Tensor marks 40 years of sales director Rob Cochrane

Tensor has marked the 40th anniversary of Group Sales Director Rob Cochrane at the company. He joined the business in 1986 and has held five roles.

Cochrane started as a Youth Training Scheme apprentice electronic technician shortly before his 16th birthday. At the time, Tensor focused on collecting and measuring data from manufacturing systems through its own hardware and software. The business later expanded into time and attendance, access control, security and energy management.

His four decades at the company have spanned a shift from manual staff clocking-in and door access systems to software-led products using smart cards, fingerprints and facial authentication. That change also reshaped how employers handled payroll data, monitored attendance and controlled access to buildings.

Industry changes

In the mid-1980s, many employers still relied on punch-card systems, with payroll clerks checking cards manually. Cochrane said the case for automation often came down to reducing the time spent reviewing routine data.

"If you've got cars going past a speed camera, with the old way you've got to check every single car that goes past, whether they were speeding or not. With a time and attendance system, you only need to worry about the ones that were speeding; you ignore the ones that go past at the normal speed. You're dealing with it by exception, which naturally makes you much more efficient and cuts down your workload," said Rob Cochrane, Group Sales Director at Tensor.

When he joined the sector, access control systems were also more basic, often relying on PIN codes entered into a keypad. That approach, he said, limited audit trails because users could share codes.

"People could pass the PIN codes from one to another, so there was no way of auditing to know who actually opened the door. Then, as computers became more and more popular, companies like Tensor designed access control systems to work initially with non-Windows-based systems. Later, as Microsoft took over the world, we designed systems to work on Windows platforms," Cochrane said.

Tensor introduced a smart card-based time and attendance system in the early 1990s and later launched Microsoft Windows software that combined time and attendance with access control. The software used a graphical interface and stored employee photographs.

Biometrics shift

Cochrane said cards and fobs remain the most common access method because users understand them and employers find them easy to deploy. He added that fingerprint systems gained ground as businesses looked for ways to prevent "buddy clocking", where one worker clocks in on behalf of another.

"Smart cards and fobs are still the most popular method for access control because they are familiar and simply do what they need to do. About ten years ago, fingerprint technology became very popular because it cut down on buddy clocking, where someone gives their card to another person to clock in when they aren't there. But then COVID hit and, of course, people didn't want to touch anything. So facial authentication came in. Our R&D team did a fantastic job at the time; they managed to turn around a facial authentication system within six weeks. Since then, facial authentication has become more popular, more reliable and more cost-effective," Cochrane said.

Consumer technology also helped normalise biometric systems in workplaces, he said, as people became used to using fingerprint and facial recognition on their phones.

"I didn't know how people would take to biometric technology initially. However, when mobile phones started to use fingerprint and facial technology, it became part and parcel of modern life. You don't use a password on your phone, you use your face, so why not do the same with access control? People are less sceptical because they use it on their mobiles. Non-contact systems will be the way forward, including mobile credentials on phones, similar to how people pay for goods using Apple Pay - using a mobile phone at a clocking terminal or an access control door," Cochrane said.

Customer demands

Beyond the hardware, employers increasingly ask whether time and attendance data can feed directly into payroll and other business systems. Cochrane said the issue comes up repeatedly in customer discussions.

"The most common thing we get asked on the time and attendance side is whether our system integrates into a payroll system and other products. One of the reasons customers use a time and attendance system is to streamline the process of getting that data into the payroll system. To help demonstrate how much more efficient a time and attendance system can make this process, we have a return on investment calculator on our website. It works out how much time a company is currently spending doing certain tasks manually and, if it automated those processes with a time and attendance system, how much time and money it would save," Cochrane said.

He added that the sales role has changed as much as the products. Quotations that once went by post or fax are now sent by email, while meetings that once required long journeys are more often handled through online calls.

"Forty years ago, there were no mobile phones and no computers like we know today. Sending quotations out to people was mostly done by post, or maybe fax; now everything is emailed, particularly since COVID. There are a lot more online presentations via Teams or Zoom, whereas previously I would be up and down the UK or various parts of the world travelling. I used to do anything between 50,000 and 70,000 miles a year. Now it's probably less than half of that. This has enabled me to have a better work-life balance, it is positive for the environment, and it means I am more efficient. Previously, I would have to allocate time to put together and send out quotations. Now I can do a presentation in the morning and have that quotation ready to be with the customer later that day," Cochrane said.

Company approach

Cochrane said Tensor's size has allowed it to adapt products in response to customer requests while keeping design, manufacturing, integration, maintenance and installation within one organisation.

"Tensor is big enough to cope, but small enough to adapt," Cochrane said.

"Large companies don't have any flexibility in the products they sell. Small companies do not have the expertise to make changes, or it is not their software or hardware, so they have to ask somebody else. Tensor has the ability to make commercial decisions to adapt or add things to our products. Our systems evolve by salespeople talking to customers. We're also in the unique position that we do everything. Many companies will manufacture their own products and get others to install them, so they are purely a manufacturer, or they will only do the installation, or the software but not the hardware. We manufacture, we design, we system integrate, we maintain and we install. It gives us a lot of flexibility and means we can tailor systems to a particular company to give the customer what they actually want. If we do not have something the customer wants, one of the benefits of working for Tensor is that we have some very clever people in R&D and software development. They tell us whether it is possible and how it can be achieved. Then they make that product available for us to sell going forward," Cochrane said.

After 40 years at the company, he said he still intends to continue in the role.

"I work an average of 50 to 60 hours a week and I still have the same get up and go, the same enthusiasm. In sales, how can you portray your products to someone without being enthusiastic about them? As long as that continues when I'm in my 60s, my health continues, the role is right and people still think I'm doing my job properly, then I'm not going anywhere unless somebody tells me any different, because I still love what I do," Cochrane said.