Article

Rebranding Central Monitoring Services

Everything you need to know and why it matters!

Over the last few months, there have been some exciting new developments going on behind the scenes here at Central Monitoring Services.

After a great deal of thought and discussion, we decided…

It was time to rebrand!

That’s right. Central Monitoring Services has had a facelift.

But there’s a whole lot of meaningful depth beneath the aesthetic upgrade that we’d love to share with you.

Essentially, this whole new look and updated messaging represents our proactive move to align ourselves with the trajectory of 2024 (and beyond).

This exciting milestone in our company’s journey also coincides with our 35th birthday, making 2024 particularly special for all of us here at CMS.

So, we’re sharing this excitement with you by explaining everything you need to know about our CMS rebrand, including:

why we’ve rebranded
what this represents for the Australian security industry
why this is the perfect time for a rebrand, and
what you can expect from our team and company moving forward.

“At CMS, we have a long and proud history of providing our clients with the services they need to keep their people, property and assets safe – we always have and always will.

But now, it’s time to look to the changing future and evolve to lead the security industry into the new era together with our clients. This rebrand is the first step of many.”

– Scott Kiely | Managing Director of CMS

Here’s what to expect from CMS going forward

The first change you will notice is a complete overhaul of our website.

To put it simply, our team realised that our old brand and messaging had become frozen in time. As fond of it as we were, essentially, our previous branding no longer reflected who we are today as an organisation or aligned with what the modern security industry needs from us going forward.

So, the decision to rebrand came about as a way for us to effectively show the external market who we really are, what we stand for and who we have become.

“See, while our many loyal customers and those within the security industry already know us quite well, unfortunately, so many others outside of the industry who we would like to reach have no idea who we are or how we can help – and we wanted to change that.”

– Nicole Sparkes | Marketing & Business Development at CMS

As a result, we carried out a complete overhaul of our visuals, website and messaging to catapult our brand from the late 90s, into the 2020s.

What do you think?

We hope you love it as much as we do!

Of course, this rebrand was also about refining how we communicate our value to our audience. Have a read of our updated messaging below:

Our revised purpose

Our purpose has not changed in the past 35 years. Our convictions have always been the same. We’ve simply taken this opportunity to better articulate our purpose to make a much stronger impact on our clients and the industry:

We monitor and respond to activated alarms, ensuring our clients, their people and valued assets are safe and secure – at all times.

Our revised values

These are the values that guide our business actions and decisions. They have always been a part of us at Central Monitoring Services, but now, they’re refined and set in stone for everyone to see:

Lead with care – for each other, our clients, their people and valued assets.

Embrace responsibility – taking ownership of all our actions, recognising our pivotal role in the lives of our clients, community and industry for social good.

Leverage knowledge – for comprehensive guidelines, proactive protocols and innovative technologies.

Act with precision – the key ingredient for reliable and responsive service.

Ensure safety – the cornerstone of our business.

Our key messaging pillars

As part of our rebrand process, we sat down as a team and developed key communications that defined who we are as a company.

Here are the messages that we came up with to reaffirm our security industry positioning and truly define our point of difference in the Australian market:

What we do: We put your safety in our hands.

We are industry leaders in alarm monitoring and security. For us, it’s all about the response – acting with speed and rigour to ensure all our clients, their people and valued assets are safe and secure, at all times. We provide this premium service to bureaus and direct clients across commercial, industrial and residential sites.

How we do it: We are a people business.

With advanced training, comprehensive protocols and innovative products, our expert team are equipped to respond to every alert 24/7 with immense care, professionalism and efficiency.

Why we do it: We care about your security as much as you do.

We believe it is our own responsibility to ensure the safety of all people, premises and valuables that are entrusted to us.

“As the original founder of CMS, I built the business on integrity and a dedication to security, supported by superior customer service. With this rebrand, our current clients will see that we still embody all of these foundations but have evolved to meet the needs of today’s market, head-on.”

– Neville Kiely | CEO & Founder at Central Monitoring Services

Our value proposition

Our value proposition is what we offer our clients:

Responsive monitoring that protects your people, property and assets.

Our brand essence

When we break our brand right down, this is the essence of everything we do:

At the heart of securing what matters most to you.

Our personality

This is how we come across in our communications:

We’re the calm, friendly voice of your security.

Always in control – reliable, responsive, proactive.

“When it comes down to it, there’s never been a more critical time to make the security of your people, your property and your assets the top priority.

This is another key reason why we chose right now to invest heavily in reinventing our brand and how we communicate. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision – right now is a critical time for security, not only for your business, but for our wider society as well.”

– Suzette Po-Williams | Security Professional at Central Monitoring Services

That’s why we’ve developed our new brand messaging to reflect this urgency while simultaneously demonstrating our excellence in providing the security solutions you need, today and tomorrow.

How did CMS get to where we are now?

Let’s start with a little history.

Neville Kiely founded Central Monitoring Services 35 years ago in 1989 in a small office in Gladesville with nothing but business acumen and a strong passion for security.

