The Security.World community voted during the summer of 2017 and selected the Physical Security and Video Surveillance industry’s Top 12 Influencers. This Profile is one in the series of 12 of those individuals that are making a difference in our industry. Congratulations to Kevin Wine, Vice President of Marketing, Verint. We reached out to Kevin to get his views and insight on what is happening in the physical security and video surveillance market.

The international Security.World community of physical security professionals has just selected you as one of their Top 12 industry Influencers for 2017. What is your reaction to that?

I’m honored to be included with this experienced group of industry leaders, many of whom I’ve worked with closely over the years and admire immensely.

How long have you been active in the physical security/video surveillance industry and what brought you into this industry?

I started working in the security industry in 1986 selling residential security systems for ADT Security. I feel honored and privileged to be a part of such an important industry. Everything we do is directly tied to the core needs of people and entities being secure and safe.

After my career started with ADT, soon thereafter I was chosen to fulfil a role in Sales for U.S. Military accounts in Washington, DC; by 1990, I achieved the ADT President’s Club award in 1990 as their No. 1 sales representative. Then I moved on as the Director of Channels at Edicon. From there, I transitioned into the position of Vice President of Marketing at Lenel Systems, where I co-created and managed the go-to-market strategy, and developed the primary marketing initiatives for the business. We started Lenel with sales of less than $1 million. In 2005, it was sold to United Technologies for $440 million. I joined Verint in 2013 as Senior Director of Business Development, which lead to a Vice President of Marketing position. Earlier this year, I transitioned into the role of Vice President of Business Unit Marketing and Sales Support, where I am responsible
for select marketing programs and business initiatives within Verint Customer Engagement Solutions.

How have you seen the industry change over the past few years?

Technology has been the single biggest change agent in the market. Over the last 30 years, a continued and relentless path of technology innovation — most notably the Internet of Things (IoT), big data analytics, mobility, and the maturation of standards and integration tools — has shaped the industry and continues to today. A perfect example of this is Verint Situational Intelligence Solutions: here the virtues of advancements in data capture, processing, analysis, and visualization technology have enabled a new generation of command and control capabilities with real-time interactive extensions from security operations to first responders, citizens, and employees. All of that improves security and efficiencies, which delivers value and ROI for customers.

What do you see has been the single most impactful technology in the industry?

I continue to see great benefits and significant discussion centered on the promise of the IoT. Demand for more data has altered the way people and businesses connect and collaborate. As the growth in network connectivity and Web-enabled devices increases, so too does the need for greater security of physical assets, networks, and valuable corporate data. As a result, there is now a growing dialogue between IT, cyber security, and physical security teams to help gain a greater knowledge of how to best collaborate. It is crystal clear that organizations must continue to communicate closely to assist in determining vulnerabilities in a more proactive manner. This process will allow businesses to investigate threats more intelligently. It will be the organizations that generate actionable intelligence from collected data points that will be firmly positioned to achieve their strategic intelligence and business objectives in the coming years.

Please share with us your visions of this industry and what it will look like for manufacturers, integrators, installers, central stations, and end-users in the near future.

Moving forward, it is all about convergence at an organizational level. The alignment of risk management, IT and security enables a comprehensive security strategy that takes into account cyber and physical security, and helps leaders proactively recognize threats.

Today’s leading global enterprises focus on preventing risk to ensure long-term business continuity. At Verint, we aim to help our customers achieve the same level of efficiency and knowledge. Actionable Intelligence is the core of what we do and we believe that the collaboration of various stakeholders, business functions, and strategies allows organizations to be more focused, effectively identify threats, develop trends, and quickly access relevant data to meet evolving business requirements.

The simple fact is that the term “security” no longer means simply protecting the perimeter of a building; it also involves securing corporate networks and sensitive data. Businesses as a whole are much more focused on cyber threats, a growing paradigm that challenges business and security leaders to stay one step ahead of crime and fraud trends.

Tell us about a newer technology that you think is going to significantly alter the industry landscape.

With the increasingly digital nature of business today, especially in the banking and retail sectors, comes opportunities for greater customer engagement and greater risk of fraud and loss. Increasingly sophisticated criminal techniques require financial organizations to pursue new approaches to detect and prevent such occurrences. To help our customers, Verint is dedicated to delivering solutions with unique intelligence and fraud methodologies that empower users to identify threats and perform comprehensive investigations. This includes continued investment into our analytics suite.

I also think there is great opportunity for users to gain benefit from cloud-based solutions as higher upstream bandwidth continues to expand, and cost of cloud computing and storage continues to come down. This will impact our customers in that they will be able to choose whatever architecture best suits their needs, whether it be a fully on-premise solution, fully cloud enabled solution, or a hybrid architecture.

What vertical market do you think is going to witness the biggest impact of industry advancements and why?

The banking market continues to evolve through the growing use of digital and mobile devices, with more and more branch operations aiming to enhance convenience and service for their customers. These advancements also, however, create greater risk of loss. Verint is focused on developing technologies and services that help our customers address these challenges head on by incorporating unique intelligence and fraud methodologies with the power to identify threats and perform comprehensive investigations. We also believe that one of the most critical aspects of customer service is ensuring that interactions are conducted safely, in compliance with government regulations and industry best practices. Our solutions are designed to help banks, financial services providers, retailers, and other organizations incorporate compliance, fraud mitigation, and investigation as central components in their business operations.

What are your thoughts about technologies that may be intersecting with more individual/personal applications (i.e.: biometrics, cloud, IoT, wearables, etc.)?

With the further evolution of the cloud, organizations will be able to gain access to solutions that are easier to install and configure as well as easier to manage, support, and use, resulting in a lower overall total cost of ownership and an improved customer experience. By improving the usability of the overall solution, our customers are able to spend more time collaborating and solving issues that are truly meaningful to their organizations.