Under Surveillance

Why GE Failed to Bring Security to Life

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:03:17 GMT

Pending any regulatory issues, after seven some odd years, GE has bowed out of the security industry, having agreed to sell its GE Security holdings to United Technologies Corp. (UTC) for $1.82 billion. This marks the industry's most substantial deal since GE got into security in the first place when it purchased Interlogix in 2002. It also brings to a close GE's vision of making security systems as commonplace in American homes as appliances and other household electronics branded with the ubiquitous GE "meatball" logo -- and having them all communicate with each other.

Having been in this industry since 1998, I have closely followed GE's security operation from the outset. I attended and participated in several GE-sponsored events, befriended many current and former GE Security executives and managers, as well as members of the GE Security Pro Dealer Program. I also produced the industry's first major feature with then-CEO Ken Boyda following GE's entrance into the security industry via the acquisition of Interlogix, as well as introduced his successor to the marketplace, Louis Parker, in 2005.

With that, I have to say I was not surprised to hear GE Security was on the block earlier this year. However, I was surprised that the company found a suitor to take the entire operation as I figured, given the current economy and overlap of product lines and competencies with the acquiring suspects, that it would need to be broken up and sold piecemeal. Furthermore, although UTC makes about as much sense as any prospective buyer, it is curious from the standpoint that, similar to GE, its foray into the security space has not been without its challenges and missteps.

Why did GE fail in the security industry? Like many companies that have tried to enter and succeed in the electronic security business, GE made the fatal mistake of believing it could bend the industry to its whims rather than understand and respect its truly unique nature and pursue it on its own terms. The conglomerate largely ignored the leadership and managerial wisdom that came along with many of the established security brands and businesses acquired earlier this decade, to the point where the great majority of the talented, industry-savvy personnel who came along in those deals jumped ship. And while GE continued to search for answers on its own terms, constantly attempt to reposition the business and ultimately flounder, those who left went on to succeed with rival security suppliers. That group includes folks such as Steve Walin of GVI Security, Chuck Durant and Duane Paulson of Sequel Technologies, Jim Clark of Verint, Doug Marman of VideoIQ and Skip Haight of ComNet, to name but a few.

Unlike, say, Honeywell, which entered the security industry a year or two prior by acquiring Pittway, GE not only let most of its security expertise go elsewhere but also in most cases replaced it with industry novices (a notable exception was the recent hiring of Peter Boriskin, ex-Tyco). As had been the "GE way," individuals from other divisions and industries were often shifted into the new security business. The operation became a revolving cast of people unfamiliar to the security ranks. To its great credit and continued success, and for the purposes of comparison, Honeywell had the sense to respect and listen to the management of its acquired security businesses and empower them to continue doing what they were trained and experienced in doing. Building, nurturing and maintaining strong, loyal relationships with installing dealers, integrators and monitoring providers is critical to ensuring large-scale success in this industry. Honeywell gets it, GE did not, and that's why the two have radically diverged.

GE Security's internal disarray was fodder for many conversations over cocktails or dinner, wondering when and if the corporate giant would ever get its act together in this industry. Heck, I was among many who was excited about GE entering security because it seemed if anyone could help make security mainstream and expand its horizons and reach, GE could. Such a development would have benefited the entire industry, and for a while it appeared to be on its way as GE even ran a security awareness commercial during the Super Bowl and launched a major marketing campaign featuring a Lassie theme to emphasize safety. That devolved to the point where its marketing almost disappeared entirely and bounced around from person to person and agency to agency.

Looking back now, it almost seems like an experiment that went awry. Because as we close the books on GE's impact to the security industry I believe the company did more harm than good. Where it was supposed to bring greater value and visibility to the security industry, it ultimately has had the opposite effect. In addition, GE also derailed some of security's most promising technology companies as, along with losing key personnel in many areas, the products and systems have not kept up with the marketplace. With GE corporate being hit so hard by the recession it could no longer afford to tread water in the security industry.

Hopefully, GE's shortfall will come to benefit our industry as UTC sorts it all out, integrates those businesses into its own and attempts to once again make them as vital as they were before they were nearly crushed by the "meatball." However, although it certainly has proven itself in the security market with acquisitions such as Lenel, UTC is not without some serious issues of its own, having seen sales plummet double digits this year. I wish the company well. So long as it embraces the reality that it is the people, relationships, service and technology, in that order, that truly matter in this industry, it should do just fine.

As always, thanks for reading ...

Scott Goldfine
Editor-in-Chief
SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

Security Feast Served Up at ISC East

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:00:00 GMT

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised, as were just about all the exhibitors, with the turnout of last week's (Oct. 27-28) ISC East at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York. The fact that the first game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium coincided with the opening of the show added to the buzz. Granted, the floor space had been wisely consolidated some to account for fewer exhibitors and smaller booths but the activity was nonetheless healthy despite crummy, rainy weather. What's more is that, as was the case with ASIS in Anaheim, Calif., this past September, vendors lauded the quality of the leads and contacts they made at ISC East. From my perspective, this event the past two years has become a terrific venue for catching up with industry professionals throughout the supply channel in a much more manageable environment than the somewhat overwhelming ASIS or ISC West shows. Readers of SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION in print and online will benefit from the many exciting articles and other content I lined up as a result of ISC East.

Eager security professionals begin filing in for the start of ISC East 2009.

One of the unique facets of ISC East this year, and another stroke of genius to make things busier on the floor, was the deployment of several presentation areas throughout the hall where vendors demonstrated their goods and industry professionals provided educational sessions. There were only a handful of presentations off the show floor, which was a good thing because the rooms were quite a haul from the exhibit hall.

One of the sessions was sort of the keynote, featuring Bill Bozeman, president and CEO, PSA Security Network; Gordon Hope, senior vice president and general manager, AlarmNet, Honeywell; Mike Miller, president, Electronic Security Association (formerly NBFAA); and Lynn Mattice, chairman, board of advisors, Security Executive Council in a presentation titled "State of the Industry: Where We've Been, Where We Are, Where We're Going." Bozeman sits on SSI's Editorial Advisory Board and is a member of SSI's Industry Hall of Fame; Miller also sits on the SSI Board. The panel was moderated by Bob Berkowitz, a 35-year veteran broadcaster and news reporter. Although he brought a certain Tom Brokaw-like presence to the session I think it would have been better served with a moderator possessing more intimate knowledge of the security industry. Nevertheless, the strong lineup of panelists provided high caliber insight.

The first topic was providing security as a service, or SaaS. "Security as a service is the way integrators need to go," said Bozeman. "Integrators today are where alarm dealers were 25 years ago when digital dialers came on the scene. They need to adapt to and embrace the recurring revenue model." Hope chimed in that the main driver paving the way for SaaS is a paradigm shift in communications, with wireless and Internet connectivity changing the face of the industry. "One of the top challenges is how to maintain the value of customer accounts amid these communications, economic and other changes," he said. "You have to make smart choices about where things will be five years from now."

(l-r) Bob Berkowitz, Bill Bozeman, Gordon Hope, Lynn Mattice and Mike Miller.

On the topic of industry standards, Mattice cautioned security providers to be extremely diligent because the new presidential administration is on a mission to enforce regulations and acceptable business practices more than ever. "We will see a ramping up of standards because the government is going to drive us that way," said Hope. "Security providers will have to comply in order to remain competitive." Bozeman noted that government business is helping integrators get by during these tough times. "I think CFATS is great!" he said. "It's going to generate business for us. You have to get certified, but it is not hard to do so. These standards apply to any facility containing certain chemicals." However, said Miller, many standards contain too much gray area. "I fear inconsistencies in standards enforcement, such as how AHJs will interpret these standards," he said. "That's why companies have to become educated in these areas so they can in turn educate enforcers on compliance. ESA has committees following and staying on top of these standards and legislation." Mattice agreed that there is often a disconnect between what regulations say, what they were intended to accomplish and how they are enforced.

