The US-based security company Verkada plans to interoperability with more systems to meet customer demand.
The cloud-based security solutions provider Verkada, known for its proprietary systems, plans to open its platform for more integration to meet customer demand as it expands to more countries.
Speaking to asmag.com recently, Filip Kaliszan, CEO of Verkada, explained that the company aims to help organizations better protect their people and assets by delivering a centralized security platform that is easy to use, effortless to maintain, and scales limitlessly across all locations. The modern customer demands a solution that is both great on its own but also interoperable with other systems.
"When we build our product lines, we always look for the most effective way to bring the best experience to the customer," Kaliszan explained. "For video security, we created an end-to-end solution that combined hardware and software to deliver a seamless customer experience. For Access Control, we built a plug–and–play solution to managing doors and access, which is interoperable with our customer's existing door hardware and badge readers.
"In parallel to launching our products, we also built APIs which enable seamless integration with core business systems such as Okta and Active Directory. As we grow our product line, we will continue creating integrations and making our platform interoperable with other systems."
Verkada has opened offices in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada and expects significant demand and growth opportunities in these markets.
Steps to overcome security and privacy concerns
Verkada had come under the scanner last year when reports suggested that hackers accessed 150,000 of its cameras in prominent places like Tesla factories and warehouses, Cloudflare offices, Equinox gyms, hospitals, jails, schools, and police stations. Later reviews, one from Verkada itself, said only 4,530 cameras were hacked. But as the full scale of the issue became apparent, reports of Verkada employees getting unprecedented access to customer camera feeds raised privacy concerns worldwide.
Asked about how these incidents might impact customer attitude towards Verkada outside the US, Kaliszan explained that the company has taken several robust steps to ensure cybersecurity and privacy.
"Security is at the core of what we do and is always top-of-mind at Verkada," Kaliszan said. "For example, one of our goals is to give administrators and users more visibility and control over their accounts. Our Command platform includes powerful tools for user management, including integration with identity management systems like Active Directory and Okta, which are based on SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) and SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management). This allows admins to manage users and permissions across their enterprise.
"We have also built out a range of auditing, reporting, and alerting features so that admins can understand and monitor the usage of their systems. With security and privacy in mind, Verkada has also invested in our own infrastructure and capabilities and has engaged with outside experts to review our security posture."
The company also subjects its platform to penetration testing from 3rd parties and welcomes input from independent researchers as part of Bugcrowd's bug bounty program.
Demand and potential for its business model
Verkada has seen strong and growing demand from mid-to-large-sized enterprises who have security needs at multiple locations and want an easy-to-use solution built for remote management.
"At Verkada, we design our products to solve physical security needs at scale, and we design our solutions to be easy to transition into - meaning, our product offerings can complement the existing solutions that businesses already have, and you can manage Verkada products the same way you manage the rest of your other enterprise software and devices," Kaliszan said.
"We have found great success retaining new customers who pick one location where they install one of our products and gain first-hand experience with the simplicity of Verkada. These pilot programs with new customers often result in a plan to roll out and replace or augment their existing system."
Challenges when expanding beyond the US
As the company explores more markets outside the US, it has to address several challenges. For instance, finding the right talent may not be easy everywhere. Acknowledging that talent is essential to the business, Kaliszan pointed out that attracting the top candidates would always be a challenge.
"As we are growing at a rapid pace, there is no doubt that we face a major challenge in continuing to attract the top-level talent we need to continue to grow," Kaliszan said. "We have and will continue to overcome this challenge by offering a stellar workplace experience, as well as expanding our footprint into different cities where we can tap strong local talent who can provide the best customer service and support."
In 2021, Verkada doubled the size of our employee base and expanded our footprint across the US with offices in San Mateo, Austin, Salt Lake City, and across the globe with offices in London and Sydney.
Growing to a global security company
Verkada's expansion to more markets would offer stiff competition to major dominant players. This could get even more interesting if the company expands to more emerging economies as well forcing innovation in an otherwise slow industry.
Customers would also keep a close watch on the company's cybersecurity and privacy measures, especially at a time when these issues have factored even into international trade wars. With more integration and products, we may see some interesting developments in the security market in 2022.