Advanced Cabling Systems*

Advanced Cabling Systems of North Little Rock began with five employees in 1998 as an offshoot of an electrical contractor, serving the network needs of companies like Alltel. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Advanced moved into the security sector to fill a new market need.
That attention to clients’ needs, according to Advanced Cabling President Michael Kennedy, is the company’s secret to success. Now Advanced employs 62 people, serves more than 2,000 clients and is constantly besting its financial performance from the previous year.
Kennedy said the company’s biggest challenge was “keeping up with the ever-changing technology that our clients ask for, just trying to keep them on the cutting edge of what’s new and the latest and greatest in cameras and security, as that changes on a daily basis.”
Advanced Cabling now offers cabling and installation for security systems, cameras, controlled-access systems, fire alarms and school intercoms, as well as fiber optic cabling for computer networks.
Although the rapidly changing technology industry makes long-term planning difficult, Kennedy said, Advanced Cabling has a pretty good idea of what’s on the horizon. The company foresees a continued shift to intelligent building design, in which all of a building’s functions — from air-conditioning to lighting to access control — are connected by Internet protocol cabling and can communicate, creating a more efficient building. Fortunately for Advanced, that’s right up the company’s alley.
Despite a sluggish economy, the firm’s financial performance indicates that clients still need networks of all sorts. Advanced Cabling’s revenue in 2009 — $9 million — doubled from the previous year. In 2008, the company’s revenue grew 25 percent.
That performance comes at a time when the industry standard is negative, said Kennedy, who spoke highly of the Advanced team that makes such stellar performance possible.

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