Latest advancements in technology have forced many traditional security companies to enter the realm of IoT and smart home segments.
Latest advancements in technology have forced many traditional security companies to enter the realm of IoT and smart home segments. a&s talked to a few companies that have made this transition to understand what it takes to succeed, and what challenges they encounter in the new market.
Challenges in transition
Despite the obvious advantages that concepts like IoT and smart home bring to security, there are several challenges that manufacturers have to overcome when it comes to reaching customers. Ly named mindset change, cost and the variety of choices as the top ones among them.
“Customers do their research and are knowledgeable about their choices,” David Ly, CEO of
Iveda said. “Companies now need to be willing to adapt their business model and sales methodology to the new expectations of the changing market. Iveda was never a ‘traditional security provider.’ Our solutions have always been cloud-based, thus transition for us to more IoT devices was a natural progression.”
According to Thomas Schulz, Director of Marketing and Communications at
ASSA ABLOY EMEA, the key to success is developing the right products, obviously, and for that companies have to listen to customer demand. But information must also flow the other way. This is a new market, and customers — both end users and the domestic service providers who increasingly provide integrated smart-home solutions — need educating on what’s available, what’s possible, the strengths and weaknesses of various products and functions, and so on. As part of that information-sharing process, ASSA ABLOY has researched and released regular market reports.
“For example, our ‘Smart Home Security Report 2016’ was based on a large survey looking at consumer hopes and concerns for new smart technologies,” Schulz said. “How could a digital door lock provide homeowners with peace of mind, in ways that mechanical locks can’t? What worries potential buyers about the installation and operation of a smart door lock? How do they feel about opening their front door with a fob, PIN or smartphone, instead of a mechanical key? And what lessons can be learned from examining the already mature commercial sector, in which ASSA ABLOY is an established market leader? Our residential channel partners — domestic energy suppliers, security specialists, telecoms providers — have been able to benefit from our research and this knowledge. We believe this is a business we can grow together with them; partnership is critical to overcoming challenges in this market.” What makes Your Solutions Special? Moving from traditional security to sophisticated IoT-enabled devices, the companies that we interviewed all had certain specific differentiators that they believed could help them stand out in the market. “Our product range, for starters,” Schulz said. “ASSA ABLOY already has the largest portfolio of smart door locks on the market, many sold globally under our Yale brand. Yale is a name that homeowners associate with trust. It has been a cornerstone of residential security for decades, and yet at the same time is at the forefront of IoT-based innovations in home security. Further, our smart-home locking solutions are built using open standards, so they integrate easily with many leading smart-home systems worldwide.”
ASSA ABLOY has come up with different integrated solutions in different countries. “These sorts of integrations are exactly what customers want to make the shift from traditional ‘silent’ domestic door locks to smart ones — and we will be pursuing more channel partnerships with service providers through 2017 and beyond.”
Iveda’s Ly pointed out that IoT/Smart home solutions give customers more sense of control over their environment. They can perform more tasks remotely and conveniently from their phones. IoT also gives them more choices in the types of devices and functions they can control around the home or business.
“We see our advantage as having the ability to learn from our telecom customers firsthand with what the market is asking,” Ly said. “Then we and our technology partners work to fulfill expectations.”
A move beyond security
For most traditional security companies, innovations in the IoT segment would come as welcome developments. This is because the security industry clearly stands to benefit from these developments.
As mentioned before, customers are the real driving force behind these developments. Their demands are fast-changing, which means that the solution providers have to keep themselves up-to-date with the latest in the market to survive. For instance, the technology is getting complex, but customers want simplicity in its operation. They want remote access, but this should not be at the cost of security. These are some examples of the nature of demand that is ahead of the manufacturers.
Other challenges such as convincing the customer and finding a niche strength also remain ahead of these manufacturers. If these difficulties are overcome, we will see the security industry moving ahead, taking full advantage of the technological advancements and market requirements.