Genetec looks ahead to 2019

Daniel Lee, MD for the Asia Pacific region at Genetec, speaks to a&s about the company’s achievements over the past year as well as security trends that will shape APAC in 2019.

a&s: What were some key accomplishments for Genetec in the past year?

Lee: As my first-year anniversary as Managing Director for the Asia Pacific Region at Genetec is approaching, I am delighted to take this opportunity to stop and reflect on what Genetec has accomplished in 2018.

2018 has been important for Genetec in this region, as we have seen tremendous growth and market development, particularly in India, Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), Thailand, and Singapore.

We have added distributors in Japan, Indonesia, India, and Thailand, and grew our team. Investing heavily in local resources and welcoming new headcount to support these growing markets including; Hong Kong, India, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and ANZ operations with the addition of Systems engineers (SE), Regional Sales managers (RSM), Business Development Manager (BDM) and Channel Sales Specialists (CSS).

The Singapore government is currently spending SGD $300 million on manpower-based guarded security. In 2019, we are excited to see the government shifting its focus to incorporate a modernized IP security strategy with the objective of realizing operational efficiency. This updated approach to how both public and private security is managed aligns perfectly with Genetec unified, open-architecture security platforms. We are excited to participate and contribute to this evolution.

As one of the top three video management (VMS) companies, and one of the top five access control companies, in the world, Genetec is focused on recruiting high performance, high energy and incredibly talented people in APAC. It is our goal to assure our Channel and Technology partners get to interface with the most educated and experienced security professionals in APAC.

Finally, with the goal of creating the right environment that nurtures our regional leaders, we are excited to have relocated our Singapore office. This expanded space now houses an experience center that showcases the full catalog of Genetec unified
security solutions — featuring many of our strategic technology partners’ hardware and software integrations. Also, with a new training center and client meeting spaces, we are poised to bring world-class security innovations to the APAC region in 2019, and beyond.

a&s: What are some major trends that will impact the APAC security industry in 2019?

Lee: Looking ahead to 2019, we can clearly see the continuation of several important trends as well as some new ones that will have an important role to play in the security sector in APAC and beyond.

Continued focus on cybersecurity

The first trend we see is a continued focus on cybersecurity. There continues to be a growing number of high-profile breaches in our industry. Along with governmental regulations designed to strengthen security, privacy, and mitigate the damage caused by these increasing cyberattacks, we have to be more vigilant than ever. Cybercrime and criminal cyber activity are not only costly, but they can cause tremendous damage to an organization’s reputation. Just last month, Facebook lost another 50 million users when their data was breached. While the financial cost may not represent a lot in terms of Facebook’s bottom line, the loss of trust and damage to their brand is significant. Recent security breaches in SingHealth, a health care group in Singapore, suffered a massive data breach that allowed hackers to obtain personal information from 1.5 million patients who visited SingHealth clinics between May 2015 and July 2018. This was a severe breach of privacy for the citizens of Singapore who were affected.

Another important part of concerns around cybersecurity is the increasing awareness of untrustworthy devices. It has become clear that this lack of trust is not a function of engineering, but more often malicious intent that can come from any number of sources. For our part, we have developed countermeasures that can help isolate untrustworthy devices on the network. Our systems are customized to keep these untrustworthy devices from sending sensitive or private information to unauthorized recipients. It also protects other systems, including command and control systems, from being accessed.

All of us have a responsibility to protect our security platforms and networks, and all the systems they connect to through vigilance and transparency. As technology providers, we must ensure that we are not only good data stewards, but also upstanding global citizens.

Greater attention to risk assessment

Just last month, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report stating that some of the Pentagon’s new weapons were vulnerable to attack. According to the report, researchers were able to take control of systems and operate them undetected, using simple tools and techniques. Despite the fact that some believed their networks were secure, the GAO found that, in many cases, it took mere seconds to guess device passwords and gain access to sensitive systems.

When governments have concerns about potential risks to their systems, this naturally becomes an indication to other
organizations that they too should take a closer look at their vulnerabilities. As a result, we are now seeing large organizations
balancing out their risk assessment by leveraging cyber-litigation insurance. And this is surely to increase throughout 2019.

Increased unification that leads to better understanding

In terms of the technology itself, we are sure to see even more unification of systems in 2019. Organizations are already experiencing the benefits of unifying access control systems with video surveillance, and this will only grow.

What will also increase is the ability to employ analytics tools to leverage the vast amounts of data that physical security systems and other devices are already collecting. When organizations are able to understand and leverage their data, they can use it to improve any number of business functions, including efficiency, operations, customer service and revenue generation.

The challenges here will arise around sharing information between stakeholders, particularly in terms of maintaining individual privacy and control over sensitive data. But we will see solutions that will allow for disparate organizations to collaborate effectively to achieve even greater understanding.

More organizations adopting hybrid-cloud storage

We are seeing an increasing number of organizations moving their storage to hybrid-cloud solutions. This allows them to divide their data between cloud and on-premises options. There are tremendous benefits here as people can take advantage of the greater flexibility and cost-savings associated with cloud solutions — often for long term archival — while maintaining the all-important feeling of control of their data.

Continued acquisition of global players

In recent years, we have seen several companies consolidate as major players acquire other organizations. While the bringing together of technology has the potential to yield compelling advancements, it can also slow test cycles for these businesses. As an independent company for more than 21 years, Genetec has been able to grow organically at a pace where we reinvest heavily in our R&D. This has allowed us to innovate organically and remain a leader in the industry.

2019 will bring many opportunities for Genetec to help its end users and partners put an enterprise-grade security platform in place, with an open-architecture, scalable and extensible solution.