Samsung Techwin: Vision Day Conference 2009 and interview with European Marketing Manager James Smith

Samsung Techwin: Vision Day Conference 2009 and interview with European Marketing Manager James Smith. At this years’s Vision Day Conference in Tenerife/Spain, Samsung Techwin’s European community of distributors and system integrators received a profound picture of what the company is planning in the near future and an overview of it’s medium-term strategy. During the two days managers from Samsung Techwin made clear that the company not only believes it will become the number one professional security brand in Europe, but also explained the measures it is taking to attain this goal.

Ambitious Goals for the Next Years

Though Samsung Techwin has operated in the security market for many years, it was in March 2008 when the company set up a dedicated professional security division to service Europe. Since then Samsung Techwin has been one of Europe’s fastest growing professional security brands and Chang Suk-Oh, President of Samsung Techwin, reaffirmed the focus on the professional security industry at the Vision Day Conference by announcing it as a core business for the organisation.

Jake Kim, Managing Director of Samsung Techwin Europe, stated that the company is on track to be the number one brand in Europe by 2011. Their plans where underlain by several presentations of the new product line-up and the future roadmap. Customers will see a large number of new products and core technologies launched over the next twelve months including additions to the company’s IP/network range, UTP and Up-Coaxial Control cameras and a guard robot surveillance solution.

New Products, Solutions plus Network

In 2009 customers will also see the introduction of innovative core technologies including third generation SSNR (Samsung Super Noise Reduction) and two technically advanced camera chip sets, W-5 and SV-5, which will be unique to Samsung Techwin cameras and domes. This technology will be incorporated in many of the 40 new products that will be introduced over the next 12 months.

Jake Kim also made it clear that Samsung Techwin is working towards becoming a total solutions provider. Based on substantial investments in research and development and using RFID chip technology already developed for mobile applications, Samsung Techwin is expanding its offering into access control and RFID product areas in 2009. At Ifsec 2009 the company’s soon to be launched access control and RFID product ranges will be displayed for the first time. They will allow the combination of video surveillance and access control. For instance, a controller can link data received via card readers with pictures provided by a CCTV camera to enable the security staff to clearly identify people at the entrance and grant or deny access.

Samsung Techwin has recruited a professional and knowledgeable European sales and technical team over the last twelve months to provide not only reliable and high performance products, but also pre and post sales support. The company’s products are available via a network of professional electronic security distributors supported by a large ex-stock holding in its own European warehouse to ensure availability to clients on the majority of product lines and three year warranties have now been introduced across the entire product range.

The Product Highlights

As David Hammond, European Sales Manager, explained, Samsung Techwin is still investing a lot in the technical improvement of traditional product lines. One example is the new high speed pan/tilt dome SPD-3700T that uses the world’s first 37X optical zoom and offers a superior low light imaging performance. The units intelligent auto tracking feature detects moving persons and vehicles and tracks them automatically, resulting in identification of objects in motion.

Among the DVR products presented, the SVR-3200 is a cutting edge 32 channel digital recording system that can achieve full D1 resolution image recording in half real time over all 32 channels or full D1 quality recording in realtime on selected channels.

Within the range of products for network video surveillance presented at the Vision Day Conference was the new SSNRII Network Camera SNC-570. Designed to take full advantage of video over IP technology the camera has a dual codec which enables simultaneous real-time transmission of images. Peter Ainsworth, product manager for Samsung Techwin, explained the benefits: ‘The SNC-570 allows different users at separate locations on a network to choose how they may wish to view live images captured by the camera. An operator in a control room may, for example, just have a need to verify an incident by viewing QCIF quality JPEG images, whilst simultaneously a Head of Security may choose to observe the same incident at full D1 resolution utilising MPEG-4 compression.’

Accompanying the network camera range, the new NVR SNR-6400 was introduced to match the requirements of customers who wish to cost-effectively capitalise on the advantages of viewing and retrieving recorded video over an IP network. The SNR-6400 boasts a 1152 images per second record rate that can be used to record all 64 channels in near real-time.

