IP Surveillance moving from Analogue to Digital

If I take into account the overall industry perspective and the kind of applications, it has been very exciting for me to be part of the security, surveillance and monitoring industry. Since I come from the data networking background, this is my first stint with a company which is into video surveillance. What excites me is the kind of problems we solve for the end-users. It becomes all the more interesting to meet an end-user or SI who has unique things to do by using our networking cameras and that is what excites me. It is an amazing experience to see how the banking industry wants to solve the problem of providing ATM surveillance for the branches, the retail industry providing better end-user services, providing safety to their own staff. As I said earlier, I come from the networking industry where we used to talk that you can run video, voice data. Now, I am actually seeing the applications what you can do with those networks. So, it has been very exciting, and Axis has been also an exciting company to be in.

The challenges are same both in the developed economies and the industry we are talking about in India. The convergence rate varies. For example, the country that is more mature from the IP surveillance deployment perspective may have an equal share of IP analogue and digital deployment. However, in India while the share of digital is about 30 per cent, that of analogue is 70 per cent.  With the passage of time, probably in three years, India will be on an equal footing with the matured markets. So, the challenges are the same, the convergence rates are different.  

The strategy is the same. We have been very successful by doing the two-tier strategy. We have the distributors, who play a very key role, in stocking logistics, providing the first level of sales support and resale support for our SIs. So, they are the key component of our channel ecosystem. Then, we have a large number of system integrators who build for complex projects with their entire solutions and still then we have reseller or installer channel base who caters to the smaller end of the segment for smaller deployment. So, that is our overall go-to-market strategy. That is in line with our global policy. So, we are very successful with that and so it is a proven and tested model as far as we are concerned.

Is there any line of demarcation between IT channel and Security channel? 

We don't demarcate between them. The people who sell our solutions vary between being an IT reseller and being a security installer.  Now, we are seeing a convergence there as well. As we are seeing convergence from analogue to digital, we are also experiencing a convergence in the channel base as well. It is a very fragmented market. The trend is that people who historically sold laptops, printers, memory cards, etc. are now eyeing an opportunity to sell security surveillance and vice versa. 

Apart from pilferage, theft and terrorism, business intelligence has also played its part in bringing different sectors like public transport, airports, hospitality, BFSI and education, government and retail to increasingly incorporate network video into their scheme of things on the security front.