The panel then discussed the challenge of meeting end users' fondness for using mobile devices and networks with the security vulnerabilities inherent in using those communication methods. "The question is," said Hope, "how do we balance the risk with customer demand? We have to give them what they want but remain vigilant in doing everything possible to seek security in software and applications." To further illustate the magnitude of this issue, Mattice offered some startling numbers. He said the Chinese government has 50,000 dedicated hackers on its payroll, and that hackers cost U.S. businesses $1 trillion in intellectual property in 2008. "There are no software security standards today. Cyber security is a huge issue," he said. "This is part of the reason chief security officers don't have the time to cover all the bases for their organizations alone. They need integrators to serve as partners to manage the risk and maximize the return on investment. Do that and you can't help but win."

Finally, Berkowitz queried the panel on what they see on the horizon for the security industry. "More regulations, more terrorism, residential will improve and there will be more manufacturer consolidation as the economy improves," said Bozeman. "This is one of the best industries to be in," said Hope. "POTS is going away and communication is changing. That presents opportunities if you know how to take advantage of it, but it requires lots of training and education. Those that understand it will gain handsomely." Mattice tempered his optimism with a foreboding message. "This is a time of huge, huge opportunity but training and really understanding the customer's environment is key," he said. "The IT industry is a sleeping giant that could take it over if security does not step up. It is ours to seize or lose." Miller offered one last piece of advice. "Get involved with the trade associations because they have committees that touch the issues central to your business," he said. "And you better really take the time to take a hard, honest look at how you conduct your business."

Although smaller booths prevailed in the exhibit hall, floor traffic was generally high at ISC East.

Although there are a lot fewer evening events that take place during ISC East compared to ASIS or ISC West, there has for a number of years now been a very notable one: the Tri-Association Awards Dinner. This event, which was held Oct. 27, is jointly presented by the Security Industry Association (SIA), Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA) and Electronic Security Association (ESA) to hand out the Lippert and Triton awards. The Lippert Award, which this year went to Altronix Corp. President Alan Forman, recognizes outstanding contributions to SIA and the security industry. The Triton Award, which this year went to Vector Security President John Murphy, recognizes industry statesmanship and efforts to promote good working relationships among the three associations. Both industry icons were extremely humble and gracious in accepting their respective honors, deferring the true credit to those who have helped and supported them along the way, urged others to give back to the industry, and pledged to continue doing so themselves.

I participated in the "Meet the Press" presentation on Oct. 28. The topics dovetailed nicely with my October editorial, "Shoot the Messenger ... an E-mail That Is." The juiciest news to come out of the show was the partnership announcement between the PSA Security Network and Reed Exhibitions in which the ISC events organizer will serve as the show manager for the long-running and highly respected PSA-TEC exhibits and training sessions. SSI served as the Elite Media Sponsor of that event this year. Read more about the new partnership here. Also, see the December issue of SSI for more show coverage.

Next year's ISC East is set for Nov. 3-4. Did you make it this year? What did you think?

As always, thanks for reading ...

Scott Goldfine
Editor-in-Chief
SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

HID Customers Share ID Management Success Stories

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:00:00 GMT

During the recent ASIS event in Anaheim, Calif., I attended HID Global's 90-minute press conference in which company President and CEO Denis Hebert delivered a status report and overview of the access control solutions provider's business and operations. The session was well attended and included case study history presentations from three satisfied HID Global customers.

Hebert stressed how a leading driver for the business today is going beyond hardware to deliver security via secure access tokens and software-driven applications. He identified HID's development strategies as spanning physical access, logical access, secure issuance and contactless transactions. Supporting those are the implementation of hardware platforms, interoperability for converged applications, and services related to key management, deliver and virtualization. "We are bringing all of this together with an eye on the future," he said.

He further stated the company's corporate directives as encompassing: 1) creating customer value; 2) being a trusted source; 3) supplying innovative products; 4) providing solutions tailored to vertical markets; and 5) delivering secure identity. And the three elements of the campaign are: 1) channel partners; 2) development partners; and 3) HID products. "We obviously have to be selective about what we do in today's climate, but our concentration remains the same in terms of creating compelling and innovative value propositions for our customers, channels and partners," said Hebert.

HID Global President and CEO Denis Hebert.

The podium was then turned over to Scott Goodson, security systems integration manager for Thomson Reuters; William Phillips, vice president and CSO of CNA Insurance; and Bhavesh Patel, senior director of global risk operations for Genzyme. Each discussed in detail the particular ID management issues faced by their organizations and how HID Global partnered with them on solutions.

Goodson laid out the seemingly impossible task his department faced after Thomson took over Reuters in 2008. A corporate mandate was issued that required new ID badges to be created and implemented for all of the combined entity's personnel. Together with systems integrator VTI of Burnsville, Minn., Goodson placed his faith in HID Global's Identity on Demand service. "Thomson Reuters had a short window of time to create thousands of badges and distribute them worldwide," said Goodson. "It was a huge time-saver to utilize HID Global's Identity on Demand services." The process involved 50,000 employees in 93 countries. "There was no other way this could have been accomplished," added Goodson. "I can't say enough about the partnership with HID. Without them, neither our integrator or I could have been so successful."

Scott Goodson, security systems integration manager for Thomson Reuters.

Next up was Patel, who focused on justifying the return on investment (ROI) for multisite migration from HID's proximity to iCLASS technology. Genzyme is a global manufacturer and marketer of innovative heath-care products and services with more than 11,000 employees. His segment highlighted his company's widespread deployment of security solutions as enterprise solutions, with security devices being used for a multitude of internal functions from video surveillance to cashless transactions.

Bhavesh Patel, senior director of global risk operations for Genzyme.

Phillips rounded out the end-user testimonials by explaining how CNA's advanced security system incorporates a visitor management system and integrated HID components. He said he approached his organization's security mission by targeting a single operating system for the enterprise, centralized control, compatibility and standardized technology. "We established a true enterprise system that maximized the value of our software and card technology investments. We were able to reduce overall security operating costs," said Phillips. Having met those objectives, CNA's system also features dedicated redundant (DR) servers that help the insurance provider keep tabs on its 65,000 daily transactions in 36 states. "In addition to establishing an effective visitor management system, we were able to provide universal access that significantly improved the security and safety for our employees and businesses," added Phillips. Future desires for CNA include: secure print, logon authentication, asset management and traveler support.

William Phillips, vice president and CSO of CNA Insurance.

HID Global's Holly Sacks, one of my favorite people in this industry, then moderated a few audience questions before thanking everyone for attending and dismissing them to a complimentary buffet lunch ... for those fortunate enough to have the time to stick around for it (yours truly not included). I would like to especially thank some of my other friends at HID, such as Patti Juric and Doug Wheaton, for including me in this event within the event.

HID, an ASSA ABLOY company, certainly is a ubiquitous presence in the still largely fragmented access control marketplace. I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on the company, its offerings, support, technology, etc.

As always, thanks for reading ...

Scott Goldfine,
Editor-in-Chief
SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

How to Get Customers to Invest in You

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:00:00 GMT

When attending trade shows such as the recent ASIS event in Anaheim, Calif., occasionally I am able to break away from the madness of the exhibit hall to attend one of the educational seminars. The great majority of those offered are either not geared toward the integrator mindset (often the end user at ASIS), are just not a very relevant or interesting topic, or are being presented by someone who is not that knowledgeable or who is looking to push their own agenda (usually self-promotion). So, as I recommend to everyone, I carefully pick and choose.

