Insights from over 2,000 physical security leaders show changing role of security industry, accelerated move to the cloud and increasing investments in access control

Genete shared the results of its state of the industry report. Based on insights from over 2,000 physical security leaders from around the world, the report looks at how the role of physical security continued to evolve in 2021 as organizations adapted to changing conditions.

The changing role of physical security

Physical security continues to evolve from being seen as a tool for mitigating risk, to playing a much more significant role in organizations? digital transformation.

The survey showed that more than two-thirds (69%) of respondents described physical security and related data as ?mission-critical?. Larger organizations, in particular, are increasingly seeing value in the data gathered by their physical security systems with over 46% saying they use their security systems as a way to ?improve overall business efficiency, productivity, and asset optimization?.

Several survey respondents commented that they intended to invest in data management solutions to advance or improve the functionality of their physical security environment in the coming 12 months. The survey revealed that an increasing percentage of organizations (36%) are investing in unified solutions to enable the ease of maintenance, visibility, and data collection across all their systems to improve functionality and operations.

This compares to 31% in the 2020 survey. Over half of all respondents (51%) also said they had invested in video analytics to improve the functionality of existing deployments and digitally transform their business processes.

?Before the pandemic, physical security?s role in business intelligence and operations was already growing, but over the last two years, it has proven to be a strategic asset in coping with a variety of challenges,? said Pervez R. Siddiqui Vice President, Offerings and Transformation at Genetec Inc. Source: genetec.com