Talking about how security companies can survive IT

Whether it is IMS, iSuppli, and other well-known research institutions announced the rapid growth of the IP network monitoring market analysis report, or Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, ZTE, H3C and other large companies have released their IP monitoring solutions and optimism of the IP surveillance market , Or well-known security media have published various articles on IP network monitoring, all show that IP network monitoring has become the mainstream trend of the security market and hot topics. With access control systems, alarm systems and other products are also developing toward the direction of IP networking, intensified the speed of IT security industry, IT is the general trend of the security industry. In addition, in addition to the networking of technologies and products to promote the development of security to IT, telecom operators, IT vendors, and IT system integrators have been involved in the security market and have also promoted the IT development of security.

As we all know, video surveillance has undergone two revolutions. The first revolution is the transition from analog surveillance to analog + digital surveillance. This change has promoted the development of the security industry. The applications are in a few industries, including government agencies, judicial agencies, and banks. The rapid development of education, enterprises, buildings, communities and many other civil industries has also enabled Hikvision to rely on hard disk video recorders to quickly become a leader in the security industry. The semi-analog semi-digitalization model, which is mainly based on hard disk video recorders, is developing into a fully digital and networked model based on IP network cameras, which is the second major change in video surveillance technology. From the development history of IT, home appliances and other industries, to the development of video surveillance itself, every technological innovation, or major advancement, will bring about tremendous changes in the industry. It will reorganize the industrial landscape, and the replacement of old and new is a historical trend that has been changing forever. Therefore, both security companies and security professionals must seriously analyze and attach great importance to this ferocious industry reform. This article analyzes the opportunities, challenges and countermeasures that IP surveillance and IP security will bring to security companies, and tries to provide some suggestions for traditional security companies.

The living space is compressed, and more attention should be paid to price and practicality. At present, analog cameras and DVRs are mature products, and the gross profit margin has been getting lower and lower, but due to the large shipments, the total profit is still good. Because IP network monitoring has the advantage that the traditional monitoring mode cannot match, many application sites that originally used hard disk recorders, especially large-scale monitoring systems, will be quickly replaced by network cameras, resulting in the compression of the living space of DVRs and analog cameras. Although the trend of network monitoring to replace traditional monitoring is irreversible, analog cameras and hard disk recorders will not be completely replaced in the longer term. First, because many engineering companies are very familiar with this monitoring model, subjectively like to use hard disk recorders. In addition, this model is also very familiar to the user, does not require additional user education, people are always more confident in familiar things; the second is In some small monitoring sites that do not need to be networked or have poor network conditions, such as residential monitoring and rural markets, the use of hard disk recorders is more economical and reliable. For such market changes, analog cameras and hard disk recorder manufacturers can make a fuss about the price and practicality, develop lower prices, use simpler products to compete with network cameras. In addition, from the regional market, because many countries or remote areas do not have a good network infrastructure, hard disk recorders and analog camera manufacturers can also make up for this market, to make up for the market share seized by the network cameras.

With the increase of technical thresholds, traditional security engineering companies need to have the knowledge of IT to convert to network monitoring. The technical aspects involved are more extensive, and integrators need to know more about equipment and computer network knowledge. The original use of hard disk recorders, only need to ask an electrician 繺-line, after installing the camera, and the hard disk recorder connected to the system will be able to work. But using network monitoring, in addition to camera installation and cabling, engineers need to set up the network, such as IP addresses, ports, network protocols, but also to understand the network planning, selection of switches and routers, network bandwidth calculations, etc. Must have a lot of computer and network knowledge. If you do not study or recruit new IT personnel, many traditional security engineers will not be able to establish a video surveillance system. Since the price of equipment will be more transparent and the market will be more standardized after IP, the traditional method of obtaining high profits will be difficult to achieve by arbitrarily quoting users who do not understand the security market.

In addition, after monitoring IP, a large number of IT system integrators can easily enter the traditional security engineering market, and they are much stronger than most security engineering companies in terms of technology and overall strength. More advantages, these will aggravate the survival crisis of traditional security engineering companies.