One that met that criteria for me was titled, "Speaking Bean: Creating a Proper Return on Investment (ROI) for Security Budgets," which was to feature security industry and CCTV guru Charlie Pierce and Steven Oplinger, systems design manager for Integrated Fire and Security, ended up only featuring the latter. I found out later that Pierce had to undergo a heart procedure and was sidelined a couple of weeks. I have communicated with him since and, fortunately, he is up and around and doing fine.

In any case, the description of this session was: "In the best of times, the process of passing a budget request for increased visual, electronic, access, or manual security can be tedious, especially when dealing with corporate accountants. Review in detail the processes and information required to create and promote a proper ROI document to accompany every budget request. Learn how to demonstrate the profitability of properly designed and implemented security."

Sounds pretty good, right? The turnout was decent but with Pierce's absence the hourlong seminar took up just a half-hour of time (showing conclusively what a talker Piece can be!). Hey, that actually allowed me to have the time to eat a decent lunch for a change (at these shows, my crazy schedule often dictates I miss breakfast, lunch or both). Still, the seminar's information was solid and I thought I would share it here with the Under Surveillance faithful. I hope you find it useful. Oh, and by the way, be sure to check the ISC East schedule as I will be once again participating in the Meet the Press presentation. Or, if you are attending, just look for me on the show or at SSI's booth (No. 1829).

Oplinger's emphasis throughout the session was that most organizations view the cost of security as a liability and so the installing integrator has to convince them otherwise. When trying to justify security purchases, he spelled out three reasons why an integrator might fail to get a project approved. They are:

1) Making financially unrealistic requests
    - You asked for too much
    - You got too fancy

2) The lack of perception of a need by corporate leaders
    - You didn't present the case properly
    - You didn't prove your case sufficiently
    - You didn't present your case to enough points of contact simultaneously

3) No funding available due to timing of the fiscal year
    - You waited until the last minute
    - You presented it too late in the corporate year
    - You didn't present your case sufficiently

Oplinger, who was an engaging presenter full of energy and eager to connect with the audience, served up the following suggestions to ensure greater success . . .

1) Pretend like it's your own money. Ask and answer every question you would want to know if it were your own money, such as: A. Where your money was to be used? B. How was your money to be paid back to you? C. When was it to be paid back to you? D. What interest or profit could you expect to see?

2) Prepare a three- to five-year profit/loss chart
    - Be honest
    - Remember that it is all only projections

3) Support everything with graphics, pictures, summary documents and other easily understandable devices
    - Be creative, different and clever to set yourself apart
    - Use bullet points, summaries, etc.

4) Spread your proposal around to all concerned to get them on your side
    - Provide lots of details
    - Clearly explain the purpose
    - Clearly define and lay out the benefits
    - Even state the cons, including how you will address them

There you have it. So go out there and get more customers to invest in you and your business!

As always, thanks for reading ...

Scott Goldfine
Editor-in-Chief
SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

Police Chiefs Champion Municipal Video Surveillance

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:00:00 GMT

ADT Security Services recently hosted its 4th annual Media Summit, this year in Dallas, which I attended and covered in another Under Surveillance posting. One of the many presentations I sat in on involved some local police chiefs discussing the municipal surveillance systems that have been put into service within their jurisdictions. I thought they provided interesting perspectives and wanted to share them with you here in the only in depth coverage of this session of which I am aware.

This blog is an extension of sorts of the end-user roundtable article in the November issue of SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION that also includes the three gentlemen featured below. First, former Bryan, Texas, Police Chief Tyrone Morrow and current Deputy Police Chief Peter Scheets discuss the particulars of the surveillance system deployed in their city, then McGregor, Texas, Police Chief Steve Foster follows with his city’s story. Morrow stepped down in 2007 and was instrumental in Bryan’s electronic security success.

Throughout this presentation, the Bryan and McGregor factions traded friendly and amusing barbs about which city is to become the safest in Texas. The “Sam” they refer to is Sam Sutherland, senior manager state & local government accounts for ADT. I hope you find their tales enjoyable and useful.

CASE STUDY No. 1: Bryan, Texas

Tyrone Morrow, Ex-Police Chief:

Bryan is the sister city to College Station, which at 50,000 Aggies strong is the biggest metropolitan university and the area’s economic engine. We have about 75,000 citizens that live there — that’s the documented ones. We have another undocumented population, somewhere between 25,000 to 30,000 that still has to have these services. Those police services have to be precise and it has to be done correctly. The Bryan Police Department is about 132 strong sworn police officers of men and women who put themselves in harm’s way every single day. When I took over as chief of Bryan’s police department, I brought with me a foundation of working in a large metropolitan police department and seeing what technology could do to help law enforcement agencies combat those who would want to do us all harm. I spent 25 years with the Fairfax County Police Department in Fairfax County, Va., which is outside of Washington, D.C. In that capacity, our agency had the availability to be involved in a lot of national and international cases that were solved using technology. For example, Fairfax County was one of the first institutions in this country to employ the LiveScan system, which takes the fingerprints of individuals taken into custody. I was part of the technology group that brought that in. What LiveScan did for us was when we locked somebody up for some criminal offense, we would take their prints digitally and automatically get a read on who they were. A lot of times, if you take their prints manually, you’ve got to send them away and you’ve got to wait for them to come back. By the time you got to know who they were, they’re already gone. LiveScan solved that problem.

Ex-Bryan, Texas, Police Chief Tyrone Morrow (left) and current Deputy Chief Peter Scheets.

Our department also worked with other agencies in the region. We had the D.C. Sniper. Technology helped us solve that. CCTV cameras were able to help us resolve that. After 9/11, we had tons of anthrax scares across the country. Fairfax County dealt with a lot of that. CCTV and some of this technology helped us resolve some of those cases. So, with that, I brought to Bryan, Texas, an understanding of how this integration can have an impact where it can make a community safe. I am, what I would call, the visionary. I am the individual that has to get in there and has to do the political stuff to get us to where we need to go. Deputy Chief Peter Scheets beside me — if you want to know anything about this project, talk to him because he is the man behind the scenes that we as an agency and a city put in place. He got it done for us, and he got it done superbly and the progress is ongoing. What you have to understand is at this level when you’re talking about spending public dollars on technology you better first have a good vision. Two, you better have money. And three, you better work the system to your advantage. If you don’t have any of those three, your project is going to be dead on arrival.

So the goal with what we did is we identified the vision and where we wanted Bryan to be. Our vision was simple. It came from interviews from all the police officers, the staff that worked in the police department, the political structure there, the school systems, the churches — everyone basically. The bottom line: our vision is making Bryan the safest city in Texas. If everyone was behind that vision, all we needed to do was put a plan together to take us in that direction. This was just one component of that plan. Part two is the politics. How do you achieve that? By spending time with all those entities that I just described. In short, they bought into the process by acknowledging the need to help us establish the vision. So now it’s part of their game plan. They own it. So when I come to them and say, ‘Hey, we need an extra $5 to do this,’ and they say, ‘Well, we can’t do that,’ I say, ‘Well, aren’t you committed to the vision we all wrote together?’ So it’s very hard for those from the political structure to say no because they’re already onboard by the mere fact of committing to this.

So now we’ve got the vision and we’ve got the political structure in place, and we know we’re moving in the right direction. Now it becomes an issue of A) finding the money, and B) having the right partnerships. The money initially was easy for us because I took some asset forfeiture money we had set aside where we took the criminals’ stuff away from them and sold it. We took the proceeds and put it into an account. We made a decision to use it as seed money. Remember that I’m the visionary and I’ve got to play politics. So I’m going to use my money first, and then I’m going to go back to the politicians and say, ‘I used mine; I’m out. Can I please use some of yours?’ We need to finish this project out because it’s already ongoing and we don’t want to compromise and have to go back to our citizens and say, ‘We’re out of money, but aren’t we committed to the vision of making Bryan the safest city in the great state of Texas?’

