Dynamic Growth for the Market Leader

Hikvision is well aware that further expansion of foreign business can only be achieved via strong local activities. For Europe and the German market the opening of a new European Head Office and Logistics Centre in Hoofddorp, The Netherlands, was a big step forward, giving Hikvision the capacity to accommodate more employees, and providing more warehouse space for storage. In the DACH region Hikvision used the previous year to establish partnerships with distributors, system integrators and installers and to build a new sales, service and technical support team. At a visit to the European headquarters in Hoofddorp, Heiko Baumgartner spoke with Peter Guan, General Manager DACH about Hikvision’s ambitious plans for this year, the new team and the products.

GIT SECURITY: It looks like 2016 was a very busy year for Hikvision. Are you happy with the development on the German market?

Peter Guan: Yes, we are very happy with what we have achieved last year. It was a very good year in Europe in general where we are now the No.1 in Italy, Spain and France and in most of the East European countries. Despite strong local manufacturers we did also have a high percentage growth in Germany that exceeded our expectations.

GIT SECURITY: What was the reason for the success?

Peter Guan: First of all Hikvision’s product pipeline is very strong and we can offer high quality cameras at an attractive price. On the other hand we have invested a lot in this market since 2014 and have built up a great local team that takes care of the customers and gives them the support they need. The investment in local people, the respect of the local language and culture and the well established relationship to local VMS manufacturers, distributors, integrators and installers does now pay off and is the basis for our success. We have won a lot of new customers and participate in more and more tenders. The trust in the Hikvision brand has grown significantly and this helps very much in this conservative market where trust and relationship is a big factor for business.

GIT SECURITY: You mentioned the Hikvision’s team for the DACH region. As there have been some changes, can you give us an update on the team?

Peter Guan: We are still expanding the team to grow furtherThe sales team consists of Thorsten Wallerius, who is Team Leader Key Account, the key account managers Tim Hancock and Andreas Solbach and Michael Blottnicki who is responsible for distribution channel . Marcel Wiechmann joined us as Channel Product Manager for the Thermal Products. On the pre-sales side our customers can rely on the support from our engineers Veli Kirim, Cem Beldek and Christian Kastner in the DACH region.

GIT SECURITY: Where do you see Hikvision’s future in Germany?

Peter Guan: We do see great growth potential in this market when it comes to the solution business. We are already very strong in projects when Hikvision competes with others on good quality hardware products, but we will strengthen our competence in providing complete solutions in the future. To achieve this we are completing our product portfolio and we are working closely together with our VMS partners and integrators to develop customized solutions.

GIT SECURITY: How do you complete your portfolio and what can we expect in the near future?

Peter Guan: One example are the advanced thermal products we launched last year for visually challenging applications. We are continually seeking to push technology forward in high-end surveillance markets. The thermal cameras are a good addition to our security products for vertical solutions. Thermal sensors remain unaffected by darkness or adverse weather conditions such as rain, fog, or snow and these cameras make a great platform on which to build more efficient 24/7 surveillance systems. The PanoVu Series panoramic cameras are another example. This innovative camera did win GIT SECURITY AWARD 2017 and provides 180-and 360-degree, distortion-free, ultra-high-definition video, seamlessly integrating video from multiple sensors in one unit. With the camera users can zoom into images at up to 36x optical and 16x digital. Together with its ultra-low light performance, the result is one of the best equipped high-end panoramic solutions on the market. But our customers can expect to see Hikvision innovations not only on the video side. We are planning to introduce more products on the access control and intruder alarm side where we recently acquired Pyronix. On our agenda are intercom products as well as alarm systems.

GIT SECURITY: The basis for solutions is the integration of products under one platform. You have developed your own VMS but as far as I know, in Europe you rely more on a partnership with independent video management and video analytics companies?

Peter Guan: Yes, the integration into video management systems is part of our strategy and we are constantly working with our partners to get as many of our products integrated. We have a broad range of products integrated in Seetec’s Cayuga VMS and we are Milestone Elite partner. But we have also a close cooperation to other VMS partners like Aimetis, Axxonsoft, Digivod and Mirasys. On the analytics side, at Security Essen we announced the start of a future technology partnership with IPS. Our latest cameras are integrated into the IPS video management system IPS VideoManager and more far-reaching system integrations are to follow. Via IPS AnalyticsManager, for instance, a total of eight server- and five camera-based analytics modules can be integrated into a Hikvision video management system, thus intelligently enhancing host system functionality by providing metadata for forensic searches and displaying image overlays after critical events. With IPS software running on our HD video surveillance hardware, we are able to offer a broad portfolio of video analytics solutions to our customers and end users in the DACH market.