Back then, with the increasing awareness and growth of digital security technology, Neville offered specialised alarm monitoring at a direct level for all operators specialising in the installation and servicing of alarm systems.

For him, CMS was more than a business, however. It was about providing confidence to his clients – an integral part of what we still do today.

Essentially, this rebrand still reflects Neville’s original vision, tailored to the modern era faced by our clients today.

Now, in 2024, we’re still a family-owned business, but we’ve grown to become one of the largest independent physical security monitoring centres in Australia.

Of course, this growth is a testament to the work of Scott Kiely, Managing Director of CMS and Neville’s son. His ongoing dedication to evolving CMS and bringing it into the 21st century is what has made us the company we are today.

Ultimately, though, it’s our commitment to high-quality customer service that truly sets us apart.

We’re for the betterment of the entire Australian security sector

Throughout our journey towards four decades in security, our goals have not simply been about growing our own business. Rather, we’ve worked to lift the standards of the entire industry.

However, we don’t like to compare ourselves; instead, we work tirelessly to position CMS in a league of our own.

As a long-term member of the Australian Security Industry Association (ASIAL), CMS is heavily involved in the structuring and development of the security industry.

As well as this, Neville has served as both the Director and Chairman of the Special Interests Groups for the ASIAL for more than 30 years, as well as Chairman of the ASIAL National Electronic Security Group for more than 15 years.

Likewise, our Customer Service and Security Specialist Manager, Suzette Po-Williams, serves as the ASIAL NSW Convener and works on multiple committees dedicated to setting the standards across the security industry in Australia and New Zealand.

Suzette also acted as the Project Development Officer for the CMS SHLV SOS Link Device, a tool designed in collaboration with Family and Community Services (FACS) to help survivors of domestic violence get police assistance while outside the safety of their homes.

Celebrating our legacy as a united and diverse team

There have also been many other people throughout the life of CMS who have made not just one single large contribution, but an ongoing contribution for many years.

In fact, we have staff who have been with us for more than 20 years now – helping us daily to level up and maintain our position as an industry leader.

We wouldn’t be where we are today without everyone’s input – and for this, we are thankful.

We’ve grown as business security needs have changed in Australia

Initially, CMS began as an ungraded monitoring centre.

But after years of hard work, we were suitably recognised as a B1-level monitoring centre.

“Once we moved to Kings Park in 2016, our entire operational headquarters was purpose-built to ensure we could achieve the highest grade for a monitoring centre in Australia – which we did.”

– Scott Kiely | Managing Director of CMS

Now, moving a monitoring centre is quite a huge deal.

It’s not just about building a new facility; it’s about adopting new technology and shifting away from physical cabling to becoming reliant on wireless technology, as well as adapting to evolving industry best practices.

Many larger security organisations have not taken this path. Rather, they’ve chosen to sell off and merge with the major players in the industry.

But not us.

Central Monitoring Services have consistently remained the largest independent monitoring centre in Australia.

This is largely thanks to the tireless work of our Operations Manager, Elizabeth Chalmers, whose vision for the future growth of CMS has been pivotal to our ability to continue to thrive and succeed in the industry.

Every day, Elizabeth drives continuous improvement and innovation within the Monitoring Centre to keep us moving forward.

We’ve come a long way from our humble beginnings

Over time, CMS has evolved as new technology has emerged and new people with fresh ideas and insights have joined us on our journey.

“We’re now recognised as one of the leaders in the security industry – and with this rebrand, we can now truly reflect the passion that Neville started CMS with all those years ago, and the evolution that has taken place along the way.”

– Nicole Sparkes | Marketing & Business Development at CMS

We’re excited to be breathing new life into our brand, into our company and the industry, while holding true to the original principles on which our organisation was founded.

So, why did we decide to rebrand CMS?

Multiple reasons.

As you already know, we’ve been around for 35 years now, and we wanted to make sure that we continue to pay respect to our proud history.

At the same time, however, we realise that technology is evolving – as are our customers’ needs – and we must be able to keep up with that.

“For our team at CMS, the driving force behind rebranding was to elevate us to be seen and recognised as the security leaders we truly are.”

– Scott Kiely | Managing Director of CMS

While everyone within the Australian security industry knows that we’re the best at what we do, outside of that, unless they’re already a client, most people remain unaware of our approach to security.

So, a large part of why we rebranded was to educate a wider circle of Australian organisations as to what we do and how we can meet their growing security needs.

“Beyond that, however, we also want to become the innovative force in the industry once again. The security industry has become quite uniform today, and we want the market to recognise the contributions we make every day towards leading the progress of Australian security services.”

– Suzette Po-Williams | Security Professional at Central Monitoring Services

This rebrand will be a catalyst to become the difference and re-energise the industry once again.

“Likewise, we also wanted our staff to feel refreshed, re-energised and confident in the fact that what they’re doing is still extremely important. We want them to feel empowered about providing high-quality security solutions and exceptional customer service that helps to save lives and keep people safe.”

– Elizabeth Chalmers | Operations Manager at Central Monitoring Services

How CMS is achieving these goals through branding

There were several steps we took to evolve our brand into what it has become today.

