Security Sales & Integration December 2021 - 32

2021 Tech in Review
Access, Intrusion, Video
nificant cost savings due to lower bandwidth
and storage requirements. Among new portfolio
additions, in April the network camera pioneer
introduced a unified video management
and access control solution, with video-verified
features to support operators with monitoring
and controlling door access, or search and filter
access control logs linked with video recording.
2021 TOP
TRENDS
SUMMARY
▶ Increased interest in the
use of network technology
and video analytics to gain
operational efficiencies, especially
as companies look
to manage remote work.
▶ Increase in brick-andmortar
stores adopting
occupancy and queue
management analytics to
manage operations and
gain business insights.
▶ Building managers
seeking better control
of property - via intercoms,
access control and
intrusion detection - to
provide heightened security
and safety for residents
and guests.
▶ Businesses and facilities
- especially prevalent
in education and retail -
gravitating toward remotely
accessing their facilities
without being onsite.
▶ Enterprises investing in
long-term solutions to satisfy
strict compliance rules
and new demands from staff,
visitors, contractors, others.
" With a user-friendly interface, it's easy to
manage cardholders and control who has access
to what and when, " Newman says. " It truly
provides operators with a complete overview of
everything that's happening. "
Market Forces Not Named COVID
The pandemic may have indelibly impacted most
any security provider, yet there is much to the industry's
dynamism and resilience that keeps on
truckin' regardless. Integrators are faced with navigating
through unfolding business complexities related
to people, supply chain, financial health, customer
engagement, risk management and more.
What marketplace trends then should integrators
key in on to leverage and help set a prosperous path
forward? For starters, businesses are looking to get
more productivity out of their workforces and also
better leverage the data they have to improve operations
and customer experiences, says Challa.
" These key market forces have been driving
considerable innovation in video analytics.
Video analytics can automate otherwise routine
or mundane video surveillance tasks, improve
the efficiency of guards and investigators, and
importantly, can help extract insight from video
data that can directly impact business operations
and customer experience, " he says.
For example, using facial recognition analysis,
retailers are able to provide customized,
white-glove treatment to loyal customers entering
their stores while simultaneously being able
to fend off known shoplifters more effectively.
Increasingly, adds Challa, video analytics have
become an important buying consideration.
Newman of Axis describes three main forces
that are currently driving innovation: technological
advancement itself, the market environment
and the technology ecosystem. First,
recent advances in technology - namely network
camera chipsets with deep learning capabilities
- are making it possible to effectively
run high-powered analytics on the edge. This
advanced tech is spurring new use cases, improved
outcomes, enhanced data sets and further
developments in the analytics space.
32
Security Sales & Integration DECEMBER 2021
" As far as the market, workplace trends -
marked by an increase in remote work and a demand
for digitization, automation and greater efficiency
- are driving innovative new solutions, "
he says. " Finally, partnerships and collaborations
are leading to new innovative technology. Industry
relationships including formal partnerships
between technology providers, work within
partner ecosystems, collaborations with system
integrators and pilots with end users, are yielding
new ideas and advanced solutions. "
In can be a bit dizzying to consider the vast
number of solutions with the potential to boost
efficiency, security, growth and competitive
edge. For integrators, seductive potential needs
to be weighed heavily against limitations and
costs. However, there are trends that stand out
that can serve as guideposts for decision-makers.
Kapadia suggests integrators take note: Be
ready to deploy Cloud solutions. Moreover, he
stresses, no company can expect to solve today's
problems alone. " System integrators will need
to combine different solutions for front-end,
back-end and personnel management software
to create an end-to-end solution. Seek training
to deploy multifaceted, integrated solutions like
these and demand that your chosen manufacturers
provide certified training, " Kapadia says.
" Only seamless solutions can quickly solve real-life
problems, and it's in everyone's best interest
for this industry to strive to be cutting-edge. "
There is also a school of thought that leans
toward pragmatism where it concerns technology
adoption. " We feel it is important for integrators
to standardize on equipment and systems
as much as possible. It's easy to get excited
about all the technologies available, but always
reaching for the latest and greatest can be expensive
and counterproductive, " says Mike Simon,
managing partner of Connected Technologies,
maker of Connect ONE, a Cloud-hosted
integrated security management solution.
Training of both the integrator's staff and
end-user customers can get overwhelming and
inventory out of control without standardizing,
he says.
" It's best to decide who your main customer
base is and what their needs will be and build
your product offering around that business model.
Technology should be used for simplifying
end user customer needs and growing integrators
recurring revenue stream, " Simon adds. " Integrators
chasing technology can really hurt the bottom
line and frustrate their employees. " SSI
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Security Sales & Integration December 2021

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