So now I’ve got the three questions or problems I need solved upfront. So now I’m thinking, ‘OK, whom do we choose as a partner? Who is going to provide surveillance systems to make Bryan the safest city in the great state of Texas? What it comes down to is relationships. People stay with people, or pick people, because they have a relationship. It’s not because of the name that’s on the company, but because of the relationship. And with Sam, he came down there and formed a partnership. We developed a relationship by him saying that if we’re going to make Bryan the safest city in the great state of Texas, what is it that you need? I told him, ‘I want to put a surveillance system in this city so that when our vision is done, Bryan will be the safest city in the great state of Texas. And I need it started first in an area that’s going to give me the longest and greatest defenses in political power to move forward.’

They were revitalizing the downtown area at the time. They had pumped millions and millions of dollars into that revitalization effort. As part of that, they put in a fiber optics system throughout the entire area. That meant that, initially, we could tie into fiber optics through that system in partnership with private businesses and use that as a backdrop for the infrastructure of our camera systems. Once that was in place, we could then use IP technology to move that camera system to some of the more critical areas within the city where we were having crime issues. People said, ‘Why do you want to put it in downtown Bryan? Is there a crime problem there?’ I told them, ‘It’s because we’ve got the infrastructure in place there already. Once we get a provider partner in place, we can get the cameras — I use my money and then yours in moving toward our vision.’

In the long term, we’ll have cameras all over the city of Bryan. Those cameras will have the availability to look at the future trends. Let’s consider biometrics. A small part of your population commits most of your crimes. If you know who they are, you can biometrically link their pictures into the surveillance system. That surveillance system can biometrically scan everybody that’s going by. When they see that person, they can lock-in on them and give you an alert that that person is in a certain business area. You can direct your officer or your staff to follow-up and check up on that person. Gunshot recognition is another consideration. There is technology out there where if you’ve got cameras up with audio and you’ve got a gunshot, you can automatically zoom in and lock-in on the individual from where the shots came. Hopefully it’ll give you visual and suspect information that you’ll be able to react to. There are a lot of enhancements out there that you can look into. The biggest crime issue is auto theft. If you’ve got an automatic tag reader system that can be pulled off your surveillance system, it can automatically be checked against a database and issue a notification if that car is stolen.

Peter Scheets, Deputy Police Chief:

First I want to talk about the city of Bryan’s renovation and demographics. The city’s jurisdiction with the police department is probably about 40 square miles. The demographics are about 32 percent Hispanic, 15 percent African-American, 2 percent Asian and other, and 40 percent Anglo. As in any city, our crime rate was about 10 percent violent crime and 90 percent property crime. If you look at the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report, Bryan stands out in Texas in terms of violent crime by being one of the top four cities in the population range of 55,000 to 100,000. So we’ve been struggling with how to reduce crime and keep with our vision to make Bryan the safest city in the great state of Texas. Any problems from a law enforcement perspective are probably going to benefit from our partnership with ADT and the camera system we purchased for security in the downtown area.

What do we have downtown? We have a number of events that go on down there that can draw as many as 25,000 people. Prior to the system going in, the biggest issues downtown were vagrants moving into the area. We’ve also had vehicles being broken into, and sometimes they would be stolen. Occasionally, we’d have cases of sexual assault. We even had a homicide occur downtown. So, in terms of total city population Bryan wasn’t necessarily a crime hotspot. But in the area we thought that politically we needed to secure we had to dedicate officers and patrols, but it wasn’t the full solution. We started to contemplate putting in systems. When Chief Morrow came in he was talking right up my alley. Prior to my incarnation as a law enforcement officer I was in the military as an intelligence officer. One of my functions was technical surveillance and we would use myriad vehicles for recognizance operations.

When I came into law enforcement in the state of Texas, I thought I could bring some of that military approach for security. When Chief Morrow arrived, he was the first chief to allow us move forward with that. And I do appreciate the fact that part of our system is paid for by the criminals that we’ve arrested. He talked about the political process, but there is a psychology that goes behind that. We would originally envision just quietly deploying the system and then reaping the benefits that surveillance can bring in that type of area, but as we brought it before counsel, it sparked a lot of public debate. I found some studies about universities installing surveillance systems to address threats in parking lots. When they announced on campus what they were doing they found thefts fell in all parking lots, despite not placing cameras in every lot. The psychology behind it is if the criminals believe the law enforcement element is out there looking they’re going to go elsewhere. The same thing happened in Bryan. We got into a debate over where those cameras were going to be deployed, what was going on and how we were going to operate them. It was covered in the media; it was covered in the council meetings. And the criminal element paid attention to that.

I have some surveillance success stories to share, the first of which is a little bit surprising and different from what people would expect. The first is when we do special events we put a person behind the control console to help direct the activities of the officers on the ground. The cameras themselves are the force not the fire in that I can take officers I would normally deploy to some major event downtown and put them elsewhere because we’ve got a bird’s-eye view of everything that’s going on. When we have an incident develop, we’ll get the radio call. The camera system was preprogrammed so we can punch in a button and go right to a specific location. Usually a camera operator gives us the right form of action at that point. He can tell us, ‘There’s nothing going on here’ or ‘The individual that you’re looking for is wearing a red shirt and is standing on this corner.’ So the first success example is about a little boy that was lost during one of these events. The camera operator was able to locate him and direct the officers to him. So what we were expecting from the system in terms of increased arrests and fines turned out to be we ended up using it for different type of public service.

Yesterday, I checked in with the crew and they told me that our Carnegie Library was vandalized with graffiti sprayed all over the north side of the building. They did a motion detection on it and ended up pulling up the vehicle and identifying the individuals who were involved. Apparently, they were not aware cameras were stationed there. The other story I would like to share is that we had an individual in downtown Bryan vandalize one of the churches. The perpetrator apparently told some of his friends what he had damaged. When we contacted him, he gave us a full confession. We asked him, ‘Why were you so forthcoming?’ He said when he told his buddies what he had done, they told him, ‘You’re on camera and you might as well give up.’ Pretty much the issues we had in the downtown Bryan area were resolved as a result of the publicity.

Downtown Bryan is about three blocks wide from east to west and about 12 blocks from north to south. The two main streets that run through downtown are Main Street that runs north and south and Bryan Street. In that area is the La Salle Hotel, which was built in the 1920s and revitalized. We put six cameras at the top of the hotel. We have four cameras that are fixed on each side of the building. There are three cameras on the west side and three on the east side. On the north side and the south side of the building there are four fixed cameras. They give us a bird’s-eye view of the entire street so the camera operator can look and see if there’s any activity on those four cameras. There are two additional cameras mounted in the center of the roof, and they’re pan/tilt/zoom. If you see activity going on that needs to be addressed, those p/t/z cameras can zoom in to the point where we can read license plates — we can actually read the inspection sticker and expiration date. I’m talking about a sticker that is maybe two inches by four inches. So the main cameras, the four fixed cameras, monitor the overall activity and the p/t/z cameras monitor the ground level where we can make out individual license plates or individual facial features.

There are systems out there run by businesses and systems out there run by the school district, and we currently have an agreement in place for the school district. We have a contact right now at the schools where if anything happens we can tap into their systems through ours and then direct officers to problem areas. God forbid we have a school shooting, we can link into their system and then identify the threat and get officers onsite immediately. One of the other things that resulted from our partnership with ADT is we have worked out a communication system with local businesses equipped with CCTV where if a robbery were to occur, those business owners would download the image and then E-mail it out to all the other business owners. We have had instances where we’ve had armed robberies and as a result of having the surveillance systems in place, we’ve had photographs of the perpetrators and passed them out to other businesses, to the public and to law enforcement before officers actually arrived on the scene.