To start, we modernised our logo.

However, we chose not to change the original colours of black and grey – because, to us, these colours represent sophistication.

We also kept the chain link design as well. For us, this is an important part of our identity.

We believe that CMS is the link between your need for people, property and asset security and the solution.

Finally, we kept the word central in our name because we believe it is an iconic part of who we are and what we do.

To us, we are a central part of the entire security ecosystem.

With this new modern and sophisticated branding, we feel confident that even those who don’t know who we are will see our brand and immediately understand that we are on another level in the Australian security sector.

Our evolution goes beyond just the logo.

While you can see that the colours and imagery in our logo remain the same, you will notice that we have taken the opportunity to refresh our entire company look to help make us more relatable to potential customers in 2024 and beyond.

Likewise, our messaging and individual communication elements have also been updated to support this relatability.

We’ve shifted to a much more direct and powerful communication approach, providing a much greater level of clarity around what we do and the results that we get for our clients.

As part of this, we’ve made a point of focusing on what makes us truly different in the security industry.

“Many security providers focus purely on technology, whereas we prefer to focus on the value that our people and their exceptional customer service skills bring to the table as well.

When it all comes down to it, we believe that security is a holistic practice that relies on people just as much as technology, and this new branding of ours really emphasises this – further strengthening our positioning in a world where everyone else is purely focused on technology.”

– Scott Kiely | Managing Director of CMS

This rebrand is the result of many people’s contributions

From Neville, Suzette, Scott and Elizabeth to several other members of our team, each has played a key role in bringing this rebrand to life.

We’d also like to acknowledge Ali King at Ask Marketing, as well as Sherry Design and Melotti Media, who have all been instrumental in creatively designing and coordinating this rebrand over the past few months.

Through everyone’s contributions, past and present, we’ve been able to take Neville’s original business and mould it into the incredibly successful organisation that we are today.

When can you expect to see our new branding in action?

Great news – it’s already live!

Here at CMS, we’re proud to say that we have already launched our new website and begun rolling out our new branding and messaging across all our platforms over the past month.

You will notice it across everything we do, from our social media and website, to our uniforms, signage and even corporate stationery.

As we complete the transition to our new branding and messaging, we guarantee you’ll soon start to see it popping up everywhere – new business cards and email signatures, as well as in industry publications and even at physical events.

Australian security has a new look!

Now, we’re excited to share this incredibly important milestone with you and finally get to hear what you think about all of our hard work behind the scenes.

What we’ve witnessed from our rebrand so far

As we’ve already mentioned, this rebrand was not just about improving the overall look of our brand – it was also about making what we do and the value that we offer clearer to the Australian market.

We also wanted to reinvigorate our existing customers by showcasing how we have evolved over the years and how we will continue to provide better services to them.

More than anything, however, it was about inspiring our team, as well as the wider security industry.

Why?

Because here at CMS, we’re extremely mindful of avoiding a state of complacency. Unfortunately, we believe that security has become rather commoditised.

So many providers appear to be set in their ways, and as a result, they’re losing out on opportunities to provide a better service to their customers.

“That’s something we don’t want here at CMS. That’s why this rebrand is about showing our team, our customers and the industry that we’re here to offer so many different solutions that go beyond a simple security camera or alarm.”

– Scott Kiely | Managing Director of CMS

Ultimately the end goal is to encourage the industry while positioning ourselves at the forefront of it.

In fact, since updating our messaging, we’ve already noticed a large number of potential customers who previously had no idea who we were starting to engage with us.

In just a few short weeks, this new direction we’ve taken with our messaging has already started to gain traction for CMS.

From humble beginnings, we’ve grown to become an industry leader in Australian security

This rebrand is about reflecting that, without losing touch with why we started CMS in the first place.

Essentially, it’s about the de-commoditisation of what we do to help show our customers just how integral security is to their daily lives or business operations.

That’s why we are heavily investing in ourselves to position CMS as the leader we have always been – at a time when security has never been more important.

Join us in sharing the excitement for the future of the security industry

Here at Central Monitoring Services, we know our team is excited, our customers are excited, and the industry is excited.

We’re proud of the last 35 years, and more importantly, we’re excited for the next 35 to come!

We look forward to continuing to grow and being better able to enable our bureau partners like many of you to grow alongside us as well.

Working with the best network of security providers, as well as commercial organisations of all sizes, individuals and residential clients alike, we are proud to be spearheading security innovation and leading our industry into the future.

Here’s to the new age of security!

Discover how the new-look Central Monitoring Services can help secure and monitor your people, assets and property today

Central Monitoring Services are the experts in residential, commercial and industrial back-to-base security monitoring across Australia.

Australian-owned and operated since 1989, our team has more than 35 years of experience in the fire and security industries, yet it’s our high level of quality customer service that truly sets us apart.

At Central Monitoring, you’re not just another number. Rather, we make ourselves available to you, day and night, with our complete security, monitoring and technical support services.

For more information or to book a consultation, call 1300 655 009 or fill out our contact form today.