Security Sales & Integration April 2021 - 30

EXCLUSIVE!
Executive Interview
SAGE Spearheads
Security

ill or had symptoms, we'd have to quarantine
the whole team. So we broke our teams into
A and B, kept them working separately. They
worked through the whole process, it created
some challenges. We had shipping, receiving
popping in at specific times to meet UPS and
FedEx to keep the product rolling through the
warehouse and to keep everything going.
How has the pandemic changed the
technology picture for your customer
base?
Nemerofsky: Our clients made shifts in March

The logo's
shield represents
protecting our
customers and
the tip of the
spear represents
how we're
empowering our
employees on a
daily basis.
- Jim Geyer, Vice President,
SAGE

and April of 2020 and right through now on
back-to-work strategies. Mobile credentialing
in volumes we've never seen before. We've had
clients order 20,000 mobile credentials from us
with the idea that when their employees come
back to work they won't have to touch a card
or a reader. They'll hold their phone a couple
of feet away from the reader and that'll be their
entry. We've seen more deployments of facial recognition than we have ever had in any
biometrics during my history in the business.
We've seen a lot of deployments for frictionless
entry, more automatic doors tied to our systems.
Then we've got temperature testing and mask
detection. If you're not wearing a mask you can't
get in. We've started to see more contact tracing
in our systems get rolled out. If your temperature came up high that day and the system does
let you into the door, now we're tracing you
because your temperature was 102⁰ when you
were at work. Those technology areas wouldn't
have been talked about if the pandemic didn't
happen. There are a lot of return-to-work type
challenges and new partners, new technology,
new training and new interaction with the customer of how they're going to use these tools.

What other technologies you are excited
about and the services they can bring?
Nemerofsky: We've had a lot of clients asking

VIDEO & MORE ONLINE!
Hear and see more
about SAGE Integration
at securitysales.com/
SAGE2021.

for managed remote video, not hosted. What
does managed mean? If I see an incident or it's
tied to an alarm, I'm interactive with you. I can
tell you, " Hey, you've got somebody breaking
into a car in your parking lot. You need to dispatch security. " It's a great alternative for the
company that doesn't want to man a GSOC
24/7. Maybe they want to do it Monday to Friday, 8 to 5, and those other shifts go to our outsource, whether it's Netwatch or RAS Watch or
somebody like that, that we've partnered with.

30 Security Sales & Integration APRIL 2021

SS2104 pp26-30 SAGE Integration.indd 30

Then with Dedrone, we've had clients, our
nuclear clients, and our regulated utilities are
very interested in anti-drone technology, which
comes to us in a hosted format for more RMR.
Our overall recurring revenue goal is 20% of
total revenue, whether that is embedded technicians, service contracts, hosted video, hosted
access, hosting facial recognition, mobile credentials, a lot of the hosted cyber programs.
We've got good initiatives to roll everything
out to give Cloud opportunities to our clients
to solve problems. For so long access control
and video have been about running reports.
How many door props did I have? How many
doors forced open? How many access denials?
The industry is getting smarter with looking at
trending and dashboarding around that to ascertain the larger effects. Those are some of the
new things we see for 2021 and beyond.
Back to cybersecurity, to what extent do
you see as it as a revenue opportunity
versus table stakes threat mitigation?
Nemerofsky: For us it's about bringing aware-

ness to vulnerabilities, whether it's cameras and
changing default passwords. Whether it's making sure the NVR is running the right version,
talking to them about protocols like OSDP,
and the importance of insider threat. You can't
just upgrade your card and credential, you need
to upgrade the intelligent controller as well. In
the senior living space and property management, for example, where there's no IT director,
we're their cyber resource because we're putting
systems on their network. If we don't do it the
right way, they become vulnerable. Some customers are built to have Cloud solutions and
that's where we find cyber coming into play.
For large corporate or Fortune 100 type clients, it's more about awareness as we deploy systems, sharing hardening guides from the manufacturer with the IT and cyber teams. We've
been part of a lot of red team drills in those
companies where they've tested our systems to
make sure they're cyber bulletproof. There are
more conversations around that every day.
Frasier: We first look inward. What are we

doing to protect our customers from our vulnerability? We hired a cyber specialist company
led by the White House's former CIO. I never
want to look my customer in the eye and know
I was the reason there were vulnerabilities within their system. SSI
securitysales.com

3/22/21 10:23 AM

http://www.securitysales.com/ http://www.securitysales.com

Security Sales & Integration April 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Security Sales & Integration April 2021