Hikvision’s acquisition of Pyronix was a move to help it become a total solution provider. Now the companies are working together to create better solutions for their customers.
Hikvision’s acquisition of
Pyronix was a move to help it become a total solution provider. Now the companies are working together to create better solutions for their customers.
The security industry is consolidating, and prominent mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are taking place more and more frequently. For companies like
Hikvision Digital Technology, the world’s largest video surveillance manufacturer, M&A is one way of expanding its portfolio and becoming a more complete total-solution provider.
Pyronix joins Hikvision for intrusion alarm
In 2016 Hikvision acquired Pyronix, a UK-based intrusion alarm company. Hikvision wanted expertise in alarm but particularly in the European market for EN certification, a certification more relevant to Europe and the EU, according to Laurence Kenny, Marketing Manager at Pyronix.
Since the acquisition, Pyronix has been developing products using its own R&D in the U.K., as well as integrating with Hikvision’s R&D in China. As a result, Pyronix has released a number of new products that address more market segments than it had been traditionally supplying.
“I think the acquisition has been a successful one in terms of generating that synergy and bringing integration across video surveillance and intrusion,” Kenny said. “Now our products are integrated on a smartphone app/platforms, but also through Hikvision’s commercial platforms. That’s really where we see the integration of products on the software side, the end-user client platform.”
Pyronix is mostly focused on the residential market; however, as part of Hikvision, it has increased its commercial portfolio of products. “When you are able to offer the entire solution, that delivers some real value to the end user, be that a homeowner or a large business,” Kenny added.
Hikvision looks to more integration
Gary Harmer, Sales Director at Hikvision UK & Ireland said the company recognizes that the industry is full of expert companies that are well established with proven technology. This is why it has an integration program and a partner program — to welcome people to work with Hikvision and make its products part of an overall solution.
In 2018, Hikvision released its new web-based technology partner program portal. The portal is designed to “enhance the collaboration with technology partners and systems integrators, enable development of new and innovative solutions for customers across all markets, and further drive market growth,” according to a press release.
“For us, it is about enabling the best of what is available in the market to an end user. If that means we integrate with someone else then we are happy to do that,” Harmer said. “We want to work with technology partners on integration.”
Cloud and privacy redaction
Last year Hikvision introduced privacy redaction module, which can be used on legacy systems, not just Hikvision.
“Within Hikvision Central, which is our own VMS platform, we've now got a module which gives you privacy redaction, redaction live. We have the ability to redact everybody's faces or the full body live,” Harmer explained.
Such a product will be of particular use in places like the U.K. that are heavily populated with video surveillance, as well as in other European countries that now must follow GDPR regulations regarding data privacy.
The module will allow an operator to take video from their existing system redact all of the faces or just some of the faces and then export the video clip with the redaction on, which could be from non-Hikvision cameras or recorders.
On the cloud side of things, Pyronix highlighted its cloud solution, which is hosted on Amazon Web Services. The company is working on educating integrators and installers about the up-sell opportunity presented by recurring-monthly-revenue (RMR) models that cloud solutions offers.
“We have thousands of panels connecting each month to Pyronix cloud and we see a significant number of those re-subscribing for the next year and creating that recurring revenue model that ties customers into a value added service,” Kenny said. “For us, it’s about elevating the intruder alarm from what it was traditional to something that actually makes a difference to the end user's life.”
Pyronix has a cloud-to-cloud connection with Hikvision’s cloud, that allows them to utilize the cameras and Hikvision to utilize the intruder alarm. “That’s where we get the synergy through the cloud platform,” Kenny added.