INTEGRATION ISSUES ON THE TABLE

Dec 1, 2005 12:00 PM

WHEN IT IS TIME to install a new security system, where do you begin the process? What are the roles of security dealers, security consultants and system integrators? How can employees best participate in projects? How can you choose products from the various equipment manufacturers? What should you expect in the way of training? When is it time to rip out an older system and start fresh?

Four members of SecurityNet, an organization of 17 independent system integrators from North America and of five international systems integrators, recently addressed these and related issues in a roundtable discussion for Access Control & Security Systems.

What is the biggest mistake that end-users make when dealing with a systems integrator?

Robert McMenimon, MAC Systems: One of the biggest mistakes is to incorrectly assume that everyone is bidding apples to apples and that each integrator will have the same approach to engineering, installation and service — when in fact that is not the case.

Bill Savage, Security Control Systems: Another mistake end-users make is not getting an integrator involved early enough in the process. Lots of times, an integrator gets involved only near the end of a project design. But if an experienced integrator is brought in early enough, he can help avoid problems down the line.

What can the end-user do to minimize variables during the buying and installing process, thereby eliminating unpleasant surprises when the system is complete?

McMenimon: The end-user should take the time to visit one of the integrator's previous work sites and compare how the system was designed and installed. Check to see how the programming was done. Was training performed by a dedicated trainer/programmer on the integrator's site or by the installation technician on the customer's site? In addition to security management personnel, be sure to speak with system operators and administrators.

Larry O'Brien, SFI Electronics: For any system — from medium-sized on up — be sure to ask to meet the project manager. For a large job, if the information technology (IT) people are involved, meet a network-certified technician or equivalent prior to signing a contract.

Jim Coleman, Operational Security Systems: To minimize variables, it is important to define well what the end-user wants. This can be a difficult chore for the end-user. Depending on the size and the complexity of the project, either pick an integrator first or choose a security consultant to articulate what the specific needs are to the integrator. This will greatly improve the odds of getting the equipment and design the end-user needs.

When is a third-party consultant needed, and when can the end-user rely on his own in-house expertise and that of the integrator?

Coleman: We tend to refer end-users to consultants when they are pretty low on the learning curve, and there is not a relationship with an integrator. They need someone to tell them what they need to be concerned about. Some companies on a large project will hire a consultant to mitigate risk. If you are going to spend a million dollars on a security system and it doesn't work out, you need someone to take responsibility for the integrity of the design and a consultant will act in that role.

O'Brien: I agree with Jim. We have several customers that employ consultants to help with education, planning and final system approval. The reality is that prior to starting a major integration project, if an end-user does not have in-house expertise or if a relationship does not exist with a reliable systems integrator, it is a good idea to start the process by partnering with an experienced consulting group. I think consultants have and will continue to play an important role in helping to set higher standards and achieving better results on major projects throughout the security industry.

Describe the role of the end-user's corporate IT department in the buying process.

McMenimon: Due to the fact that many of the systems are now installed on the corporate network, it is imperative to have the IT department's buy-in at the earliest stage of the sales process. Not only are they responsible for providing the necessary IP addresses so that one can connect to “their network,” they need to be assured that our equipment will not occupy too much of their available network bandwidth.

Savage: I think we have all had experience with what happens when the IT department does not buy into the project. The IT department can place so many different hurdles that must be overcome that it can stand in the way of the effectiveness of the system. On the other hand, if you have your facts and figures — bandwidth requirements, data and network security provisions, etc. — covered, the IT team can help make the project an efficient success.

How accountable should the equipment supplier be to the end-user? What is the integrator's role in this relationship?

Savage: I think manufacturer involvement is appropriate only when and if necessary and desirable to validate or substantiate the information and communication between the end-user and the integrator. The integrator's role is to represent the manufacturer's products professionally to the end-user. Generally, a competent integrator will be able to do so. Manufacturers are expecting and, in fact, demanding their integrators be technically competent and to demonstrate that with training and certification.

What services do you offer related to training?

Savage: I think historically, end-user training has been somewhat haphazard in most of our industry. There have been a number of integrators that have taken the lead in terms of ratcheting up the professionalism of training. We adapt our training to meet the level of needs and knowledge of our customers. We set up our curriculum like a college curriculum, where we have prerequisites and training descriptions. In order to attend certain portions of the training, you must have attended and passed testing on lower level aspects.

We could all relate stories of the customer who, in good faith and conscience, has invested in a very complex and comprehensive security system and then allowed the primary operator to be whoever is assigned to that post without investing 20-40 hours of training time into that person. That can become a real problem because the end-user is not getting the full value of his investment. And that gets to be a problem for the integrator as well because you end up with a lot of telephone support and a lot of requests for recurrent training.

