Cimcor CEO talks export challenges and growth goals
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One Indiana cybersecurity company was recently awarded the President’s “E” Award for remarkable contribution to U.S. exports this month.
Robert Johnson, CEO of Merrillville-based Cimcor Inc., said the company’s dedication to innovation, excellence and tailor-made solutions helped them serve customers in 47 international markets over the last four years with their flagship product, CimTrak Integrity Suite.
Johnson, who also serves on the Indiana District Export Council, spoke with Inside INdiana Business on his nearly three decades selling cybersecurity products, export challenges and a resource companies need to leverage more. This article has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What was your experience starting this company from scratch and building it up to what it is today?
It’s so difficult to start a business. At that time, we had a couple of partners that were also involved, so I was not alone. Everyone realized that this was going to be a big commitment in order to launch this. One of the things that I can say, though, is with whatever business that you launch, people don’t purchase your product; what they’re purchasing is their trust in you. So that is the important part to remember. We’ve tried to be conscious of that from the beginning. It’s the reason why we are so concerned about every piece of material that goes out, how we present ourselves on social media, how we present ourselves in our advertising.
We sell cybersecurity products, and the core of any cybersecurity product is monitoring the integrity of your assets, of your IT resources, of your endpoints, of your servers, of your network devices. So we can monitor the integrity of IT assets, but another thing we need to monitor is the integrity of how we do business. That should never be a question for anyone. We will turn down or opt out of any opportunity that does not seem like it’s 100% being executed properly. I think those are the things that help you be successful, understanding the right way to do business.
What got you into the cybersecurity space?
When we started, Cimcor did not develop cybersecurity software. Initially, we helped automate manufacturing facilities and critical infrastructure. It could be automotive plants, steel plants, paper, aluminum, automating those types of processes. As we were implementing one critical infrastructure project after another, we always had this feeling that everything was so delicate. We felt like it just took someone with bad intent and a USB stick or someone not following the proper change control processes. So we set out to add additional visibility into what’s happening in these types of systems. That led us down the path of creating the first version of our product. At the time it was called Cimtrak Industrial, and it identified unexpected changes in industrial and manufacturing environments.
After that we decided to expand and bring this technology to the general enterprise space. Unfortunately, even though you’re hearing more about cyber-related threats on utilities and other critical infrastructure, when we started, the awareness wasn’t there. And when there’s no awareness that means there’s no budget. But because the thought process is sound and the need was definitely there, we went ahead.
We brought the same type of real-time visibility into unexpected changes in your organization. Whether there’s some new file being added to your system, ransomware being delivered to your system, a new user being added to your network, changes to your databases just across the board, we were trying to add visibility into all the key components of a modern IT infrastructure, even cloud infrastructures.
So how did the company start exporting its solution?
Part of our strategy has been to bring on additional resellers. We feel that the best way to develop a relationship with many customers is by leveraging the existing relationships of resellers and distributors. It allows us to get closer to the customer faster and leverage those existing relationships. So that was the foundation of our strategy—to extend beyond the boundaries of the United States. We knew that we loved having these one-on-one relationships with customers and we still love it and we try to have that type of dynamic in the United States. Now we have almost 200 resellers globally. We’re teaming up with them to enter into all of these various markets and help them understand the value of a product like ours.
What does receiving the President’s “E” Award mean for the company and stakeholders?
Everyone’s very proud of what we’ve accomplished. There have been many sleepless nights for many of the folks at Cimcor because we are trying to help our customers globally, and that means we may be needed by two in the morning. If there’s an issue, our folks here in the U.S. are actively involved. So there have been many sleepless nights and there will continue to be many sleepless nights for many of the folks at Cimcor. It’s validation that they have that there’s a benefit to all of the work that they put into it, and I certainly appreciate it.
It’s also a testament that our resellers have been incredible partners in multiple markets. There are 47 different markets that we have sold into in the last four years. That was largely because of the strong partnerships that we’ve been able to develop with resellers in many of these other countries, so it also speaks to their efforts.
Can you share some of the insights and strategies that have contributed to the success of your exporting arm?
Some of the things that have contributed to our success is being willing to respect that every one of these countries have their own way of doing business. They have their own culture, and we can’t enter into these markets with an America-centric view of the world. We have to be respectful of how things work there and try to adapt to those particular environments, those markets, those cultures, those norms, and that’s exactly what we tried to do.
Everyone attempts to limit the number of colloquialisms that they use and tries to be as clear as possible, but also flexible. In some countries, everything has to start right on time, in other countries, they start early and in some countries you need to give a little flexibility for that meeting time.
