Milestone Systems Appoints Country Manager in Japan

Milestone Systems announces the appointment of Erik Friis Mondorf as the company's Country Manager for Japan.

Erik Friis Mondorf is a permanent resident of Japan after living there for 17 years and is a certified Japanese speaker. He has supported Milestone Systems since before the Danish company's CEO Lars Thinggaard visited Japan to inaugurate the burgeoning partnership with JVC, who launched a Network Video Recorder (NVR) pre-installed with Milestone video management software.

"With 127 million people, Japan is also one of the world's largest markets for video surveillance equipment, in the company of China, the US, UK, Canada, Russia and Germany, according to market results for 2013. The IP video surveillance market growth in Japan is expected to be more than 20% per year over the next 3 years and we know that Erik Friis Mondorf is our man in Japan to help Milestone's role in that journey," states Eric Fullerton, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer for Milestone Systems. "Longer term, the 2020 Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo may drive some big projects, too, similar to what the security industry has experienced in the UK and Brazil with high-profile events of the same stature."

"Besides working closely with Milestone distributors and system resellers, I also have an important task supporting existing Manufacturer Alliance Partners (MAPs) such as Canon, JVC Kenwood, OPTEX, Panasonic, Sony and Toshiba Teli. There is exciting potential to develop new MAP relationships, as well. Japan has many high-quality hardware manufacturers," remarks Erik Friis Mondorf. "The Milestone open platform ensures that customers have the freedom to choose which hardware brands and models they want to manage with our video surveillance software, so we have very tight collaborations with the device manufacturers."

Mondorf continues: "Milestone has a very comprehensive and versatile product range but Japanese customers often require customization. Much can be achieved using the Milestone configuration and rules functionalities in XProtect® Corporate and the free Milestone Integration Platform Software Development Kit, which enables integrations for XProtect® Express and up. In order to accommodate the very specific needs of our Japanese customers, tailoring will be a greater focus area from now on and offered either through collaboration with local partners or provided by Milestone Custom Development."

To support Milestone's strong commitment to the Japanese partners and customers, the company has moved into a new office located conveniently at the Pacific Century Place in Marunouchi, Tokyo.

Mondorf's business experience the last dozen years was honed with the Trade Council of Denmark/Royal Danish Embassy in Tokyo as Minister Counsellor - Technology Attaché (ICT Sector Expert). He performed business opportunity identification, development and support of relations between leading Danish and Japanese ICT companies. On behalf of such Danish clients as Milestone Systems and others, Mondorf was responsible for software and hardware sales developments in the Japanese marketplace. He helped establish subsidiaries, expanding businesses while working on inter-governmental collaboration within the science and technology sectors.

Prior to that, Mondorf was a consultant for Accenture involved in the sales, design, development and test of software systems on large telecommunication projects in Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Israel. He was also a Sales Engineer and Communication Manager in Tokyo for The East Asiatic Company and Yamato Protec Corporation. He got his career started working in production for IBM Denmark.

Erik Friis Mondorf has a Master of Economics in Business Strategy from Shinshu University, Japan, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Production Management from the Technical University of Denmark. He also completed the International Marketing Programme at INSEAD in France.