Administering access control can be a burden, which is why the industry is taking steps to address this concern. More than ever, suppliers and integrators are looking at new technologies, integrations and open standards to improve the end-user experience, and access control as a service (ACaaS) fits this model, writes Blake Kozak, Senior Analyst, Security and Building Technologies, at the US-based market research company IHS.
IHS estimates that newly installed hosted and managed access control doors represented about 3pc of the total new readers and electronic locks installed in the Americas in 2013. A total of about 80,000 doors of ACaaS were added in the region in 2013. IHS has forecast there will be about 1.8 million total doors of ACaaS in the Americas by 2018. Below are a few key trends and recommendations on how to take advantage of this growing market:
Often times, there is a mix of capital expenditures (capex) and operating expenditures (opex) to help meet the needs of the end-user. However there must be balance. For example, a system with 100 doors and 400 card users would likely not use a 100% opex model. The integrator/installer will need to obtain some amount of revenue upfront.
Opex creates stickiness and yields a longer contract with the customer.
Web-based panels are continuing to experience growth, potentially impacting the adoption of ACaaS.
While economies of scale still hold true for very large systems, geographically dispersed enterprises are looking more for cloud-based solutions, especially hybrid offerings. As a result, IHS expects hybrid to see more growth as large systems adopt ACaaS, eg. there will be a mix of onsite management, monitoring and hosted infrastructure.
The issue of big data and how to harness it is a major trend. The use of ACaaS and being connected to the end-user could offer a way to use data collection and monitoring.
Managed services will continue to account for the majority of market revenue as a result of the premium services; however, many will want to retain the management of the system and pay a small monthly fee in order to outsource the infrastructure.
The competitive environment for ACaaS remains heavily fragmented. Equally fragmented are the methods for reaching the end-user and the number of potential channel partners.
