Sage Conversations: Integrators Face a New Business Model
I was asked to write about my conversations with attendees of ASIS 2012 (See: www.securityinfowatch.com/ 10778214). My comments focused on:
- The emergence of the cloud and the readiness of the channel
- The burden of the legacy of old industry business models on current behaviors
- Network intelligence and network operations and the impact on solutions
- The market demand for analytics and the inability of the market to respond
- The lack of capitalization and investment by the channel in their future
The conversations I had were not limited to security professionals. There were a number of discussions with business consultants and investment companies. They were looking for an opportunity. And the five areas above appeared to be a gap waiting to be filled.
Research firm Frost and Sullivan and their analyst, Krzysztof Rutkowski, commented in July of this year:
"The majority of security integrators are focused on solutions they are used to and their unwillingness to learn information technology and implement software products is restraining the PSIM market," explains Rutkowski. "This is a major challenge because awareness of customers may not be improved by the systems integrators." (http://www.defense.frost.com)
Frost and Sullivan believes that PSIM (Physical Security Information Management) is a potential $3 billion market during the next 10 years. But PSIM cannot get traction because of the unwillingness of integrators to learn information technology. As one consultant said: "Are they really trying to make it easy for non-traditional companies to enter our space?"
The term PSIM is also a good example of market demand vs. an inefficient market mechanism to deliver on that demand. It is a niche market. Its acronym alone speaks to that. If you attended the Physical Security Interoperability Alliance (PSIA) group meeting you would have seen its focus on device interoperability (a worthy goal) rather than the organization, management and utilization of information to align with and interoperate with the business.
The opportunity is there for integrators and their partners. Where will we find the new model? Who will show up to grasp the opportunity? Send me an email to [email protected] and let's have a Great Conversation.
