How Security Integrators Should Secure Critical Infrastructure
Four integrators explain what specialized design, installation and service needs this challenging sector requires.
Technical Skills Needed to Win Projects
Access control, gates, video surveillance, advanced intrusion detection, turnstiles, visitor management and enterprise-class systems overall rank among the most in-demand products and technologies in critical infrastructure projects, according to Franklin. To win them it’s about pricing, he says, followed by integrity and a strong reputation with past and present customers.
Kieta concurs that projects can range from straightforward security measures like fence detection and analog-to-IP video surveillance migrations to complex enterprise-class security deployments. The best way to win them, he believes, is not simply based on price but even more importantly by demonstrating your domain expertise to change the game.
“An innovative and reliable technical approach combined with insight that creates unexpected value for the customer will beat price every time,” he says. “If the customer can define the scope and the value, he doesn’t need a sales professional, he needs an online order form. The team that leverages their insight to create more value than the customer has defined will carry the day.”
Heaton sees a huge need and demand for increased situational awareness. “The real ROI for integration of technologies is the ability to effectively manage an incident or emergency and to enhance day-to- day operations,” he says. “These are the tools you want to provide to help them make good business decisions during normal or abnormal operations. If you understand the end user’s organizational drivers, the problems they’re trying to solve, and deploy technologies to meet those challenges, that’s how you win the project and are viewed as a trusted partner.”
Siemens serves as the systems integrator for Los Angeles Int’l Airport (LAX), which employs a situation status display system (SSDS) to manage the flow of data from various systems.
In the wake of an active shooter incident, Siemens provided a software solution to LAX that would capture data, mine it and present it to the SSDS instantly. Heaton terms it an executive dashboard that shows real-time data to help manage incidents or crisis events.
“It’s a mobile strategy of getting real-time data from the field to the command and control center and back. A lot of facilities have access to significant real-time data, but they haven’t figured out how to harvest it and then make it actionable data,” he explains. “They’re a
ccepting manual dashboards, and during a security incident if they don’t trust that the data is real-time or accurate they won’t use that data and will revert to instincts or old ways of doing business.”
Peckham stresses that integrators need to show competence in access control, TWIC regulations, Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) and Internet Protocol television (IPTV) with Class 1/Division 2 explosion-proof housings.
Peckham says other popular requests include muster reporting, which provides a quick listing to the number of associates unaccounted for in the event of an emergency, as well as IPTV camera monitoring to meet Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements. Specialized knowledge is an important aspect of fully understanding the scope of the projects, he says, as is how the delivery will be performed.
In terms of volume of opportunities, perimeter detection and video surveillance for remote sites are very common today, Kieta notes. Those projects are small, easier to procure and represent relatively low contracting risk to the customer.
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Franklin cites normal access control on doors and gates to long-range readers and gates and fence systems as popular requests. Others include outdoor short- and long-range detection queuing to video surveillance and reporting platforms, VMS platforms and a slew of IP to older analog platforms as many remote sites still rely on legacy systems.
Physical security information management (PSIM) systems, also known as event management systems, are increasingly being used, according to Heaton. “It’s that middleware that allows you to integrate disparate systems such as fire, security and building automation systems,” he says. “By integrating systems, your command center stakeholders will have a better common operating picture because they’re seeing and hearing the same data. Your traditional security of access, CCTV, radio – all those systems that used to stand on their own – now we look to integrate them into a PSIM.”
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em
How can smaller integrators compete with the heavy hitters in this highly sensitive, super-specialized sector? Franklin advises that it’s best to partner with a larger company and/or learn the methods and means to work with the customer.
“This space is unforgiving,” he says. “If you have a safety issue or nonperformance issue, you will be done with this customer. They are regulated and need to have the best systems and dependability that will serve them, year over year. Selling them a low-end, one-size-fits-all solution will not work and get you excluded quickly.”
Franklin stresses “service, service, service,” along with showing up on time and fixing the issue on the first call. “You have to be able to work with the customer’s IT department, so you need to talk the talk and walk the walk with IT.”
Kieta notes if you want to compete, you have to be dedicated, consistent and meticulous. Specialized customers value an approach of high expertise, but for an integrator that means investment.
“You don’t wake up as a domain expert overnight. That knowledge and experience is garnered over years of specializing in a segment. Big companies can always ‘get low’ at bid time, but they don’t always have the patience it takes to grow a specialized market force,” he says. “Specializing means more than just sales. It’s about consistent, domain specific execution. Standardized operations processes that fit the market, regulatory expertise and valuable insight are hard to beat.”
The other key to competing with the big-box integrators, Kieta recommends, is through professional services. If your professional services organization can become embedded in the customer’s organization you will create a powerful differentiator. In most cases, it’s hard for large integration companies to compete in this way because it is outside their model.
“They think in contracting terms. The pain of changing your model scales with the size of your organization. If you are small and nimble, leverage that to create value,” he says.
Peckham believes that safety rating requirements, length of time in business and government regulation documents and procedures can make it difficult to compete in the space. But he says there are a number of government set-asides that do make it possible if all of the necessary qualifications required by a service provider are met.
On the whole, end users are concerned with the dependability of their security systems and the costs to maintain them over time, Franklin says.
“They have installed many of their systems over the last two to 10 years and many have had poor results or overall performance dissatisfaction and are looking for better systems that will perform the function required,” he says.
Indeed, many security directors are being tasked to save money – yet protect the assets – and they are lost when it comes to what to do if they do not already have the product installed.
“They are almost afraid to deploy solutions until they know it will be dollars well spent and address the regulations they need to meet,” Franklin says.
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Bio: Erin Harrington has 20+ years of editorial, marketing and PR experience within the security industry. Contact her at [email protected].
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