IFSEC International, the international security expo organization, has predicted 10 key security trends which will impact the video surveillance industry in coming years. Let’s review the top trends which are already making an impact on the industry.
Cost: Cost factor has always influenced the surveillance industry in the past and is also doing it presently. For this reason, the IP surveillance technology was finding it hard to take over the traditionally old analog surveillance till a few years ago. So, with a pressure from end users the industry vendors are coming up with solutions that lower capital costs. However in recent years, the cost factor is being driven by two main reasons. Firstly, the production of components and technologies that go into IP has increased and thus the freedom of reducing prices of these components driven equipment is being witnessed. Secondly, due to vast increase in competition among vendors a trend of decrease in prices is also being observed. So, this is opening up vast buying choices for customers where most of them are clinging to less reliable products that will do the job, due to a single reason that it is being offered at much lower price than the same state of art product which is available for a bigger price due to its features and longevity.
Simplicity: Of course in this customers driven world, products which are offered with easy to use interface (plug and play kind) fetch more attention than which are aren’t. Additionally, security market is always in a look out for new software driven platforms which are very simple to use and are also economical to certain extent. As a result, a move towards 100% of video solutions operating on a software platform is also being witnessed. So, there has been an increasing demand from end users for video surveillance systems which are either driven by a VMS solution or some kind of PC software.
Marketing Based On Verticals: Video Management System manufacturing vendors are nowadays using their marketing techniques in order to attract end users via vertical based industries. They are offering their solutions specifically designed for transport, construction and healthcare verticals along with an assurance that their solutions will fulfill all the application needs of these environments. So, as of now, the vendors are targeting end users based on various industry verticals which is yielding them good amounts of profits.
Integration Is Key: The demand for integration of systems will be ripe in coming years especially in medium/large sized projects. Mainly intruder, CCTV and Access control products with the ability to integrate among themselves will be on high demand. In addition to this trend, the demand for software developer kits offered by manufactures containing data instructions that their products send/receive will also have towering demand as they act as a dialect for communication among products. The key benefit offered by a software developer kit is that you can share information at database level which pragmatically allows autonomous data sharing and live updating of multiple systems. This concept is very much essential in integrating various security products with each other and is now being treated as a default influencing factor while carrying out an application analysis by most of the consultants.
Mobile Access: Demand to access and manage video surveillance systems via mobile is increasing day by day and so there is an increasing trend to develop such apps in the industry. In long run this trend is said to influence the industry to a large extent where demand for such compatible products will be on raise.
Compatibility Although last on this list, it doesn’t mean that it has lesser impact potential on the surveillance industry. One of the big trends is that industry is showing a lot of interest in equipment which has the ability to operate with a diversity of equipment and thus cutting back the cost of implementation to the owner and simultaneously allowing system scalability in future.