Overall, Asia had a positive year in 2017, and growth is expected to continue this year. However, commoditization remains a challenge across the region, causing a decline in prices and affecting security players’ healthy growth. Providing value-added solutions that address users’ different needs therefore becomes criti
Overall, Asia had a positive year in 2017, and growth is expected to continue this year. However, commoditization remains a challenge across the region, causing a decline in prices and affecting security players' healthy growth. Providing value-added solutions that address users' different needs therefore becomes critical for security companies to win out.
That's the observation raised by Ivan Tan, Deputy Director for Sales and Marketing at Singapore-based distributor D-RON.
According to Tan, things mostly went positively in Asia last year due to increased government projects, which then trigger private investment. Technology drivers also contributed to this growth, he noted. “The main growth drivers comes from the government which takes a very pro-active lead in ramping up requirements, which in turn provide a ‘reference' for private entity to follow,” he said. “This year, as per observation, the customers are starting to understand the realistic value of video analysis and also structured video data analysis. Due to this, the realistic world requirement on these technologies are evolving which includes facial recognition in both critical and data collection scenarios which translate to our government smart nation initiatives.”
While the year overall went favorably for Asian security players, that's not to say there weren't challenges, among them commoditization. But according to Tan, this also translates into opportunity. “As a distributor, we need to evolve and face the current impact on commoditization, although this is a sales crisis for box selling products (cameras) but it is also a turning point where products get more value added into it due to competition,” he said. “For us, solution and also education become a key method of engaging our customer.”
He added: “For example, customer A is in need for some cameras and surveillance system for a critical setup, and we approach the customer with two solutions, one value added with data collection mechanism like flow counter and also integrated access control system. The second solution will be cost effective but no bells and whistles. This way, the customer learns to value the two proposals and appreciate our efforts as well.”
For 2018, Tan views the Asian market with positive sentiment. “In 2018, commoditization will slow down as it is nearing zero, and value selling will pick up from second to third quarter onwards. I am still very much positive on the market and if we notice, the market is slowly segmenting into two distinct zones, the low-end zone will be dominated by HD analog systems and the high-end zone will be dominated by full IP systems where value-added solution plays a big part.”
He also cited some of the technologies to watch for in the New Year, including facial analysis, video analytics, GPU-based video system, AI/deep learning and better HD analog systems with similar IP features.