Vision 20/20: The Future Never Looked so Bright

The future of security never looked so bright. The macro trends we’ve been discussing for years are coming to fruition. We do not need a crystal ball to confirm some of the predictions for the future. At the recent Cloud Security Summit hosted by Brivo and Eagle Eye, we discussed a few of those trends and how they are clearly taking hold.

Spurred on by digital transformation and COVID-19, here are the six trends we see emerging:

1. Cloud Won – Let’s Move On

As a cloud company, we are frequently asked, where is cloud technology now and where is it going? Consider this: over the past few years, every new tech company created is a cloud company.

Their products are all cloud connected products. No one designs new products to sit in a server environment and if they have existing server-based products, they are trying to figure out how to move them to the cloud. Every new app is now a cloud to mobile experience.

Cloud is now the norm. Creating products that are server-based would be like trying to bring back Blockbuster. Just like Blockbuster lost to Netflix, server solutions won’t survive in the cloud and IoT world we live in today.

2. Open Platforms Only

As companies add cloud solutions to their portfolio and other new cloud technologies present themselves to the business world, open platforms will enable companies to create customizable and efficient ecosystems for different areas of the businesses to interact with one another.

No one provider can provide every best-in-class at every application a company needs. Instead, most companies have a combination of integrated solutions that they need to run their business. To make this more appealing and effective, open platforms help combine the right solutions a company needs. Take finance, for instance, they might have an ERP system to manage accounts payable, receivable and general ledger, but they have other add-on solutions like tax collection and document management that augment the finance team’s capabilities.

Cloud-to-cloud integrations across platforms are the dominant integration model. This approach replaces on-premise systems with integrated solutions. The seamless integration between Brivo and Eagle Eye is a prime example of a cloud-based platform integration that brings access control and video surveillance into one combined solution.

3. Verticalization of Solutions

The integration of cloud-based platforms lends itself to creating more verticalized solutions. Industries will benefit from new partners emerging to further extend platforms. As companies grow, more mature products and industries will need holistic vertical solutions to meet their needs. A great example is the multifamily space. Smart home, access control and video surveillance solutions are the key ingredients to create a seamless resident experience and improve property management with technology integrations.

In this case, a holistic and integrated security solution using the Brivo access control portfolio, Brivo Smart Apartment and Eagle Eye video surveillance fits perfectly. You can add property management, multifamily management and other HR solutions to create one vertical tech stack that solves the needs of multifamily customers and the requirements of property managers. This is the platform of the future.

Integrated Security Solutions

4. Growth of Channel and Channel Services

Now that companies have multiple integrations to choose from, they will need more services. They will want guidance to understand the technology available to them, how to meet their challenges and goals, how to build the perfectly customized cloud solution, and they will need a partner to implement the final solution.

This is where the channel is critical to the future. Selecting the right partner to work with is paramount to the success of your business. Brivo and Eagle Eye partners support a large and growing network of trained professionals to deliver these services and can meet customer demands with an extensive cloud-based portfolio.

In turn, the cloud provides an opportunity for security integrators to expand their business and offer cloud-based services to drive subscription business models. The Brivo ecosystem of partners are leaders in designing, installing, and supporting these cloud-based platforms.

5. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Data has become an integral part of security services. In listening to customers, we have learned they want more value from their data. There is too much data to analyze by hand, even for the smaller customers. The bigger the customer, the greater the need for data analytics.

Brivo recently launched the Brivo Commercial Reopening Index demonstrating how data in a cloud-based platform can be displayed and offer value. By monitoring credential holder activity from commercial access control data across the U.S., this index shows the progress businesses are reopening across the country. This is an example of how large data sets can be analyzed to show market trends. Imagine the power to review your own security data across multiple sites; both regionally and globally.

Brivo Commercial Reopening Index

Embedding Ai and Machine Learning into Access Control
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are also ways to innovate using new cloud platform models. For instance, bookmarking is a time consuming, tedious exercise to match an access control event with a video clip to confirm an activity.

Machine learning, a form of Ai, is a great application to the problem of finding the exact piece of video that you want quickly and easily. Studying access control events and aligning with video clips involves tedious work sorting through potentially hours of corresponding video. Using machine learning, we can teach a neural net to identify faces. It can then create a database of similar images. Using this pool of images, it can learn to confirm the access control event reducing the amount of human time needed to manually search for associated video clips.

This kind of innovation helps companies manage their workload more efficiently, redirect valuable security resources to more strategic areas, provide better safety and save the valuable time of security professionals.

6. The Need for Financing

Given all the opportunities to create holistic solutions across verticals and fold in support and services, customers need options to buy. In tough economic times, security is not a luxury, but a necessity.

The pandemic has confirmed that security is an essential service. It will be even more important as businesses reopen and work to protect employees and customers. Investments are needed to bring security solutions for both commercial and residential companies into the cloud. But, many of those companies may require financing options. Brivo offers two innovative purchasing options. Brivo Complete provides a complete solution for a low up-front cost and higher monthly subscription fees. This is great for smaller projects and can be up and running in no time. Brivo Financing is available to give customers, with medium or large projects, the funds to get the security they need now, and to pay for it over time.

The Brivo Financing Program covers all parts and labor in the project, and allows hardware and labor to be included in the subscription payment terms. Customers can manage cash flow during economic hard times and resellers benefit from shortened payment cycles enabling them to employ their best people and deliver the support and services customers need. Financing is a win-win for everyone.

Brivo Financing Programs

What’s Next?

Optimism might be in short supply these days but we know that in technology there is always a brighter future. Looking to the future to identify upcoming needs is a key to surviving and thriving through any unexpected twist or turn we may take in the years to come.