Product standardization, professional division of labor, and vendor concentration, the market is closed to the opening of the current security market is a relatively closed market composed of many small and medium-sized enterprises, the industry is very decentralized, and the advent of network monitoring era will change the current market structure.

After IP, all devices are interconnected through standard Internet protocols. Only when they are open to each other, can they be connected. In addition, large companies such as Sony and Axis are developing technical specifications for network interfaces, and telecom operators and local agencies are also The development of technical standards will accelerate the standardization of network monitoring products. For example, network cameras, regardless of the product, interface protocols are the same, and can be compatible with each other, even to the final function is no difference. Once there is no unique advantage in products and technology, and they can replace each other, the final competition is price, brand and service capabilities. Such a market is more advantageous to large, well-funded manufacturers. They can reduce costs through large-scale production, and then clean up the market through price wars. The strong stronger and the weaker the weaker.

In addition, there will be more and more network monitoring projects across the country, across regions, and monitoring sites. To manage such a huge system, the software development capability is very demanding, and it is difficult for general hardware manufacturers or weaker enterprises to manage. Competent, so you need a dedicated software company to develop. For example, Huawei, ZTE, Alcatel, mutual trust, etc., have developed management platforms for telecom operators, while network camera manufacturers like Shenzhen Yellow River Digital Technology Co., Ltd. have access to the management platform through technical specifications. The separation of hardware manufacturing and software development will make the division of labor in the industry more and more clear. At the same time, it will prompt the market to move from closed to open.

Because network monitoring systems often use centralized data storage, the amount of data is large and the security requirements are also higher. At the same time, large-scale systems require professional servers for management. These specialized servers and storage devices are like IBM, SUN, HP, and DELL. The IT giants have more advantages and the market is more easily taken away by them.

With hardware, software, and servers, these devices need to be deployed. This work needs to be done by system integrators. Therefore, the network monitoring industry chain will be composed of clear network cameras (hardware) manufacturers, management platform (software) developers, servers, storage device manufacturers and system integrators.

The standardization of products, the clear division of labor, and the openness of the market will make the industry more and more concentrated, and the market competition will become increasingly fierce. The comprehensive competitiveness of brands, talents, management capabilities, and financial strength will become successful. The key factor is that a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises have been washed out - and finally there are a few large companies that control the market. This is also the market laws that have been proven by mature industries such as home appliances and IT. Figure 1 shows the industrial chain in the network monitoring era.

IT equipment and appliance manufacturers rush to eat security cakes, the market competition is more fierce The security market in the past for the IT vendors, or home appliance manufacturers can be too narrow, plus the product is difficult to standardize, large-scale production, it is difficult to attract these giants to enter. However, after monitoring IP, the security capacity will increase, plus product standardization, market standardization, and higher gross profit margin, these factors will attract IT, appliance giants to enter. After fierce market competition, these manufacturers have rich management experience in marketing, quality, cost control, and R&D. Together with their strong capital and brand strength, they will certainly exert a strong impact on existing security companies. In the security industry, the current annual sales of leading enterprises are only a few billion. Relatively few IT companies and household appliance manufacturers with hundreds of billions of sales and hundreds of billions of sales are really underestimating.

Moreover, after these IT companies join in, they will in turn use their existing mode of operation to transform the security market, accelerate the IT trend of security products, and finally make the security market more fierce competition, lower profit margins, and SMEs to survive more difficult.

For the traditional security vendors, in the face of such competitive pressures, the available market strategies are: strong alliances, specialization, and “big money”. Traditional security companies can increase their overall strength through mergers and acquisitions and alliances to fight IT companies' competition. For enterprises that cannot be strong and united, they can take the specialization route and have unique competitiveness in the refined market. After all, the demand for customized projects in the security market will be more, and small companies can seek to deepen their practice in specific industries. , To understand the needs of customers in detail and accumulate rich application experience, and these experience companies rely on funds in the short term is difficult to obtain. If the first two roads don't work, they can also be "big money" and be directly acquired by other big companies.

