.com.au.