Chief Morrow had mentioned the license plate recognition technology. One of the other things we’re looking at from a law enforcement perspective is to identify vehicles as they come and go. We can identify stolen vehicles or those involved in criminal offenses related to gang involvement, etc. I want to mention that one of the reasons we went with ADT is they sat down with us and said, ‘What do you want to accomplish with your system? What do you want short-term? What do you want to do ultimately?’ We’re not there yet. We have a lot more pieces to add to it. But it’s that partnership that I appreciate.

CASE STUDY No. 2: McGregor, Texas

Steve Foster, Police Chief:

Not too long ago we put feelers out to see who we could get to help secure the city of McGregor with a surveillance system. We had a local guy who did local security with little home jobs. We tried to talk to him, but of course he just couldn’t handle it. I had Sam’s brochures and stuff and so I asked him to come out. We’re very fortunate in where we are situated because we have two major roads that come right through the middle of McGregor. We have U.S. 84 and we have Texas 317, which intersects right in the middle of McGregor. We figured out that if we could place a camera outside the last getaway road, we could cover the city of McGregor. So with just four cameras strategically placed in four locations we can cover the whole city of McGregor with trucks coming in and out.

McGregor, Texas, Police Chief Steve Foster makes his point while ADT's Sam Sutherland looks on.

We have an industrial park that back in the 1950s, the Navy had come in and that’s where they built their bombs for the war. When they pulled out, they gave the property, about 26,000-27,000 acres, to the city of McGregor. A lot of it, if you stand up there at night you’ll see things glowing. I don’t know if anybody really wants to be out there, but you can still put some really big industries there. Right now, we have one called RTLC, which is a wind turbine manufacturer. They are going to manufacture these 300- to 400-foot poles that they match these turbines off of. So they’re coming in. Plus, we’ve got other industries out there that bring a lot of revenue. Our problem is we are a small police department. We have eight officers that we run 24/7, but we’re spread out. We go 10 miles to the east, back toward Waco, and then we have the industrial part, which is about 12 miles going out the other direction. So it’s hard for us to cover that area. The problem we had with the industrial park was that it was one way in, one way out. You’ve got to go past the intersection to get out there, where we were going to put the cameras, or you had to come in through the country through the backwoods, which the criminals are not going to do. So we decided that with five cameras we could cover all of McGregor on the periphery of the city coming in and going out, with one camera watching the industrial park. Sam assured me we could do it, and I said, ‘Let’s go to the city council.’

By way of background, when I came here after being a Texas Ranger, they appreciated what I was bringing to the table because the police department in McGregor was in great turmoil at that time. They were to the point where they were getting ready to disband the police department and give it to the sheriff’s office, which drove the city of McGregor sky-high. The citizens did not want to be patrolled by the sheriff’s office. They wanted to have their own police department. So my assistant chief, a former commander for a motor vehicle theft task force in the Waco area who was born and raised in McGregor, knew the mayor and all the city council members. So that’s how we kind of got into it. We decided to go to the city council, the mayor and the city manager. Their stance was, with my background and that of my assistant chief, if we thought it was right to make McGregor the safest place in the great state of Texas, if we wanted it, they were going to make it happen. The city manager there had done a great job of getting McGregor way out of debt and way into the red, so they had enough money to fund this project if they wanted to.

So Sam came in with us, we did the area photographs, we did everything we needed to do to establish what we wanted, and then we went to city council. Sam did a great job of promoting it, and I believe the exact words from the mayor were, ‘If they think we need this and it can make this a better place for the city of McGregor, we’re doing it.’ It was a majority decision. People ask, ‘Do you see a decrease in crime? Do you see a decrease over the long term with cameras being established?’ After 30 years of law enforcement, I don’t care whether it goes back up, as long as I’ve got a lead where I can go. With the cameras, even if they think, ‘Well, the cameras can see me but they can’t catch me,’ I’d still rather have a picture of it. You’ve got someplace to start. I’ve worked hundreds of homicides where I had nothing, and I had to start from bare. At least now with a picture of something, we can start there. So I don’t mind if the criminals find out that it’s not going to be a great deterrent for them, but we’re going to have something to start with, which is what we have.

One of the problems we did run into is we have a co-op in McGregor. The co-op owns most of the electricity around the city of McGregor. They also own the poles that we were going to mount the cameras on. The state of Texas and its infinite wisdom would not let us place the poles where we needed to on East 84, which is the main road between Waco and McGregor. Evidently, there were some rulings that claimed it was an invasion of privacy and, therefore, they were not going to let us put a pole up on state property. So what we basically did is said, ‘OK, you won’t let us put it there, then we’ll move it to … ‘ The reason we were actually putting it there was because that’s where the co-op had placed the electricity, but it was on the other side of the fence, so we just moved it inside the fence. I think we tried to argue with them several times that we weren’t invading privacy if you weren’t breaking the law. I tried to tell the Highway Department that it would only be used when we had a crime that is actually being committed. Other than that, the recording will loop and start over after 90 days. If we haven’t figured out we’ve got a problem in 90 days, then we’re not doing our job. So we tried to explain it to them, and basically the man in Austin told me, ‘If you put that camera up, you’re going to jail.’

The three law enforcement officials (right) also took part in the end-user roundtable featured in November's SSI.

What we would like to do at some point, when we can establish that this is done a benefit for the city, is to expand the system. We have a vision of being able to put it down Main Street. We have a Main Street that runs probably 10 blocks. If we can put cameras on each end and cover the alleyways, then we would basically be covered. It wouldn’t take a whole lot more for us to get to that point where we would have a complete camera system in our city. It’s not a big city, but it will be covered. So that’s our vision. About three more cameras and we’re good to go.

Did you make it all the way through? Well I don’t have a prize to offer but hopefully you found the journey and time spent worthwhile.

As always, thanks for reading …

Scott Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

ASIS Show Sees Fewer Feet, but Better Shoes

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Just back from a nearly two-week business trip to the West Coast that included taking in the 55th ASIS Int'l show in Anaheim, Calif., in the shadow of Disneyland. My jaunt also included a working breakfast with SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION's Editorial Advisory Board and SSI's 2010 planning meetings. Consequently, I am very excited about what we have in store for our readers in the coming year. You can get a sense of some of it by checking out our new media kit.

As for ASIS, there was no question about the traffic being down and exhibitors (fewer in number and taking up less floor space than in recent years) were especially concerned when the first day was about as busy as a costume store the day after Halloween. Fortunately for everyone the second day was acceptably busy, even while the last day was typically barren. Regardless, the majority of the many exhibitors I spoke with were completely satisfied with the event because they achieved their lead generation goals. Although there were fewer feet in the aisles, the ones who found the time and money to make the trip were for the most part very serious prospects. The recession may be reducing security revenues for now, but it is also keeping most of the tire-kickers away. And, speaking of recession, the outlook may be brightening as integrators I caught up with at ASIS reported that projects were beginning to increase. Hallelujah!

Security professionals catching up outside ASIS 2009 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

One of the leading trends I observed at the show was vendors, especially those with other divisions and parent companies, reorganizing in ways to exploit cross-market and cross-technology synergies as well as maximize efficiencies and systems integration. These are strategies that in many cases had been theorized but the necessity was not substantial enough to overcome the tendency for people within different business units to be siloed and territorial -- until now. Today it is a question of business survival to maximize compentencies across the enterprise, regardless of who's kicking and screaming (some of them all the way to the unemployment line) in the process. It will be interesting to see how things shake out with these companies once the dust settles.

Some of the other notable developments evident at the show were: more tweaks and updates rather than completely new products or platforms; more standardizing with H.264 compression; more pushing storage and processing to the edge in cameras; more IP connectivity in access control and intrusion systems; more open architectures and interoperability alliances among vendors; more true systems integration; more robust video and security systems management systems, with more ways to make actionable and evidential sense of voluminous surveillance data; hybrid solutions to ease transitioning from analog to IP video; iPhone apps and similar to allow remote security system access; continuing technology sophistication by high level end users; and old-school manufacturers scrambling to add network capabilities to their offerings.

