Ready for the Next Chapter with Security Center SaaS
Genetec management team took the opportunity to present their new experience center in Washington to the international press early in February, discussed their view on the physical security market and gave journalists a sneak preview to their new unified software as a service solution Security Center SaaS.
Continued Success in All Areas
By Heiko Baumgartner
Right at the beginning of the press event Andrew Elvish, Vice President Marketing at Genetec, gave an overview about Genetec’s go-to-market strategy and his observations on how our industry is going through a rapid transition. This rapid transition is comparable to the move from analog to IP years ago. Genetec fully embraces the change in the market and the global rankings in their key markets video management, access control and license plate recognition reflect the success of their efforts and their standing in these markets. Genetec adopted the credo ‘live up to what your customers believe you can and should be doing’ and the team showed throughout the whole event that the company walks the talk.
In the relatively short period since 2019 when the last press summit was organized in Montreal, Genetec saw a growth in staff of 77% but the company still keeps its fast moving agile style that is more start-up style than the behavior of an industry giant. By closely analyzing the market demands e.g. through their annual ‘State of Physical Security’ reports, Genetec aims to stay close to their customers and makes a lot of efforts to close the ‘consumption gap’, the gap between what is state of the art in technology and what gets used in security projects.
The company wants to stand for physical security solutions that are unified and not just integrated. Unification takes integrated systems to the next level by connecting and managing stand-alone components in a security system through comprehensive software solutions in a centralized and open architecture. Differing from integration, unification builds deeper connections across all independent systems than those connected through Software Development Kits or Application Programming Interfaces.
Messages from the ‘State of Physical Security Study’
Genetec analyzed the outcome of their ‘State of Physical Security Study 2024’ to see how how security professionals want to act in the future and the findings influenced Genetec’s product strategy. The major take-aways of the study are:
- The good news for the industry is that OPEX budgets continue to grow. 62% of end users expect budgets to increase or remain flat into 2024 and only 15% expect budgets to decline.
- IT departments are buying more physical security equipment than the security people. When IT is involved, there are less delayed physical security projects. In short: The money is in IT, physical security teams will join forces with IT and this isn’t limited to technology anymore. In 2024 organizations will look to optimize collaboration between IT and physical security teams. Bridging these two valuable skill sets will result in more effective risk mitigation and data unification.
- The market makes a big move towards the cloud. Moving to the cloud is not the end, it starts a new game at higher growth rates in all areas. Organizations will seek to maximize hybrid-cloud investment and the physical security industry will see a large increase in hybrid-cloud adoption in 2024. Recent research found that 44% of organizations already have over a quarter of their physical security deployment in a cloud or hybrid-cloud environment. As cloud adoption rises, there’s a growing interest in new plug-and-play, cloud-ready appliances. They not only streamline access to cloud services but also enhance computing power at the edge.
- Implementing cyber defenses is an ongoing focus. In 2023, 31% of end users indicated that their organization was targeted by cybercriminals. And despite organizations improving cybersecurity practices, the level of concern continues to rise. In 2024, more organizations will implement cybersecurity tools that enhance automation and proactive risk detection.
Genetec New Unified SaaS Solution: Security Center SaaS
The move towards the cloud, cybersecurity aspects and the customer need for SaaS solutions has led to a new SaaS offering that was introduced to the press in Washington and is presented to a broader audience at ISC West. It was up to Christian Morin, Vice President, Product Engineering & Chief Security Officer, and Laurent Villeneuve, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Unified SaaS, to introduce the launch of the Security Center SaaS. The new offering will replace Genetec’s former SaaS offering that was quite fragmented and not easy to explain.
Security Center SaaS is now 100% based on the customer demand for ease-of-use – not to be confused with simplicity - as the main demand and aiming to tick all the boxes of a future-proof solution, that redefines the possibilities for cloud-based physical security. The solution was built over more than two years with cybersecurity and privacy at its core, with the big aim for a massively scalable, open, and unified software as a service solution (SaaS) that enables a seamless evolution to the cloud.
Combining access control, video management, forensic search, intrusion monitoring, automation, and many other advanced security capabilities, Security Center SaaS ushers in a new chapter in the technology evolution of the physical security industry.
"The physical security industry has not been able to get cloud or software as a service quite right, especially for enterprise customers,” explained Christian Morin. “With Security Center SaaS, organizations are no longer beholden to proprietary or feature-poor as a service solutions that needlessly force a choice of either all on-prem or all cloud. The enterprise capabilities and open architecture of Security Center SaaS are designed to enable systems to handle complex workloads where they make the most sense to be deployed. This flexibility addresses a longstanding need of end users and fills an important gap in the market.”
A hybrid SaaS solution built for channel partners
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As deployments become increasingly sophisticated, end users rely on trusted security professionals to guide them through their transition to cloud and hybrid environments. To bring this new SaaS solution to the market, Genetec has transformed its entire approach to procurement, deployment, and maintenance without compromising the enterprise-grade capabilities for which its solutions are known.
“Current approaches to SaaS have undercut the role of channel partners, whom we see as central to customer and project success. Security Center SaaS represents an important opportunity for our systems integrators. It means better margins and long-term customer satisfaction, with no additional investment in time or resources on the part of partners,” said Michel Chalouhi, Vice President of Global Sales at Genetec in his presentation at the press event.
With an automated quoting and ordering process, systems can be fully operational within minutes from when the order is placed. The brand-new Genetec Portal makes it easy to quote, order, deploy, and manage large deployments so that channel partners can continue growing their business and deliver the technology and ownership options that their end users demand.
Enterprise-grade experience in the cloud
With the ability to centralize the monitoring and management of multiple sites, Security Center SaaS is ideally suited to meet the needs of customers in a wide range of verticals, including retail, education, corporate campuses, banking, healthcare, and cities. It can serve low-density deployments with a handful of direct-to-cloud devices and scale up to thousands of sites and devices with hybrid storage and processing. Operators can manage operations from a Security Operation Center or on the go through robust web and mobile applications.
A Seamless Evolution to the Cloud
Security Center SaaS is a deployment-agnostic platform that supports a range of configurations. Based on a hybrid-SaaS architecture, the new solution allows organizations to move components and sites to the cloud based on their needs and requirements using a combination of cloud-native services and cloud-managed appliances, with storage and processing at the edge. Because of its open architecture, Security Center SaaS gives organizations the freedom to choose the devices, cameras, and door controllers that work best for their business.
Security Center SaaS can also connect seamlessly with existing on-premises security devices and infrastructure. Access control devices and cameras that are not cloud-ready can easily be connected to Security Center SaaS using Genetec edge appliances.
Available globally in April 2024 from certified Genetec partners, Security Center SaaS is offered in tiered subscription plans based on the number of device connections needed. It was showcased for the first time at ISC West.
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