When you start charting the course of disruptive technologies and solutions that threaten to alter the landscape of our everyday environment, the usual suspects ran the gamut from robots to wearables, from AI and deep learning to quantum computing, and let’s not forget self-driving vehicles and of course the Internet of Things.
Technology disruption and business innovation are two of the most prominent influencers when it comes to trending future development in both the physical and network-based security space. Yesterday’s disruption is today’s mobile security device or cloud-based access control system. Such was the discussion at the recent Securing New Ground conference produced by the Security Industry Association and held at the Edison Ballroom in New York City.
So as the security industry struggles with the evolution of myriad disruptive technologies like IoT, the cloud, mobile devices and the influx and analytics of multiple data points, perhaps the most pressing question facing security vendors is that given the rapid pace of technology advancement, how do you maintain a balance between disruption and innovation without losing connection to your client?
The question was posed by a vendor who had a Fortune 500 client looking to introduce a completely contactless access control environment within his organization over the next three to five years. Could this goal be accomplished without sacrificing his security posture? In addition to vendors rolling out innovative and disruptive technologies, it is also the client who is driving more advanced requirements that test the limits of a vendor-client relationship.
“I don’t think we are just five years away from total contactless entry. I think it is more like 15 to 20 years, but we are getting there. We have partners that are cloud-based access control systems and they absolutely have that vision of contactless entry; the cloud talking to the device and the device back to the cloud into the hardware that unlocks the door. I do see that coming but we are years away since this industry moves at a very slow pace in terms of innovation, but I think the time is ripe for disruption,” said Laurie Aaron, Executive Vice President at WaveLynx Technologies Corporation.
Aaron thinks that technology advancement in the physical space will increase as different forces outside the industry begin to penetrate the market. While sitting on a panel at another event recently in Silicon Valley that included participants from companies like Intel and VMware, she saw that these IT companies were genuinely interested in learning how they could work with the technology vendors in the current physical security market and help advance applications and technology.
“These Silicon Valley companies are sincerely interested in helping the physical security industry move faster and innovate better. We are getting a lot of attention in that space,” Aaron said.
Even service providers in the security space realize that rapid changes affect more than just technology; they can substantially impact business channels and customer interaction. For Jay Darfler, Senior Vice President for Emerging Markets and Innovation at ADT Security Services, success is measured by understanding and adhering to the business roadmap.
“From our perspective when I think about the rate of threat and technology changes coming at us, whether it be the latest cyber attacks, whether it be cloud or voice, whether it be the next startup that no one has thought of yet, disruption and innovation can come at you from 100 different angles. You can’t really bite off more than you can chew,” Darfler pointed out. “You have to decide what your strengths are and what your core is and how you are going to orient those around your goals and values that will advance your solution innovations.”
He added that at ADT, goals and values had to be incorporated into a professionally monitored construct that reflects a world-class monitoring service that supplements world-class customer service which he said starts from the sales rep and extends to the installer and ultimately the care agent.
“If I can’t deliver world-class customer service or world-class monitoring, then that’s a definite barrier to future innovation. If you try to stand for everything and try to be the most innovative in every discipline of your business you’ll never be a leader in your market. We’ve had to say no to some pretty big things because they didn’t fit into our scope or mission,” said Darfler.
The push for innovative and disruptive research and development (R&D) is also a driving factor among almost every security vendor in the market. Most are laser-focused on forward-thinking projects that push the envelope to help them meet the growing demands of their clients’ out-of-box systems requests.
“We spent between seven to eight percent of our total revenue on R&D – just over $400 million annually. We have two research centers in North America, one in Montreal and one in Silicon Valley. The one in Montreal is focused on traditional VMS products and the integration we do with other systems. The other {center} in Silicon Valley is focused on deep learning and artificial intelligence solutions we’re working on,” said Christopher Zenaty, Vice President of Sales at Hikvision. “There is definitely a trend towards not analyzing the traditional video, but analyzing the patterns that highlight people’s behavior when they are shopping or traveling through airports. This new intelligence can differentiate between a man or a woman, it can tell their age or even their ethnicity. It’s exciting to see where this technology is today, but even more so to see where we can take it to the next level.”
Aaron admitted that her company is constantly looking to innovate and think outside the box. “I believe we are making that concerted effort to be disruptive in the market because things need to change in the piece of the market we play in. But it is not just technology. Some of it is conceptual and process – just the way we do things,” she said.
The ADT approach to innovation and disruption takes a different path since it is a provider and not a manufacturer. But Darfler is quick to say that innovation in the business process is just as important as technology disruption.
“The way we are structured we don’t have the traditional R&D a device manufacturer does. We are set up to identify disruptive business models and we are set aside from the organization carrying not only a development budget to help realize new revenue streams but also a revenue target. My job is to commercialize opportunities, get them to a point of scale where they can be initiated into our business model. So that type of thinking where you are willing to set up a team to identify new and alternative revenue streams – even if it does in some aspect disrupt our core residential business – has led us to realize that, yes, we do want to be in the DIY security business,” Darfler said. “A couple of weeks ago we announced our partnership with Samsung that is launching soon. This was a big strategic shift for ADT. There was a lot of tough conversation around the table about whether this was or was not the right time for DIY. Did we want to do this ourselves or partner with a major consumer electronics company? We needed to know how we would handle distribution in parts of the world where it wouldn’t be an ADT sales rep closing the sale or there was not an ADT technician installing the system.”
But Darfler said that ADT’s ability to think outside the box of traditional security and run with programs like the professional installation of Amazon Echo and Echo Dot and the launch of an ADT Pulse Alexa, along with the nationwide availability of ADT Canopy, a month-to-month contract service with 24/7 professional security monitoring via LG Smart Security, an all-in-one security and home automation device with full HD video capabilities, created an entirely new business dimension for ADT.
The point was made during the panel that data is now the new world currency. But there were differing views on what that impact meant for the security industry.
For Zenaty at Hikvision, it is all about the analytics. “Coming from the video side of the business, the behavioral analytic products coming out in the market today ensures that video will have tremendous value not only for criminal identification but for the retail marketing side. If you are a major retail chain and you want to track the behavioral tendencies of your customers or break down demographics by age, gender or race, along with seeing where shoppers migrate to when on the retail floor and what draws them in, this will evolve into an incredibly useful tool across myriad market sectors,” he said.
Aaron sees big data as a paradigm shift in the industry that could provide transformational change.
“Someone once said data is the new electricity. What they meant by that was electricity forced an industrial revolution that has defined our history and moved technology evolution at the speed of light. The environment of life and business changed very quickly and that is what’s happening with this data migration today. When we figure out how to harness and use it, the world around us is going to change exponentially,” she concluded.
About the Author:
Steve Lasky is the Editorial Director of SouthComm Security Media, which includes print publications Security Technology Executive, Security Dealer & Integrator, Locksmith Ledger Int’l and the world’s top security web portal SecurityInfoWatch.com. He is a 30-year veteran of the security industry and a 26-year member of ASIS.