Although the aisles were not as packed as previous years, exhibitors were pleased with the leads they obtained.

As usual, the show also included lots of educational sessions (most targeting ASIS' end-user audience), mixers, awards, parties and other events apart from the event. All in all, it was a very productive show from my standpoint, as the 40 or so meetings I had scheduled and countless impromptu sessions were all very positive. And fortunately the air conditioning held up (even if my blistered feet did not!) while temperatures outside reached triple digits. Upcoming entries in this blog will include further details from the ASIS show. In the meantime, be sure to take a look at our news coverage and check out our November issue for a complete news and product roundup. Oh yeah, and by the way ISC East is already coming up later this month!

As always, thanks for reading ...

Scot Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

Bosch Insider Offers Intrusion Insights

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:00:00 GMT

During a time when flashier offerings like access control and especially video surveillance garner the lion’s share of attention (and even that has been tempered by the economy), Bosch is keeping intrusion interesting. The company’s ongoing commitment to dedicating resources toward research and development (R&D) are evident in its new product introductions, such as the Conettix IP module, Professional Series detectors and Commercial Wireless devices.

Bosch’s commitment is not going unnoticed as a recent report by IMS Research shows the firm has outpaced all but one of its top 10 competitors in market share growth since 2006. SSI caught up with Gregor Schlechtriem, vice president, Global Business Intrusion Detection Systems for Bosch, during a recent Intrusion Workshop conducted at its Fairport, N.Y., North American headquarters. In the following extension of the feature-length interview that appears in the October 2009 edition of SSI, Schlechtriem talks about Bosch's newest intrusion technologies, its partnership with Inovonics and differences between the U.S. and European markets.

What percentage of Bosch’s new intrusion sales are IP at this time?

Schlechtriem: If we look at the control panels, we are seeing more than 30 percent of the intrusion business becoming IP at this point in time. It’s an increasing rate, probably about 5-10 percent annual growth. I think it’s very attractive from a commercial standpoint. We’ve seen how much can be saved in telephone and communications costs by replacing PSTN with IP. I believe that is one of the primary drivers in this area.

The Conettix IP module can convert most major brand control panels into IP communicators. How does Bosch approach integrated solutions and interoperability?

Schlechtriem: We do have a clear commitment as a product manufacturer so we have to have open interfaces to integrate into a number of systems that are out there. If you look at our panels, we have a lot of protocols implemented to allow communication to different central stations. Besides that, we are offering our own integration tools to integrate different product lines. I think we offer some very good integration between video and access, for example, that provides for a little more than what you would get if buy products from different parties. But again, we have a commitment to open interfaces because our goal is to provide products to the market, and unfortunately you’re not always the selected partner to provide the complete service.

What percentage of Bosch’s new intrusion sales are wireless at this time?

Schlechtriem: Right now, we see about 10 percent of panels having wireless added in one or more aspects. We don’t have a fully self-contained panel. I’m talking about wireless in a sense that some of the sensors would be on the wireless path connected to the panel.

Bosch Vice President, Global Business Intrusion Detection Systems, Gregor Schlechtriem in his Fairport, N.Y., office.

How did the relationship with Inovonics develop? Why them, and what’s that all about?

Schlechtriem: We’ve been working together on a project by project basis for several years. We share some customers — some end users who enjoy our technology and their technology. They have proven to have a very good and reliable product. RF is different from wired because it is very much dependent on environmental conditions in that the objects, surroundings, other electronic devices and systems, etc. affect its reliable operation. If you are looking at a big-box retail application for example, you would have GSMs, you would also have RFID systems to track goods within the shop, theft prevention and stuff like that. So all of that affects your environment and Inovonics has proven to be very stable, very reliable in most environments. That attracted us to them. They have good technology, so why should we reinvent the wheel if there is someone around who already has what we think we need?

Do you see that as any kind of trend with Bosch, partnering more with technology providers as opposed to getting everything through its own R&D?

Schlechtriem: I think in these times, you certainly have to define what your core competencies would be and you would have to define things where you are looking for reliable group partners. Is that a general trend? I don’t think so. I think we’ll rely heavily on our engineering force for a lot of other technologies.

With the Inovonics arrangement, does that also pertain to products outside of the United States as well?

Schlechtriem: We’re looking into that right now. Inovonics also features European products. There are differences with spectral frequencies and stuff like that, but we’re looking into that right now. I can’t give you any specific reason, but the European wireless market is developing slower than the U.S. market. The Inovonics product is located in the commercial wireless market and that’s almost nonexistent in Europe at this point and time or at least it’s very limited.

That’s surprising in that you would think with all the historical buildings and structures in Europe wireless solutions would be in demand there.

Schlechtriem: There are a limited number of projects that exclusively require wireless, but it’s a small segment of the market.

Are the manufacturing regulations and standards more lenient in the U.S. than overseas?

Schlechtriem: Yes. The key challenge is, from our view, there are four clusters in Europe that follow different regulations. Then each and every one of the countries within those clusters has their own national regulations. Additionally, you have some vertical markets that impose more regulations. If you had an intrusion system for a bank in Germany, that would be very different from what you could provide as a banking system in France, which would be a different system from what you could provide to a bank in the United Kingdom. It’s more patchwork to different markets. If you want to serve the European market, it’s quite challenging.

What’s the reason for that? Is it because the market is older there?

Schlechtriem: Some of it is probably a desire to protect the market. Some of it is tradition and people are used to handling things in a different way. What we see now is that the European Commission is trying to establish common standards. The European Commission is looking to create one market within Europe. One of the initiatives is tracking EN standards that will help us to standardize the European market and to serve the market with more common platforms than are possible today.

Are there any other big differences between the U.S. and European security markets?

Schlechtriem: The other thing I noticed is that the U.S. market is very price competitive. It’s not only intrusion, but very competitive pricing for everything that’s standardized, industrial production-type equipment.

Despite claiming to meet EN standards, some competing products have fallen short when compared to those from Bosch when tested in the company’s intrusion lab. How do you explain apparent false claims made by competitors?

Schlechtriem: I wouldn’t call them false claims. I mean, you can make a declaration yourself and maybe once in awhile you make the right equipment to prove things. But what we do is create awareness. We create customer awareness to really challenge the certificates they have provided. We’re not saying that we’re meeting it and someone else is not. We’re just saying that this is important and we want to make sure everyone meets it. We provide all the appropriate documentation. We have a forward approach, making this an important topic. That’s part of what we showed when we had some of our European customers over here. We showed them some of the tests in the range room with the Bosch detectors vs. the competitors’, so they could see which ones passed and which ones didn’t.

Are you thinking about or have you done exhibits similar overseas that you did at ISC with a real hands-on experience?

Schlechtriem: Not yet, but they have been asking about it. Specifically, because we did this presentation for European customers, word spread. They asked, ‘Can’t you give us something? Can’t you put it in a container? Can’t you put it in a truck?’ People are working on it. I think what we did at ISC is a good first step and we have to find ways to get stronger and better with what we’re doing, because that’s one of our key strengths.

How did you come up with some of those hands-on ideas for your booth exhibit?

Schlechtriem: Actually, the engineers did and they were so proud of it. They said, ‘Everyone is looking at our panels and user interface and keypads and stuff like that.’ As a sensor group we’re not really perceived as doing anything that’s very interesting. But they came up with this concept and it grew over time. We did it years ago for one customer or we showed one aspect and it kind of grew into what you see today. And the guys are having fun. They’re actually very proud to show customers what they’ve accomplished.

Well that about does it for this one. Hope you enjoyed this further insight into Bosch and the intrusion marketplace.

