Looking to 2016: Security Integrators Identify Tech Challenges, Opportunities Heading Into New Year
SSI asked 12 security professionals for their industry predictions for the upcoming year.
Continue to check back to SecuritySales.com in December for new year predictions.
Christopher Peckham, SVP, CTO and Special Projects, Kratos Public Safety & Security Solutions: The use of the cloud will continue to grow and evolve. The cloud will be leveraged for access control, video storage, analytics and other services. The integration between systems is both an opportunity and a challenge. The ability to integrate between these services using open standards, a software development kit [SDK] or application program interface [API] will allow software vendors and integrators to provide solutions that can be customized for the end user. The use of analytics on the edge or within the cloud will also be a focus area. How the systems interact with one other will also drive the security space toward the Internet of Things [IoT]. Leveraging that data for meaningful autonomous actions by a system or allowing greater insight into user behaviors will improve the overall end-user experience and provide information to the appropriate parties that was not possible in the recent past. This functionality will increase the value of the security system to business cases that are outside the traditional security space. Using a mobile device to interact with a system or to serve as a credential for access will also continue to evolve. A number of vendors are providing viable solutions in this space and user adoption will increase.
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Uri Guterman, Video Solutions Product Manager, Qognify: One of the trends in 2016 will be intuitive integration between two of the most common and active systems in a security center: video management software [VMS] and access control systems, especially now that the access control market is utilizing cloud and wireless solutions. Security operators will need to follow procedures that combine tasks from the two separate systems, which without straightforward integration can be inefficient and time consuming. While video analytics isn’t a new trend, it will continue to evolve in 2016. More and more, manufacturers are introducing cameras with intrinsic analytics capabilities, so the new challenge will involve correlating this technology with other information sources and shaping new approaches of using video analytics, such as considering it an interactive process rather than depending on video analytics alone.
Another trend in 2016 will be increased demand for panoramic or 360° cameras in the major security verticals. These cameras are ideal for covering wide areas and usually allow operators to select different view modes. Video surveillance systems are expected to support new camera models by integrating their dewarping interfaces for perspective correction. Lastly, while VSaaS and cloud solutions might not be suitable for high-end security customers, central storage will become a requirement in 2016 despite its high price. In such cases, local storage will be reserved mainly for buffering p
urposes.
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Tony Sorrentino, President, ScanSource Networking and Security: IT and networking technologies will continue to have a strong impact on the physical security industry. The integration of IP products and these IT solutions will ultimately provide more opportunities for resellers and dealers. Now is the time for the dealer to own more of the end user’s wallet, to provide more services and to enter into the networking side of the business. Dealers should also look to expand their managed services offering. If the dealer’s value is simply delivering a box, they will likely go out of business. They need to be selling a solution and services so they can solve issues for the end user before they even know they have them. Price points will also continue to drop as low-cost manufacturers stay aggressive in the market, another reason to be offering more value to the end user.
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Paul Bremner, Senior Analyst, Video Surveillance and Security Services, IHS: Across the physical security market we are seeing technology vendors consolidating and moving toward providing complete solutions for their channel partners. This is a trend that integrators will be able to take advantage of in 2016 as it allows them to look past the basics of ensuring systems integrate well with each other and toward providing more value-add services. These services could include remote system checks, providing security as a service systems, either access control or video surveillance, or looking beyond simply integrating security equipment and towards building management systems, HR systems or others that would benefit the operations of their customers. The year 2016 will likely see average selling prices for physical security equipment continue to fall, especially impacting the video surveillance market. This is challenging for integrators as their equipment margins are thin, so while revenue from their equipment sales declines, their internal costs of staffing are not falling at the same rate. These factors will see the continuation of the trend toward integrators pushing towards offering more services and looking for other ways they can help their customers. I expect many integrators will be looking beyond security in 2016 and towards how they can help their customers in areas such as increasing their operational efficiencies or providing business intelligence.
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