McMenimon: We have a fully operational training room with interactive smart board technology and systems from all the manufacturers we represent. Even when you have the equipment and dedicated trainers, the single major cause for poor system operation is the lack of technical expertise by the end-user's operators. That's why it's imperative that our trainers are certified in both the software and hardware of the products they train users on.

What is the difference between a “security dealer” and a “systems integrator?”

McMenimon: I guess the way I would describe it is a security dealer is the type of company that sends a technician to a customer site with a box of components and expects the tech to install them in the manner he would like. A true systems integrator programs and tests all the components before they ever go out the door. One way you can tell the difference between a dealer and an integrator is to check all of the certifications that a company and its technicians have. See if they are network-certified and have other state security licenses. If they do not, then they cannot call themselves an integrator.

Savage: An end-user can tell the difference between a security dealer and a system integrator. A system integrator is asking the right questions of the customer — tell me about your company, tell me about your operation, tell me about the assets you wish to protect, tell me about your network environment, tell me about your business flow. A security dealer is what we used to call the alarm guys of our industry — they are just interested in how many parts, how many pieces and what is the budget. An integrator goes way beyond that and makes a significant investment in understanding the customer's business.

Coleman: When you put security dealers into a room and ask how many people here are integrators, most people raise their hands. Having the ability to do the more complex or larger projects is what usually separates the dealers from integrators.

O'Brien: The community of qualified system integrators is still relatively small. The system integrators know who the other system integrators are. The security consultants know who the best system integrators are. There is a lot of knowledge available out there from people in the industry. While more and more dealers are calling themselves system integrators, it is much more meaningful if a company has a long history of success in partnering with both end-users and consultants.

Are current IT standards or “de facto standards” sufficient to allow interoperability and interconnectivity of equipment, or are more formalized standards needed?

Coleman: The security integration industry does not have standards. We use some standardized IT building blocks. But unlike the IT industry — because we do not have their size — our end-users have not been able to insist on true open architecture.

To what extent are customers currently handcuffed to black boxes and to what extent are they free to pick and choose various components based on functionality rather than connectivity?

Coleman: We are experiencing a consolidation in the industry. The major manufacturers are providing the component parts that go into an integrated system. They are offering branded solutions, and it will be easy to have systems that operate within any one brand. And it will be increasingly more difficult to mix and match between branded solutions.

Will end-users be labeled as GE, Honeywell or Tyco customers?

Savage: That is the direction the manufacturers would like it to go. I know of an energy company that had made a one-box investment in a digital video recorder that was totally incompatible with anything else that they had, and they decided that because they had purchased that one box — a less-than-$10,000 piece in a multimillion dollar security enterprise — they were not going to change. They were going to stick with that box even though it meant they were going to be tied to an incompatible product for the balance of their roll-out. They did something along the line of 20 projects with incompatible digital video recording equipment and ended up having an operational expense that was horrendous. They should have bagged the first box that they bought and started over with a fully integrated product. They eventually recognized that. They are now one of our customers, and we are in the process of their third upgrade. Today, their absolute focus is on total integration.

When is it better to retrofit to existing equipment and when should the user rip out an old system and start from scratch?

Savage: From my experience, the equipment reaches its technical obsolescence far before it starts becoming ineffective as hardware. What we are discovering is the customers are deciding they need new products, new features and better performance, or higher levels of integration long before the system stops working. The customer is driving that by having new needs and increased performance requirements from all of his hardware. It's not that the equipment stops working, it's that the customer needs and wants more out of the equipment — speed, efficiency, ease of operation and integration.

Coleman: Oftentimes the main criteria for taking systems out and replacing them is when the existing equipment is obsolete or is becoming obsolete. That's the golden word. If something is going to have an end of life, that's when the financial people justify replacing things.

Describe the effect of changing costs on security integration trends.

McMenimon: One of the items that is driving costs down is the off-the-shelf components from the IT side of business. Another trend that we are seeing is that several large systems manufacturers are getting into the security integration business. To gain market share, they are driving down margins.

Savage: In today's world, we have connections to places we never had before. The corporate network extends to virtually everywhere an organization does business. It used to be you had to have a fairly substantial size in terms of head count or square footage in order to have connectivity for security purposes. These days, customers are putting connectivity into 100-square-foot remote buildings. With the products available from our manufacturers today, we can put access control, digital video and alarm monitoring on the corporate network in that kind of facility very effectively. We are putting integrated systems into places we would never have considered before technology connected us to those places.

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MAC Systems	45
Operational Security Systems	46
Security Control Systems	47
SFI Electronics	48

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