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At the Vision Day Conference James Smith, European Marketing Manager for Samsung Techwin, answered GIT SECURITY’s questions regarding the company’s expansion plans in Europe and the new product offering.

GIT SECURITY: Samsung is a well-known worldwide brand and we know that Samsung Techwin is part of the Samsung group. Sometimes even for security experts it is confusing that one can get security products from Samsung Electronics and Samsung Techwin. Can you clarify this for our readers?
J. Smith: Samsung Techwin and Samsung Electronics are just two of over 25 separate companies and “others”, such as charities and foundations, that make up the Samsung Group. Samsung Techwin’s background is more in manufacturing industrial products, such as aircraft, aircraft engines, semi-conductor and imaging; while Samsung Electronic’s background is more in manufacturing consumer products.

It’s not unusual for certain companies within the group to operate in the same market space as others – but they often have a completely different approach to one another with differing staff structures, product sets, technology, marketing, routes to market and support services. This is certainly true of Samsung Techwin and Samsung Electronics. For example, Samsung Techwin’s core technology – such as Samsung Super Noise Reduction (SSNR) – can only be found in Samsung Techwin products. Our product portfolio is expanding into exciting new areas like access control and RFID as we further develop into being able to offer total security solutions and we have a large team based throughout Europe to offer local client support.

You have significantly enlarged your network in Europe. How are you organised in the different European countries?
J. Smith: We realise that in order to be successful we need to have local presence in the various territories we operate in to not only support our distribution partners but also engage with system integators, installers, consultants/ specifiers and end-users. Our operational departments are based out of our headquarters in the UK, as is our UK and Ireland sales team and Technical hotline desk, but we have an ever increasing number of staff based locally across Europe.

So far we have teams in Germany, France, Italy, Spain/Portugal, Czech Republic/Poland and Russia with more on the way; plus distribution partners servicing the length and bredth of Europe.

Good product quality is one thing. What measures have you taken to give your clients a satisfying pre and post sales support?
J. S mith: We believe that we need to do more than just provide excellent products to be successful and are committed to providing excellent service and support as well. As such all our products are delivered complete with a full threeyear warranty and supported by services that include free system design, free-phone technical support and, if things do go wrong, a five-day turnaround repair promise. It won’t stop there either.

We are currently looking at additions to our support services that our clients will get even more value from.

One step towards becoming a solution provider is to offer the customer also software tools to manage their data. Do you provide your customers possibilities like this besides the option to use third party management software like Milestone’s XProtect?
J. S mith: Yes, and the good news is that we offer a licence free version too. The standard version of our Central Management System (CMS) software always astounds people when they first see it as they can’t believe that we would give it away free of charge. It has some very advanced functionality and is able to bring together all connected Samsung Techwin products onto a single viewing, administration and control platform; making system management extremely easy from a PC anywhere in the world!

We provide this version with all our DVRs as standard and it is available to download from our website.

Finally, what can the visitors at Ifsec expect from your company?
J. S mith: Our stand at Ifsec 2009 will be almost twice the size of last year’s stand, which reflects that we are one of Europe’s fastest growing security brands. Installers and system integrators looking for a competitive edge will have the opportunity to see demonstrations of some truly impressive and competitively priced new products. Many of the products on show will incorporate the innovative new core technologies SSNR and the two technically advanced camera chip sets, W-5 and SV-5.

The new products on display will include long-range UTP and Up-Coaxial Control cameras. Also on show will be Network Video Recorders which are part of the company’s easy to use iPOLiS IP range and can simultaneously record up to 64 video and audio streams.

The star of the show is likely to be the SGR-1 Samsung Guard Robot, which uses state of the art detection and tracking technology managed by extremely powerful control software to provide the ultimate surveillance solution.

Contact:

Samsung Techwin Europe,
Chertsey, United Kingdom
Tel.: +44 1932 455 308
Fax: +44 1932 455 325
STEsecurity@samsung.com
www.samsungcctv.com