Security Made in Italy

GIT SECURITY: Mr. Finaurini, the new year has just started – and we will hopefully soon overcome this pandemic. How did you experience the last year at Ksenia?

Giorgio Finaurini: Starting from last July, we reorganized our internal departments, investing in the growth of the Ksenia team on all levels. I was promoted to Marketing and Sales Director, after having held the position of Technical Director for over 10 years. We all strongly believe that in delicate and particular moments such as the health situation we are experiencing, it is the will to invest that makes the difference, so that crises can be overcome faster. In the second half of the year, we managed to cover the gap created under the lockdown period. It was certainly a year full of challenges, but the uniqueness of our products and solutions allows us to look to the market, and to the future, with optimism.

You are active in many regions of the world – business has probably been affected quite differently from country to country?

Giorgio Finaurini: Yes, it is. We have seen fluctuating moments in various different countries where Ksenia is present. However, we have not experienced any particular slowdowns, with the exception of some countries where there have been more severe restrictions like strong lockdowns. For example, we are now starting with new distributors in New Zealand and Australia, but all the negotiations had been suspended for many months before.

Could you tell us a bit about your latest products and developments?

Giorgio Finaurini: We launched many new developments over the past few months, covering three main categories: Security, Smart Home and Integrations. In the security area, we implemented the integration between our ‘matrix’ (both BUS and radio) and the sensors of the Optex family. It is a strong partnership that we are cultivating with great enthusiasm. In the smart home field, we launched the ‘energia’ module on the market. It allows you to manage the power used in your electrical system, monitor consumption, send push notifications in case of excessive consumption, and also to disconnect the loads in sequence. In short, it allows you to save energy, and I don’t need to underline how important this is. Concerning the integrations, we recently introduced the http gateway called ‘IoT porta’: a protocol that allows thousands of different IoT devices to communicate with each other. And last but not least, in a few weeks we are going to release a new plugin to enable integration with Milestone.

What is your R&D team currently working on? Could you give us some examples?

Giorgio Finaurini: Our developers are very busy but I want to keep it very confidential, allowing our customers and all those who follow us on social channels to fully enjoy the surprise when we officially release new products and solutions. In any event, our intention in general is to focus on new peripherals in the security area and to improve both the UX and IX, both for the end user and for Ksenia Installers. We also intend to enhance the range of Access Control products.

Sustainability is one of your strategic pillars. How does this affect your work, your production and your business in general?

Giorgio Finaurini: Since 2010, the year of foundation of Ksenia Security, we have focused our strategy on 4 strategic pillars. One of these is indeed eco-sustainability, long before Greta Thunberg began her environmental journey. Our philosophy, and therefore our responsibility, impacts many aspects such as, for example, the preferential use of local suppliers. The goal for 2021 is to shorten the supply chain and to increase local purchases from around 20% to 30%, with substantial savings in terms of CO2.

You produce all your products in Italy, don’t you?

Giorgio Finaurini: Yes, we do and we are very proud of it. Ksenia Security is deeply linked to Italian traditions and history. ‘Made in Italy’ is for us both an objective and a professional philosophy, and together with the other intrinsic company ­values r­epresents the backbone of all our activities, internal and ­external. We have also recently embarked on a new path that embraces the concept of ‘Made in Marche’ – that is our local ­region – recalling the theme of eco-sustainability.

Italy is renowned for its design – and so is Ksenia. Could you describe your design philosophy? How important are design issues for your customers?

Giorgio Finaurini: Within Ksenia Security we treat design at 360°. We pay particular attention to details, not only with regard to the form and shape of products through minimalist solutions suitable for any type of architecture, but also in relation to the user interfaces that are simple, intuitive, with clean and linear graphics.

What news can we expect from Ksenia during 2021?

Giorgio Finaurini: To answer this question, I would need about ten pages! We should remember that we designed and implemented about twenty innovative solutions during 2020. For this year, our customers, can expect a lot of news from Ksenia Security, also because we have increased the number of people in the Research & Development department by 30%. The result is that the speed of releasing new products is certainly faster than ever before. Stay tuned!