As always, thanks for reading . . .

Scott Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

Emerging Technologies From ADT's Vantage Point

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Last week I had the pleasure to participate in the 2009 ADT Media Summit, which this year was held in Dallas. As a lifelong Cowboys fan it was to my great lament that the trip did not include a game or even a glimpse of America’s Team’s fancy new $1.5 billion stadium. However, I was nevertheless delighted to be able to participate in this event for the first time since ADT began hosting them four years ago. This experience was enjoyable, enlightening and productive.

The two-day summit included an overview of ADT’s commercial business, a tour of the company’s Carrollton site including its demo room and IP technology lab, a number of presentations pertaining to specific markets such as municipal surveillance and petrochemical security, an end-user roundtable panel discussion, and an overview of emerging security technologies.

ADT Vice President, Commercial Sales, Jack Feingold opens up the fourth annual ADT Media Summit.

I will be covering the municipal video presentation and end-user forum in upcoming installments of Under Surveillance. What follows is a summary of ADT Vice President of Technology and Industry Relations Jay Hauhn’s presentation on how the industry’s largest installation and monitoring provider (worldwide: $7.6 billion in annual revenues from 7 million customers, 5 million of which are in North America and 1 million of which are commercial business) evaluates and brings new technologies to its customers.

Hauhn detailed ADT’s rigorous process of due diligence that includes, in order, identifying reputable manufacturers that can adequately support their products; carefully evaluating and testing those products; determining how the products will be marketed, distributed, priced, etc.; and then launching their rollout. The company also uses a formalized eight-phase process of “gates” to develop ideas and product/service offerings before bringing anything to market. “Our customers count on ADT to separate the hyped gizmos from legitimate products,” said Hauhn, who classified new technologies into truly emerging and emerging in security and/or not yet fully into the security mainstream.

Examples given for truly emerging included power harvesting; cellular 4G (aka LTE or long-term evolution); solid-state hard drives; IPv6; service-oriented architecture; and cloud computing.

John Hudson, a regional director of national accounts, explains the demo room at ADT's Carrollton, Texas, location.

The leading methods for power harvesting are solar and inductive, which is created by movement. As these technologies develop, the potential implications and applications for wireless security devices are enormous. The next wave of impending cellular communications technology will facilitate download speeds of 100Mbps and upload of 50Mbps, which is lightning fast and will naturally open up all kinds of new security applications – particularly in the area of bandwidth-ravenous digital video. This trend also uses open protocols, which should hasten its ubiquity and usability.

Solid-state hard drives will allow security devices to utilize the same types of flash memory widespread in thumb drives and portable devices such as iPhones/iTouches. These drives do not have any moving parts and so there is nothing to suffer mechanical failure as is common with present hard drives. The big hurdles in advancing this technology have been low capacities, high cost and limited number of write cycles. Today, 128GB solid-state drives (up to 250GB is available) are common and prices have dropped to around $400. However, the limited number of write cycles is continuing to be addressed. Among other things, this technology is going to allow more memory and processing to be pushed out to edge devices (e.g. cameras) and lessen the load on network bandwidths.

Internet addressing is about to undergo a complete overhaul as the world transitions from IPv4 to IPv6. A few articles have already appeared in SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION explaining this migration. In short, when the Internet was first created it was done so with what seemed at the time such a large number of possible Internet addresses that the supply would never be an issue. That assumption proved to be way off the mark and the protocol grossly inadequate. Its shortcoming has resulted in the use of dynamic addressing that causes routers and networks to sometimes lose connectivity because their addresses need to shift. IPv6, although not infinite, will provide an incomprehensibly high number of addresses. In doing so, network communications (and security) will become far more reliable.

Jim Lantrip, regional director of sales and application support, has spearheaded ADT's IP Lab in Carrollton, Texas.

According to Hauhn, the next wave of integration will involve service-oriented architecture (SoA). This technology will enable advanced data mining so security information can be sliced and diced in just about any conceivable fashion. SoA will lend itself to leveraging security system-generated data in ways that not only maximize the effectiveness and efficiency in and of itself but also throughout the entire business or organizational enterprise. The key to this approach is exception reporting -– red-flagging occurrences or events outside the normal course of activity.

The final truly emerging technology area discussed was cloud computing. No, it's not a new method of meteorology! Cloud computing is where a computer-based resource is provided over a network rather than residing locally on the PC or server. In this scenario, software solutions are provided as a service, hence the term software as a service (SaaS). This technology paves the way for lots of opportunities in the security industry, particularly in video surveillance and access control, for recurring revenue-based services, such as those offered by access control systems manufacturer Brivo.

Examples given for emerging in security and not yet adopted into the mainstream included IP-based systems; megapixel video; video analytics; wireless mesh networks; and mass notification.

While IP-based systems are among the fastest growing areas of the entire security market, access control is expected to soon follow. According to Hauhn, in addition to demand, one of the leading reasons for video’s quicker crossover to IP is the push for standards. Another aspect slowing the progression of access control onto networks is it is largely proprietary among security system manufacturers. Hauhn said he predicts the intelligence of access control solutions moving from a main controller out to the card readers themselves. Further, he sees logical access control systems and providers of those systems (e.g. Cisco) taking over physical access control by merging it all into a cohesive, truly integrated solution.

In the area of megapixel video, Hauhn stressed how valuable it is for forensic investigation following an incident. He conceded that processing, storage and bandwidth demands continue to pose challenges to megapixel video, but not every application needs it anyway. Another emerging technology that both benefits from megapixel video and could also provide actionable intelligence to lessen the need to transmit as much video data across the network is video analytics. “This technology will make an impact on all product categories,” said Hauhn. However, he said the technology is still not yet mature and reliable enough for widespread use in security. One area he especially sees growth coming in this area, though, is in iris scan technology replacing cards and card readers. This concept crystallized something in my mind I had not really considered before, that being that many forms of biometrics are really just different types of video analytics.

The deployment of wireless mesh networks is an area in which the industry has already begun to see successful results, particularly in municipal video surveillance systems. This technology greatly enhances the reliability and expands the range of wireless solutions by using a mesh of devices that act as both receivers and repeaters to propagate signals. According to Hauhn, this technology scales down efficiently, which will open up new applications. He sees immense potential in its greatly enhancing the accuracy of intrusion detection, envisioning one day when cameras could be embedded in wireless sensors to help verify alarms and all but eliminate false alarms. The final area of new technology discussed was mass notification, which is essentially transmitting time-critical voice or text information to anyone, anywhere. In addition to the obvious safety benefits inherent in this technology, it also frees up emergency personnel to be more useful in other ways during an urgent situation.

ADT Vice President of Technology and Industry Relations Jay Hauhn.

For a guy like me who loves the technology side of this business, I was as happy as a pig in slop during this presentation. Not only is the technology itself cool, but speculating about the possible applications and associated revenue streams for our industry is a blast. As far as the entire ADT Summit goes, however, my leading disappointment on what was otherwise a terrific event, was the lack of actual hands-on demos and displays of technology. The tours of the demo room and IP lab were superficial and did not include any actual equipment/systems demos and Hauhn’s presentation was confined to PowerPoint. And while previous ADT Media Summits included site tours of an actual installation, this year’s did not.

That said; it is to ADT’s great credit that the company puts on a fine event like this at all and I am looking forward to the next one. It is efforts and functions like this that demonstrate the company’s commitment to not only being the industry’s largest provider of security installations and monitoring services, but also serving as a true leader that embodies professionalism.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the summit included a private tour of and dinner inside the JFK Museum located at Dealey Plaza inside the book repository building, where sniper Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired upon John F. Kennedy. The experience was poignant enough, but was made all the more moving when I later discovered JFK's last surviving sibling, Senator Ted Kennedy, had died that same evening. Talk about goosebumps.

