DALLAS--Westec Intelligent Surveillance, a nationwide remote video monitoring company, in May acquired Atlanta-based Vyne Industries, a video surveillance and monitoring company focused on the quick service restaurant industry.

With the acquisition of Vyne, Westec will now be the only nationally approved surveillance vendor serving both Burger King and McDonald’s, as well as other QSR brands. Specifically, the Vyne acquisition provides Westec with additional capabilities to serve QSRs owned and operated by franchisees.

“Westec has been pretty good at selling to the corporate entity. We are the preferred vendors to McDonald’s and Jack in the Box,” said Kelby Hagar, president and CEO of Westec. “What Vyne is very good at is selling into the franchise community of QSRs. What this relationship provides for us is that it makes Westec the dominant brand in the QSR market.”

Hagar explained that Westec can continue to sell at the corporate level, which is usually a longer sales process that requires a high-end salesperson, but it can also leverage Vyne’s team to develop remote monitoring packages tailored specifically for a brand’s franchise owners. “What value that provides is that those brands know they have a consistent product at each level of the organization,” he said.

The addition of Vyne’s capabilities and its 23 employees (bringing Westec’s total head count to 250) not only creates a strong niche, but it helps the company create better products as it will be more familiar with the challenges at both the corporate and franchise levels. An example of this, Hagar said, is the back door exception reporting system in use at McDonald’s. When a back door is left open during evening hours when there are increased safety and security risks, Westec’s video monitoring system will take a snapshot of the door, then voice down to have employees close the door.

Darrell Reed, former president of Vyne Industries and current vice president of national sales at Westec, said Westec will offer previous Vyne customers “top-of-the line interactive services specifically tailored to the issues facing the QSR category today.”

Hagar said remote interactive services are a strong fit for QSR as these stores traditionally have limited on-site management and are open at difficult hours. “Things happen at 12:30 a.m. inside these locations,” Hagar said. “Vagrants come in, loiterers come in and the staff tends to be low paid and young. To be able to remotely interact with employees, customers and the vagrants of the world provides a ton of value.”