Banerjee & Israel Project 2015 Will Be a NICE Year for Security

NICE Systems’ Dr. Bob Banerjee and Barak Israel share their thoughts about where the electronic security industry is headed in 2015.

The January edition of SSI includes our annual industry forecast as a cornerstone of our special 2015 Industry Forecast Issue. For the piece, I interviewed more than 20 of the industry’s most knowledgeable market analysts, business experts, security dealers, systems integrators, supplier representatives and trade association directors. Some of their perspectives can be found in the magazine article, with the balance of their assessments appearing in separate blog posts.

Featured in this installment: Dr. Bob Banerjee, senior director, global training and knowledge, and Barak Israel, product marketing manager, NICE Systems

What are some of the major security technology developments you see for 2015?

Bob Banerjee: Technology has enabled greater connectivity and accessibility, leaving systems and data more vulnerable. In the past, the source of threats was primarily physical, but increasingly, electronic threats are the focus, and they can come from anyone who buys or otherwise gains access to a weapon. What’s even more challenging is that an electronic weapon can be cloned and distributed instantly. This means that vendors will be under enormous pressure to continuously patch their software against these vulnerabilities. Additionally, since many attacks are initiated internally, organizations will be under substantial pressure to monitor and self-police their own systems. We’re also seeing shifts in technology. More and more cloud-based offerings are being introduced. Camera-to-the-cloud and hybrid configurations where the immediate storage is kept on local appliances and specific events are saved in the cloud are on the rise. Another technological shift we see is the ability to use Big Data video to gain meaningful insights. One example is the ability to locate a specific person, for example a suspect or a lost child, in a dense crowd. In a manner of minutes, using interactive video analytics software and inputs from operators, individuals can be quickly and efficiently found and tracked. Moreover, additional improvements in video analytics today allow us to detect things like the origin of a piece of abandoned luggage. This capability provides security operators with a quick method of determining whether the found luggage might pose a significant risk or was innocently left behind. This capability alone can help to prevent costly, unnecessary evacuations.

RELATED: 10 Factors to Analyze Today’s Video Analytics Options

What are some of the major security market developments you see for 2015?

Barak Israel: The security industry has a lot to offer organizations beyond mitigating potential security risks. Effective security technology helps ensure business continuity with the ability to verify incidents or deter them from happening. More than that, it can help streamline and improve operations by extracting insights from all of the data it has gathered. It can also help improve business performance. Video analytics has been successful in providing the retail industry insight into their customers shopping behaviors. And there are countless other business and operational uses for the various video analytics applications available today. By tapping into these opportunities organizations will be able to open up new budgets that address business functionality beyond physical security, bolstering both in the process.

What are some of the business and operations shifts you see for security suppliers, dealers and the overall industry for 2015?

Israel: As long as current growth trends in the financial markets remain positive, surveillance manufacturers should continue to experience significant growth in their business. The leading vendors will continue to push the market to implement complete in-house solutions, whether by introducing new appliances or adjacent security systems, such as access control, license plate readers, situation management solutions, and others. Dealers and system integrators [SIs] will continue to be key influencers in the surveillance market by determining what type of solutions end users deploy. In the higher end market, consultants, and architecture and engineering [A&E] firms will be critical in defining the scope of any given solution, specifically when migrating customers to new, modern IP-based surveillance and situation management platforms. Direct touch in the high end market is also extremely important, mainly to drive innovation that will help end users in multiple industries leverage their business operations. In addition, dealers and SIs will explore how they can leverage physical security information management (PSIM) technology to bolster their existing customers’ systems. Many will have the customer contacts to do this, but might lack the experience to follow through. Overall, the industry will continue to grow, barring any global financial downturn. Additionally, we foresee faster-than-expected growth of IP versus analog solutions. This will continue to degrade encoder and DVR sales due to the lower total cost of ownership [TCO] that comes with more advanced solutions.

What is something that might surprise security professionals in 2015?

Banerjee: I expect our industry to follow the same path ERP systems did back in the 1990s. They replaced simple point solutions with a single, overarching portfolio of solutions from one manufacturer, which were implemented by large management consulting firms over multiple years. These consulting firms deal with corporate issues at the C-level every day, and one day they will look at what we currently call security as just one small part of what they offer. Soon they will realize the potential of broader solutions, such as PSIM, and develop a PSIM practice, and just like these firms became the go-to source for ERP back in the day, they have the potential to do the same for security.

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About the Author

Contact:

Scott Goldfine is the marketing director for Elite Interactive Solutions. He is the former editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Security Sales & Integration. He can be reached at [email protected].

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