Commercial Integrator + Security Sales October 2024 - 47

ACCESS CONTROL is becoming an
increasingly important part of a security
systems integrator's work, as business
leaders and homeowners place more
emphasis than ever on protecting their
livelihoods and the goods and services
they offer their customers.
For those who enjoy sci-fi movies, we
may have to wait a while until biometrics
are the industry standard across the access
control space, but we're moving further
away from the days when every key needed
for every door throughout the building
were collected on a single key ring.
Ross Samek, vice president for
Hawkeye Alarm, a physical security life
safety integrator with about 20 employees
in Waterloo, Iowa, says access control
goes hand in hand with its other major
components, commercial fire systems and
video surveillance.
" I think, in the last few years, when a
new building is built, access control is
included in the design phase, especially
in the education vertical market, " he says.
" It's definitely changed from the days of
'we had something happen and now we
need to come up with a better system of
security.' It's definitely more on the front
burner of the building designers and
building management. "
Steve Capogna, owner of Alarmingly
Affordable in Staten Island, N.Y., says
access control is about 20% to 25% of the
company's business and they are moving
further into the cloud access control market
with their almost 13,000 customers in
the greater New York area.
" It started out that I was going to
use cloud-based for my under-16-door
systems, but we've recently done 100-plus
systems and we'll be doing even larger
ones, " he says. " We've got the cloud-based
takeover down to a science now, where
we build in-house, and we roll it out. "
" We maintain two databases for the
duration of the takeover, which could take
as long as two weeks, and the client is
very happy. They're never down for more
than a few hours per reader, per panel.
Cloud-based systems put the control in
the palm of your hand, " says Capogna.
Exton, Pa.-based NextGen Security
works primarily with large enterprise
companies across the U.S., including
petrochemical and energy, as well as
in the higher education and healthcare
verticals, says vice president of customer
development Brian Courduff.
Access control makes up about 40% to
45% of the company's business, he says.
" Everything is going to more of a
digital, more user-friendly type of
application, " he says. " I do agree with a
lot that's going on with getting away even
from the plastic cards. I love where we're
going with biometrics and some of the
different avenues that we can take doing
single-factor or dual-factor authentication
to make it easier for people to use. "
Jim Lantrip, senior vice president of
operations at Allied Universal, says the
days of keys are dwindling but not gone
entirely. However, they're a rare sight
among their customers in data centers,
critical infrastructure, the nuclear space,
biopharma, medical facilities and commercial
office buildings.
" We don't really do that very much, but
it's still out there unfortunately, " he says.
" It's still very inexpensive, comparatively
speaking, to put a standard lock set on the
door but you lose everything that access
control brings you. "
" You lose the ability to control who can
come and go. If that key's lost, anybody
can come and go. You don't know who did
it. You don't know when anybody went
in and out of a door. You don't have the
ability to say when anybody can go in and
out of a door, you don't have the ability
to give access to somebody else without
giving them a key, " says Lantrip.
" I won't say keys are dying because I
don't think they'll ever go away but for
important doors, like exterior entry exit
doors and internal doors into important
spaces, we see access control is the only
thing that's happening out there, " he says.
Mark Peterson, director of national
security services for Security Hunter, a
75-person operation that works strictly
with the federal government, whether
that is in the Department of Defense
space or in the civilian sector.
Access control represents about
one-third of the company's business
along with intrusion detection and video
surveillance.
" All of our installs are using pivClass
October 2024 | Commercial Integrator+Security Sales & Integration
47
Here's how our survey respondents
ranked the following challenges
as the leading reasons for their
companies either not offering
or not maximizing cloud-based
hosted or managed access control
as a service (ACaaS).
1. Demand and marketplace
acceptance
2. Developing pricing or
business model
3. Costs
4. Marketing
5. Codes, regulations or standards
6. Training
7. Determining sales incentives
8. Staffing
Here's how our survey respondents
ranked the top challenges their
commercial/industrial customers
face when they decide to run a
physical access control solution on
their corporate network.
1. Cybersecurity risks
2. Conflicts with IT staff
3. System access privileges
4. Demands on staff and skill set
5. More complex networks
6. ROI being questioned
7. Network reliability
8. Quality of service concerns
9. Longer deployment cycles
10. Disruption to business
11. Higher network costs
Commercial Integrator + Security Sales October 2024

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