On 20 November 2018, Genetec inaugurated a new, expanded office location in Singapore. The new office features an experience center as well as training and meeting facilities for distributors, integrators and customers. The event was attended by ecosystem partners hailing from all corners of the region like from Austr
On 20 November 2018, Genetec inaugurated a new, expanded office location in Singapore.
The new office features an experience center as well as training and meeting facilities for distributors, integrators and customers. The event was attended by ecosystem partners hailing from all corners of the region like from Australia and India, along with Genetec's senior management team who spoke to a&s about the company's overall growth strategy, especially for APAC.
The event opened with a welcome speech by Pierre Racz, President and CEO of Genetec. In his speech, he spoke about the company's growth in the region and the important role APAC plays in its overall success. Racz also emphasized Genetec's commitment to make the world better and to the “Security of Security.” At the same time, the company is investing in privacy protection and making its solutions cybersecure, as “keeping people secure doesn't mean we need to intrude on their privacy,” he said.
According to Guy Chenard, Chief Commercial Officer at Genetec, APAC is the highest growth region for the company, showing a growth of 65 percent in 2018. “It is an important strategic region for us and our two largest markets in APAC are currently in Australia and India. Our growing local presence allows us to better tackle the challenge of driving both the adoption of technology and adaptation of technology to the local market,” said Chenard.
With global sales averaging 30 percent each year (essentially doubling every three years), Genetec has taken steps to ensure it can manage issues that might accompany this rapid growth. “We are now on a path to modernize our business systems, investing in innovation and making sure that the spirit of the company is not lost due to growth. The company underwent a big change: moving from video security to access control to ALPR (Automatic License Plate Recognition) and now focusing on operational efficiency and intelligence. We need to make sure that the Genetec spirit is not lost along the way,” said Chenard.
Genetec's move toward creating an intelligence and operations platform raises the question about how Genetec differs from incumbent PSIM systems in the market. Andrew Elvish, VP of Marketing at Genetec, points to a difference in the design philosophy in the systems. “Whereas PSIM is an integration layer on top of the existing surveillance, ALPR and other systems, Genetec Security Center is designed to integrate all the sensors and information flow from the bottom up. Hence, the link between different subsystems is already there and there is no need for a long, costly integration process. As Genetec is already integrated with thousands of systems, this creates a more robust solution that works organically,” said Elvish.
This point of view was echoed by Daniel Lee, MD for APAC at Genetec. “System integrators (SI) today don't want to just integrate, they want to understand what the client needs and deliver value to their client. That is why our unification of video, ACS, ALPR and etc. helps the SIs and takes their concerns away. They know that everything works together so they can focus on customization and services,” said Lee.
“In the past, people were video-centric, information was siloed, and systems were complex. The current flow of innovation from Genetec emphasizes unification — unifying video, ACS and ALPR. Five siloes of data are impossible to correlate, but a unified system like Genetec allows users to manage everything on one screen. This in turn allows actionable intelligence and operational efficiency,” added Lee.
APAC growth prospects and strategy
"As of today, Genetec is winning in and will continue to win in APAC,” said Lee. “Our business is diverse and I do see Asia as the future. We have more than half of the world's population here and we are the most connected population in the world. It is still a challenging region, there are developed, developing and underdeveloped countries.”
According to Lee, the company is looking to further strengthen its presence in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. “Our corporate goal is to double our revenue every three years and APAC is crucial for that. In three years' time, we will be decentralized to five different regions in APAC with each office given more independence and autonomy, while Singapore will remain a hub of excellence,” shared Lee. “The reasoning behind this is APAC is culturally diverse and language-wise, it is the biggest region in the world. We must continue to invest in the region and localize our strategy. One size doesn't fit all in APAC, we need to give the local regions more autonomy in making good decisions if we want them to be successful.”