The transformation of the security marketing model from single to diversified. From the perspective of sales channels, the current security industry is based on the sales model of manufacturers->engineers->users. The manufacturers build their own channels, covering mainly major cities, and small and medium-sized cities. Coverage is weak. In addition, due to mixed market sources, lack of brand guidance, and the limited ability of small and medium customers to identify the market, customers' trust in security products is low. The standardization and civilianization of network cameras will prompt the security industry to have channels such as Gome, Digital China and other product distributors. Some manufacturers in the country are trying or intend to establish security chain stores. The distribution system and logistics system covering the whole country will be established by specialized distributors so that the security products can better cover small and medium-sized cities and even rural areas, and provide customers with nearby services. In addition, after the monitoring of IP, there will be more monitoring products through the IT channel and IT stores to the user.

Changes in corporate human resources strategy The IT industry in the security industry also poses a challenge to the human resources of traditional enterprises. On the one hand, security personnel of enterprises are required to learn new computer network knowledge. In addition to employees learning and accumulating on their own, enterprises must provide training to employees. To help employees smoothly realize the upgrade of knowledge and skills. We all know that the knowledge of the IT industry is rapidly changing. Employees and companies must strengthen their learning and training to avoid falling behind. On the other hand, from the point of view of talent pools, companies should appropriately introduce graduates of computer-related majors, especially technical personnel. Since the security industry has a short history of development and the industry is relatively small, the senior talents have been relatively lacking. Security companies can use the security industry to communicate with IT, communications and other industries, recruit senior talent from these companies, and adopt mature industries. The operating model to transform the security industry has yet to regulate the mode of operation. In addition, as more IT companies enter the security industry, they also need experienced security personnel, then the traditional security companies will also be threatened by IT companies, security companies should plan ahead, do preventive measures.

IP Monitoring Opportunity IP monitoring will bring many new application modes and service growth points. Video surveillance will surpass the scope of traditional security services and become a tool for enterprises to increase production efficiency. It will promote the development of civil security market and bring more business opportunities. . Here are a few examples to look forward to the bright future of IP monitoring.

IP brings a large-scale civil security market The future growth of the professional security market will gradually slow down, and civil security such as SMEs, homes, and shops that are still in their infancy will become the next hot spot in the security market. Civil security is widely used in developed countries in Europe and America, but it is almost empty in the country. With the increase in wealth, as well as burglary, theft, and other cases, these will all promote the needs of the civil security market. The use of network cameras allows users to Offices, business trips and remote monitoring via computer or mobile phone, such as seeing whether the elderly and children are safe, nanny work is not competent, whether theft at home, etc., which greatly increases the value of video surveillance applications, increase user interest. In addition, it will also create a networked alarm service that differs from the traditional telephone line-based network video network alarm service. The use of an online video alarm service will result in low cost and high reliability.

Online video makes communication easier Video as a more intuitive and rich way of expressing information makes YouTube, Youku and other video websites popular, but the videos of these websites are recorded historical images with poor real-time performance. The use of webcams for live broadcasts will certainly be more attractive to netizens. Maybe there will soon be a more popular video site than YouTube, but this site is not a historical video but a live broadcast. Through this website, anyone can Real-time show to netizens around the world. There are also many other online video applications, such as fast food restaurants to allow customers to rest assured that the sale of fast food, you can install a network camera in the kitchen, office white-collar workers in order to take a look at the website of the fast food restaurant whether the health; do Foreign trade factories can allow foreign customers to visit remotely through online video. There are many examples.

The monitoring of IP and security IT has challenges and opportunities for traditional security companies. Security companies can adapt to the trend, recognize the situation, seize the opportunity, and be brave enough to face changes, so that they can survive and develop better! The transition from analog surveillance to digital surveillance has brought security giants such as Hikvision and Dahua, and the development of the Internet has made it possible for Google to surpass Microsoft. Similarly, the development of video surveillance to IP will certainly be able to create more than ever before. Security star! (Author: Shenzhen Huanghe Digital Technology Co., Ltd.)