INSIGHTS
On September 11, 2001, four suicide attacks carried out by terrorist group al-Qaeda claimed nearly 3,000 lives and billions of dollars in damage, leaving the world in utter shock in the months and years that followed. Aside from the economic and political ramifications, one significant impact of the attacks was how profoundly life was changed for much of the world’s population. Fear, and many other considerations, spurred massive investments in security. The security industry saw rapid growth, and overall awareness increased significantly among the general public. Today, 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, security has grown to be a multibillion-dollar, recession-resistant industry that is highly competitive and is redefining itself in many ways. Armed with funding from both the public and private sectors, the security industry was able to develop new and innovative technologies in the early 2000s. Although the 2008 recession significantly shrunk VC investments in R&D, innovation has not completely come to a halt. The advent of IP-based systems and its accelerating adoption have enabled some exciting new possibilities that deliver more for less to end users, and the movers and shakers of this industry, new and old alike, are now anticipating easier-to-use, smarter, single platforms that could manage and dictate security, building and many other systems simultaneously.
Ten Years Later: The Rise and Transformation of an Industry
Date: 2011/09/09
Source: a&s International
Integration
With the advent of IP-based security solutions, integration and interoperability have improved significantly. Integrating security systems with other subsystems in a building is starting to become easier now that the same protocol and common platform can be used, Sarangan said.
This has, in part, led to a major change in the way security is approached. Traditionally, building automation, HVAC and other systems were always integral in the original design of the building, and were factored into the whole design in very early stages. Security was almost always looked at afterwards, and was something that people did not consider until after the building was constructed, Sarangan said. “Now, people are beginning to give security the same priority as they give building automation systems. They are starting to realize that security systems should be a part of the initial design and should be connected to the building during construction.”
It will take a while before it happens everywhere, but that is one thing that has changed over the past few years and will continue to gain momentum, Sarangan added.
New Players
Players in building automation have been playing a bigger role in security for obvious reasons. It fits well into their business strategy in that integrating security into their systems provides more value for their customers. After the 9/11 attacks, a lot of end users were in very unique situations where they had to provide levels of security that they did not typically provide in their buildings or businesses, said Andre Greco, Director of Sales for Security and Fire in North America, Johnson Controls. “Customers wanted to increase security to the point where they knew that only authorized individuals were getting into certain areas or into the building in general. We saw a lot of increased needs for turnstiles in high-rise, multitenant environments. There was also more demand for formalized visitor management processes and more in-depth vetting of individuals that were coming into the building, especially in major metropolitan areas.”
There has also been increased demand for securing areas that are wide open and see a lot of public access. Previously, security systems were focused on battling petty crimes such as theft or vandalism, Olive said. “Now, with the new terrorism overlay, areas that typically would not have security need new solutions to meet these new requirements.”
Building automation tends to look at the building from a different perspective. “When convergence became a hot topic seven or eight years ago, we started to see that almost everything low-voltage, critical or noncritical, within a building would be run across the network. We knew that it was a situation where IP was quickly going to become very prevalently,” Greco said.
Changes
One effect of the convergence between IT and physical security is a change in mentality. For some companies, network cameras are procured through the physical security department, and yet it is becoming more common for the IT department to make these decisions, Moss said. “The two departments are not as far apart as they used to be. The people I would see 30 years ago in security were almost always from law enforcement, whereas today I see people in physical security that actually came from IT backgrounds.”
Integration companies more well-known in the IT world have contributed to the industry as well, helping installers and end users cope with IP-based video surveillance. “They let people know that it's OK to put video over your network and store video with HDD-based storage solutions, and that it's necessary to have redundancy for video applications. They've helped companies understand that video is here to stay and that it's just another type of data. As it becomes more and more IP-based, it's going to fall under the realm of the IT department, and companies such as Cisco and Anixter have helped the IT community from that standpoint,” Greco said.
Even though the security industry migrates more slowly than most other industries, there have been changes over 10 years; however, it is hard to determine whether those changes were caused or only influenced by 9/11, Moss said. “Most of the changes I've seen in the industry are related to changes in the general economy, so the rate of change in the industry might be a little higher than normal because of the influence of IT on physical security. The overall rate of change has not been particularly caused by 9/11.”