Industry View

By Jumbi Edulbehram
The security industry is undoubtedly experiencing a technological sea change, transforming from analog infrastructure with proprietary software to an IP network infrastructure with standards-based software. While this change has been afoot for more than 10 years, the rate of change has accelerated rapidly in the past few years. Though smaller businesses have much to gain from the security industry’s advancements in IP-enabled products, this market has not been able to take advantage of them, even though they have the necessary network infrastructure in place.

What are SMBs anyway?
Traditionally, a small business has been defined by the number of employees (e.g. fewer than 500 for manufacturing) or by the total revenue (e.g. less than $6.5 million in revenue for retail and services). But when it comes to security, it’s more important to define a business by the size of the security system needed than by its workforce or revenue. Most commonly, the infrastructure required for securing facilities in the SMB market is a CCTV system of up to 16 cameras, an access control system of up to four doors and one-to-two intrusion panels.

Why have IP manufacturers underserved the SMB market?
There are a host of reasons why major manufacturers of IP network hardware and software have underserved the SMB market. Manufacturers focus on the enterprise market: Most IP solution providers market their solutions as “enterprise-class” and “full featured.” Customers in the SMB market, however, don’t require enterprise-class solutions and need only a small fraction of the features, making these products less than an ideal fit for these facilities. Further, given that most solutions are targeted to the enterprise market, they are also relatively expensive. In the SMB market, regardless of great feature sets and incredible ROIs, solutions need to be affordable. Very often, manufacturers’ efforts to “dumb-down” enterprise-class solutions, in order to make them affordable, result in less than desirable solutions. Finally, “best-of-breed” systems are difficult to specify and implement: Unfortunately, SMBs and their security providers usually lack the IT expertise necessary to implement network solutions, as those that traditionally serve the market may not be adequately trained to install, configure and maintain IP systems.

What is needed in the SMB market?
There are a number of ways suppliers of IP-based hardware and software and systems integrators can address the issues above and serve the SMB market better. Cost-effective solutions are undoubtedly key for this market. The cost of the solution should factor in all the equipment (hardware and software) as well as costs associated with installation and maintenance. Newer technologies continuously reduce hardware costs, but to dramatically lower overall system costs, the answer is an integrated solution in which the costs of different components don’t add up.
Integrated solutions require much lower effort in the integration of different components (video, access control, intrusion) and the sub-components of each system. They require less time and effort in selecting different hardware components that meet certain specifications, and they should have easy-to-use software interfaces, rather than disparate applications with different interfaces.
Integrated solutions also enable SMB customers and those integrators who serve this market to benefit from reduced complexity and ease-of-installation. Since most SMB customers and integrators lack IT expertise, the interoperability of IP devices is critical. Standards development efforts, such as those being led by the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance (PSIA) and the Open Network Video Interface Forum (ONVIF), are driving interoperability between network devices, enabling disparate products to work in conjunction without in-depth and time-consuming integration.
In sum, SMB customers are likely to be best served by fully integrated, network-based security systems with sophisticated feature sets that are easy-to-configure and cost effective. There are solutions coming to market today that combine multiple subsystems such as digital video management, video analytics, access control and intrusion detection into a single appliance that meet these needs. By specifying integrated security appliances, security systems integrators and resellers can sell top-of-the-line solutions at bottom-of-the-line prices to their devoted customers.

Jumbi Edulbehram is VP of business development for Next Level Security Systems, a physical security company focused on developing a new breed of network security solutions. He has served in a similar capacity for Axis Communications and IntelliVid. He can be reached at jumbi@nlss.com.