If you’re a veteran of the security industry who has had the good fortune to attend multiple ISC West shows over the past decade, you’ve probably become accustomed to seeing those trademark silver turnstiles that that adorn the entrance of the show floor at the Sands Expo & Convention Center in Las Vegas. Those turnstiles, of course, belong to none other than Boon Edam, which is as much as an industry fixture as those turnstiles have become as ISC West.
Boon Edam, whose rich history dates back to the late 19th century, is one of the world’s leading providers of security entrances and revolving doors and it is a company that continues to build upon its legacy by driving impressive growth year after year. A report published last year by IHS Markit named the company as the market leader in “Pedestrian Entrance Control Equipment” with a market share of 27.7 percent, which is up 1.8 percent from the previous two years. This market share is also more than twice that of the nearest competitor. Other company highlights from the report included:
- For the “Security Doors” category, the company had the leading share of 52.9 percent, up 3.8 percent from the last report.
- For “Security Revolving Doors,” the company’s leading share increased 4.8 percent to 55 percent.
- For “Speed Gates” (lobby turnstiles that use barriers and sensors to detect tailgating), Boon Edam moved up five percent from 3rd place in 2014 to now hold the leading market share at 20.3 percent in 2016.
According to Mark Borto, CEO of Commercial Operations at Boon Edam, the market for security entrances, in general, has been growing over the past 10 years and that senior-level executives are more aware of the threats presented to their organizations by having inadequate security measures at their doors.
“Our security entrance products that, for the most part, stop unauthorized access and tailgating are becoming increasingly turned into solutions to help mitigate that risk and the liabilities associated with it,” he says. “So, that’s been on the rise at a better rate of growth than the rest of the industry as a whole.”
Despite the growth of the overall market for security entrances, Borto says they are still part of a niche segment within the overall industry and he credits the company’s focus on customer service as being one of their biggest differentiators in the space.
“We provide an abundance of customer support throughout the selling cycle, production, installation, service, and really throughout the entire product lifecycle – from initial inquiry and interest all the way through to the servicing of the product,” Borto explains. “We’ve created an organization and a structure that is really devoted – with a disproportionately high amount of resources – towards creating that customer experience and that has enabled us to drive the growth of our business. That support is what differentiates us from anyone else who does this in the Americas.”
The Future of Security Entrance Technology
As with other technology sectors within the security market, Borto says the entrance control market is going to be largely characterized by increased connectivity and the ability to derive greater business intelligence from devices moving forward.
“Sensor technology that is integrated into many of the products continues to evolve on its own because sensors are used in many, many different products and industries aside from security entrances,” he adds. “Another trend is to provide some kind of remote connectivity to the products, which we started integrating into several of our security entrance products – the Tourlock and the Circlelock. There is a lot of sensors and a lot of information contained within the microprocessor controllers (inside our products) that can now be funneled through the access control system or the building management system to help users understand the status of the entrance and what’s happening with various alarm outputs to know if there is potential misuse of the door, etc.”
Borto says that even as the company finds new ways to funnel additional information and data to their end users that they are always asking for more.
“That is becoming more of an expectation,” he says. “Biometric devices, while we’re still in the early adopter stage, we’re starting to see them be utilized in several of our products for dual-factor authentication. Ten years ago we didn’t do that at all and even five years ago, we only did for a handful of people but we’re starting to see that grow almost exponentially, although it is still a small percentage of our customers.”
While much of the company’s efforts in the past at ISC West and other tradeshows has been to simply build awareness that solutions like those offered by Boon Edam exist, Borto says they’ve moved well beyond that point and are now more focused on fostering existing relationships and building new ones.
“Now we’re managing business from lots of very large customers. Our size is still relatively small compared to some of these behemoth security industry providers, but we’re still selling to some of these Fortune 50, Fortune 200 companies around the globe, so our focus now at these shows is managing existing, ongoing national or global customers. But, we still have that focus of 20 years ago of having one of everything we make in the booth and to introduce the product to someone for the first time or second time,” Borto says.
About the Author:
Joel Griffin is the Editor-in-Chief of SecurityInfoWatch.com and a veteran security journalist. You can reach him at [email protected].