Much credit goes to ADT for producing an event like this, particularly when it could so easily have become another casualty of recessionary cutbacks. I am especially grateful to ADT Vice President, Commercial Sales, Jack Feingold for having a name so similar to my own (and he has a son named Scott!); in all seriousness for being such an outstanding, gracious host. Among the many others I would also like to also single out for thanks are my longtime ADT friends Ann Lindstrom, director of corporate communications, and Deb Coller, vice president of marketing, as well as Jon Daum and Cindy Weigle of the PR firm Daum Weigle.

As always, thanks for reading …

Scott Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

Research Reveals Top Tips to Cut Costs, Promote Profits

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

The August 2009 issue of SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION features the first-ever Operations & Opportunities Report (OOR). The report asks executives, managers and others from across the nation and representative of all sizes of companies a host of questions targeting not only the best ways to boost profits and reduce expenses, but also the implications of implementation. In addition, respondents -- nearly 350 of them -- were asked to identify the most promising new technologies and service offerings, as well as the most viable vertical markets. Several financial and operational questions were also included. The bulk of the data and findings can be seen here.

However, this research included scores of open-ended responses -- far more than could be covered in the main article. That’s why I have pored through the material to share with you the results that follow. I hope you find them as fascinating and helpful as I do. I am really excited about the information generated by this study and look forward to continuing it in upcoming years to discern trends and emerging ideas.

When respondents were asked, “If you had to identify a primary way to REDUCE COSTS in your business, what would it be?” some of the filled-in “Other” answers were:

Holding off hiring the next employee until the backlog is greater than our norm (two weeks)
Implement remote software support for clients rather than dispatching a live body
Less travel, more teleconferencing
Move from hourly wage to a production-based point system
Use more paperless methods to keep field personnel in the field and not wasting time running back to the office for paperwork
Reduce cell phone usage and Internet connectivity
Quit pulling so many “spare for future use conductors.” I shudder to think of how many miles of “just in case” wire I have given away over the past 33 years. The proper placement of zone expanders, baluns and addressable devices and one spare 4C fire wire or Cat-5 will ”future-proof” most new installations.
Making sure the time spent on bidding jobs matches our profile so we do not waste time
Hold off on services expansion in our central station
Evaluation: It is imperative to evaluate all of the types of jobs you are selling and installing. It is then necessary to make decisions about what is profitable and worth doing in the future.
Create a lead generation and follow-through process with a matrix of decisions to bid or not bid (business value, now and future, benefits?)
Closing satellite offices
Reducing the downtime on jobs due to the lack of parts or wrong parts, based upon administrative and supplier errors

When respondents were asked, “If you had to identify a primary way to INCREASE PROFITS in your business, what would it be?” some of the filled-in “Other” answers were:

Identify nature of repair calls and who is liable. Enforce labor/service charges on accounts that have no maintenance agreements.
It costs far less to sell to an existing customer than to mine a new one. We are also very diverse in our systems offering, which allows us the flexibility of being competitive on something like security but holding higher margins on access control.
Providing service agreements to existing client base to keep them up to date with technology and maintain their satisfaction and comfort with their security system
Raise pricing. If other companies were a little more competent and sold what is actually needed, then we would not have to discount price. We will not discount product or workmanship.
Sell systems that customers actually want with upward mobility to provide future sales
Selling systems that our competition hasn’t thought of yet -- get the lead position
Utilizing point-of-sale/credit card transactions as a secondary means of profitability
Identify types of installations/repairs that are costly in time/travel and charge more for them
Increase sales force size -- this is and always has been a numbers game!
More contact with architects and engineers
Send out monthly newsletter to your existing clients to keep in touch with them
Target additional agencies that could benefit from our services

When respondents were asked, “In what ways are security contractors leaving ‘money on the table?’” some of the filled-in “Other” answers were:

By not carrying the cost of cable/wiring, and instead of relying on their installers to provide that information
Not negotiating with suppliers for quantity discounts or rebates
Not cooperating with electricians in using solar power for remote installations
The inability to sell multiple locations
Not negotiating better monitoring costs from their monitoring center
Not being strategic and adopting a consultative approach to selling solutions
Making the mistake of thinking they have to lower their price to get the sale
Not promoting price reductions in return for multiple job commitments
And, my personal favorite answer: I prefer not to answer because I am after the money that is left on the table!

So there you have it. There was another question on the survey in which respondents were asked if they were better off financially five years ago than they are today. Presumably, the majority would answer that they were worse off, due to the toll of the recession. Surprisingly, 67 percent said they were better off today. The following reason caught my attention: “Five years ago I was doing kidney dialysis every day,” wrote a respondent. “Now, after a transplant, I am rebuilding the business.” How’s that for a reality check?

As always, thanks for reading …

Scott Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION

Corporate End Users Air Their Grievances

Security Sales & Integration Magazine — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:00:00 GMT

One of the most unique and hotly anticipated of SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION's many research projects has become the Corporate End-User Study, the vast results of which will appear in our September ASIS Show Issue. For this, the fifth annual version of this study, for the first time SSI partnered with ISC West/East organizer Reed Exhibitions to give installing systems integrators a better perspective of how these customers think and what they really need the most.

This information is useful not only in showing security providers a profile of the typical high-level end user (security directors and managers) and the organization they represent, but also for the end users themselves to see where they stand among their peers. This original research helps fill the great lack of industry data in this area. Some of the important messages conveyed by security directors/managers include: a lower systems and services cost threshold; assuming an active role in buying decisions; deferring more to IT managers; and great interest in video surveillance, especially IP. Among the good news: feeling better about their company’s security and safety, and higher satisfaction with their providers.

Some of the open-ended responses survey participants provided do not appear in the magazine's print coverage and I wanted to share them with you here. But to make the most sense of what follows, it is highly recommended you reference the full-length feature article.

When corporate security directors/managers were asked, “What would be your biggest COMPLAINTS about electronic security and fire/life-safety systems?,” some of their direct comments included:

- Customer service

- Diminishing returns on investment

- Most products are monopoly Items, giving no flexibility in case the vendor does not meet expectations

- Proprietary equipment that requires special adaptors or conversion units

- Lack of training

- Poor service and attitude

When end users were asked, “What would be your biggest COMPLAINTS about installing security consultants/systems integrators?,” some of their direct comments included:

- Do not finish work period!

- We have more in-house experience than most consultants

- High mark-ups on equipment

- Installers do not have information on the scope of work, therefore you are forced to go over the parameters again

- I'm really tired of integrators who promise the world but fail to deliver on that promise. Too many leave jobs incomplete or fail to provide support within reasonable times, or even know how to solve problems with their installs.

- Lack of familiarity with the area of concern

- Lack of salesmen with technical experience

- Not familiar with current systems

- Not up-to-date with new technologies

- Use proprietary systems

- Pushing preferred product lines

- Unaware of government FISMA requirements

When asked, “How would you rate your overall job satisfaction?,” some security director/manager comments included:

- Held back by training budgets and people who don't understand security as an overall concept

- I can't get the security systems that we need installed or completed

- Need more guys to perform better!

Finally, when asked if they had any additional comments, respondents offered:

- One thing that I would recommend: Stop referring to security officers as guards. It is considered to be demeaning to people that have chosen this profession as their career.

- The problem with the government is some things work with contracts. At one point, we had three different vendors/contractors and they would accuse each other of sabotage, which would make us the victim of our own hires.

- Why does the techie world always refer to the human element as guards? Let's try to elevate the conversation. These are the people who will be monitoring your oversold systems and responding to them.

I hope you enjoyed this additional insight into the minds of your high-level, end-user clients and that these research projects help bridge the communications gap. I welcome your comments.

As Always, Thanks for Reading ...

Scott Goldfine

Editor-in-Chief

SECURITY SALES & INTEGRATION