Sensing the phenomenon of price competition and merely selling devices is not enough to survive in the industry; security players have developed various strategies in order to find more opportunity in the harsh market. We see players have started moving towards systems and solutions, expanding their market, developing their own brands, or strengthening relations with their partners.
Sensing the phenomenon of price competition and merely selling devices is not enough to survive in the industry; security players have developed various strategies in order to find more opportunity in the harsh market. We see players have started moving towards systems and solutions, expanding their market, developing their own brands, or strengthening relations with their partners.
Bob Mesnik, President, Kintronics (U.S.): "Kintronics has recognized that we can’t just sell cameras. We must continue to diversify and add other IP products to create new and more effective security systems. Today the challenge is to provide integrated IP systems that include not only cameras, but also IP door access control systems, emergency sound systems, IP intercom systems, and mobile (meaning smart device) access to all aspects of the integrated IP security system."
Alberto Bernabe, CEO, CCTV Center (Spain): "With more than 20 years of experience, we work basically in Spain and Portugal, but also exporting to other countries through on-site clients. As a result, the single factor that has influenced our work the most in the last few years has obviously been the economic crisis. Of course, technological innovations have also been important, mainly in the IP sector, but they’ve not been as relevant as in other European countries. Lack of liquidity in the market along with the freezing of investment, both in the public and private sector, have determined our business strategy. During the last few years we have on one hand, strengthened value added solutions, and on the other hand, we’ve begun to work with low cost products. With this dual strategy, we’ve managed to keep our sales in projects, maintaining our engineering department (nine IT and software engineers) as well as supporting our day-to-day sales through low-cost products with zero added value."
Rustu Arseven, GM, Tesan Iletism (Turkey): "Even though Tesan’s long years of experience provides us the convenience of easy deployment in this market, we had trouble with selling the first batch of IP-based products, and had been forced to prioritize analog systems due to lack of demand. We can gladly say that, improvements in infrastructural investments, decrease in IP camera prices, developments in ease of installation have led to higher penetration, even with the consumer market. Tesan has not missed, and will not miss the opportunity to take its place right in the middle of these developments, using the know-how and experience."
Victor A Yugai, CEO, VideoSCAN (Russia): "The main part of our business is video surveillance distribution. To succeed, it’s important to provide our partners a convenient, efficient, and good-quality long-term based solution. In this case, we don’t have any internal limitation where it should be made – only in Korea or Taiwan, or never from China. Of course, we are often faced with the competitive offerings based on products produced or branded in China, but initially we focus on the strengths of our own solutions, regardless of the origin or place of production."
Nitin Wadhwa, Head of Sales and Marketing, Securex Agencies (Africa): "Eight years back, security in Kenya was still heavily oriented by physical manpower. But with the introduction of IP technology, remote surveillance has become a reality and this has allowed for a reduction in physical presence at a given site. This approach has enabled us to provide solutions to our clients that are more cost effective in the long term and are less prone to manipulation and errors. We continue to make more significant investments in IP technology and foresee even better returns as more clients embrace the technology. Security is a top priority for the government and a huge amount of resources have been allocated for security devices, which means the country can expect an influx of security screening equipment in addition to surveillance equipment."
Rok Bajec, GM, Mobicom (Slovenia): "In a changed world economic environment, when even government businesses are going down, there is less and less room for “big” brands. Mobicom was aware of this in 2008, when we introduced our own brands for video surveillance systems and that was the best decision ever. Our suppliers are companies that have the best price and performance. It doesn’t matter whether they are Chinese, Koreans, Taiwanese, Europeans or from the U.S., we have a responsibility and commitment to our dealers and partners. We have to pick up the best and this is our job. No emotions, just business."
Aleksandrs Orlovs, Distribution Director, ELKO Group (Latvia): "ELKO Group is constantly investing in security business development, expanding product portfolio, adding more services to our partners, hiring additional technical and sales people. Training, seminars, demonstration of solutions for specific market verticals are some of the key activities handled by distributors. Over the past 8 years, market conditions and requirements have changed a lot, and as a result ELKO’s distribution model changed from broad line distribution to value-added service distribution. One of our competitive edges over other market players is our experience in IT distribution. ELKO has got used to market dynamics and price competition. We feel confident in these conditions."