Genetec Inc. (Genetec), a leading technology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions, has shared how the role of physical security continued to evolve in 2021 as organisations adapted to changing conditions the results of its state of the industry report
The report is based on insights from more than 2,000 physical security leaders from around the world as physical security continues to evolve from being seen as a tool for mitigating risk, to playing a more significant role in organisations digital transformation.
The survey showed that more than 69% of respondents described physical security and related data as mission-critical. Larger organisations in particular are increasingly seeing value in the data gathered by their physical security systems with more than 46% saying they use their security systems as a way to improve overall business efficiency, productivity and asset optimisation.
The survey revealed that an increasing percentage of organisations, almost 36% are investing in unified solutions to enable the ease of maintenance, visibility, and data collection across all their systems to improve functionality and operations.This compares to 31% in the 2020 survey.
“Before the pandemic, physical security’s role in business intelligence and operations was already growing, but over the last two years, it has proven to be a strategic asset in coping with a variety of challenges,” said Pervez R. Siddiqui, vice-president, offerings and transformation at Genetec Inc. “As we emerge from the pandemic, organisations will contend with three undercurrents; changes in the physical dimension of work as workspaces evolve into hubs for collaboration and cohesion, workflow automation of the mundane in a bid to drive productivity and retention, and board-level interest in achieving operational resilience through integrated risk management.”
The survey showed that 45% of larger organisations have already adopted cloud solutions which is a significant increase compared to 2020 when only 26% of respondents said they had begun their cloud journey. However, different regions have varying conditions for hybrid deployment. Only 14% of respondents in the Middle East indicated that at least 25% of their physical security environment is cloud or hybrid cloud. This could be due to strict regulatory environment in some Middle Eastern countries as respondents from the Middle East were most likely to select “hosting data outside your country” as a reason which deters them from deploying cloud security solutions.