We also realize that each one of these countries have their own set of compliance and regulatory requirements. We’ve taken the time to add capabilities into our software to help provide reporting for some of the things that are specific to those countries. Whether it’s GDPR in the EU or a variety of other modifications and reports and compliance standards that we’ve added for the sole purpose of other markets. We’ve done things such as add support for the Singapore Monetary Authority Standard for technology risk. We’ve added support for the Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority’s Cybersecurity Framework, or the New Zealand Information Security Manual.
Those are the extra steps that we’re taking that are obviously extremely market specific and take an investment to align with those particular markets. But we’re dedicated to doing that and doing that in as many markets as we can. We want to be relevant there.
Have there been any challenges so far in your bid to achieve that product specificity for your different markets?
There’s always language-related challenges, especially when trying to interpret some compliance and regulatory standards and they’re written in another language. It’s already difficult enough to read some of these in English.
One of the resources that we started to leverage is the Department of Commerce’s Commercial Service Division. This segment of the government acts and functions and behaves just like a world-class business enterprise. It’s very impressive. We’ve worked with them and been part of several trade missions to Italy, Spain, Portugal, India, Israel, Bahrain, Ghana, South Africa, and Nigeria. They’ve been very effective, and they’ve helped create some of the relationships that we’ve leveraged to go deeper into some of these markets.
How have you been able to maintain dominance and relevance over the past 26 years?
We constantly try to adapt our product to match current market expectations. We also love this space. We love technology. We enjoy making the changes and innovating and making our products what it is today. And we have this massive list of things, additional capabilities we’d like to roll out in the future. There’s a much bigger vision here and what you’re just seeing is one small component of it all.
We’re very fortunate. We have some great folks. We have the benefit of having a few really great engines around us that help us go. Purdue University, Valparaiso University, Indiana University, these are all within a few miles of our office in Merrillville. So it really helps ensure that we always have strong technical resources available that can join our team and help us execute and they’ve all been great.
How does Cimcor plan to continue to attract and retain talent given Indiana’s aging population?
We hope to be part of the solution to help keep folks here. I know there are not a ton of technology and software development opportunities here in Indiana. But it starts with each of us trying to help be part of the solution. For a company like ours it’s atypical to be in Indiana, and perhaps the journey would have been much easier if we were somewhere else like California. So it’s been a very intentional and conscious decision to be here. We know it’s harder, but we have an obligation to try to help make Indiana—specifically northwest Indiana—stronger if we’re going to make the progress that we want to make here.
We’re at this inflection point in northwest Indiana where we could really see things take off in multiple segments. We all have to make the effort to stick around to make the investment here in northwest Indiana, not only in innovation but in the people and try to help keep them here. So I think that we’ve made the right choice to be here. You will find some of the hardest working folks, most dedicated people, people that actually have grit, that are going to work through the problems. There’s a different spirit here in Indiana, that you don’t see in other places and I think it gives us a real competitive edge.
What drives your commitment to northwest Indiana?
Well, I grew up here and I’ve seen the change here in northwest Indiana. I think that we all have to be part of that solution to fix it, and it starts with me and the things that I can intersect with whether that’s Cimcor or some other organization I’m affiliated with. We have the raw resources and the right stuff to be amazing. We’re right here next to Lake Michigan. We have a new project for double tracking [on the South Shore Line] from South Bend into Chicago.
We have the hardest workforce perhaps in all of North America, as far as I’m concerned. In addition to all of these great universities in the area. I just think we have the right combination of resources, capabilities, education and desire to really transform this region. And most of all, the missing ingredient that we now have is the desire across the region to change. So you’re going to see a massive change here because everyone’s ready and they want to be part of it.
What are some of Cimcor’s goals and aspirations looking ahead?
In terms of expanding into new markets, we are going to be putting a greater effort into expanding our presence in the Middle East. We think that there’s an incredible opportunity there, there’s a level of sophistication there that enables them to really leverage our software to the fullest. And there are some projects occurring in the Middle East that are just extremely exciting and I think we can play a key part in the execution of those projects.
What advice would you give to other businesses in Indiana or beyond looking to expand their export opportunities and really grow their global presence?
The shortcut is to reach out to the Department of Commerce and align with their Commercial Services Department. They have a really great set of resources there. We didn’t realize all the resources that were there until more recently. Otherwise, we would have leveraged them earlier. So instead of having to learn and find your way the way we did at Cimcor, all of those resources are available and are a great way to start implementing effective processes right away as you start your export journey.