Building It In

That's the goal, right? To build security into business plans, employee habits, and the very facilities they work in.

That’s the goal, right? To build security in. Build it into business plans and processes, build it into employees’ daily work habits, build it into the network. Easier said than done, as you all know so well. But at the ASIS convention in Las Vegas, I got a better vision of building security in—heavy emphasis on the word building.

I generally hate trade shows, truth be told, but I love the ASIS event—even the show floor part. As one attendee said, you truly get the sense that security is a dynamic industry in the throes of change. One of the changes was the notable presence of IBM and Cisco, artists formerly known as IT companies. Their presence merely confirms for the thousandth time that IT security is security and physical security is security. It’s all security. (On another aisle you could see Lenel’s new slogan, “Welcome IT…we’ve been waiting for you.” Hard to tell whether IT folks will take that as a handshake or a backhand.)

But while the digital/physical confluences have gotten a lot of airtime in the past few years, there’s another trend afoot with less ink but perhaps just as much significance. I met with Red Hawk, UTC’s newly reorganized systems integration unit, and our discussion veered to whether their new setup brings them into competition with a new set of companies. I mentioned Johnson Controls and Siemens Building Technologies, noting that their presence in the very core of so many facilities might provide a nice point of leverage with their customers when it comes to further integrating security systems. Antonio Cintra, president of Red Hawk (and some affiliated UTC businesses), responded that this is indeed a trend “in its infancy”—the better coordination of security, safety and facilities systems. He also noted that with other business units, including Carrier (HVAC) and Otis (elevators), UTC is “in the building as early as anybody.”

Obviously there are other vendors with a play in this trend, including Honeywell and Schneider Electric (Schneider has in the past year acquired both surveillance vendor Pelco and building systems management purveyor TAC). Now it’s one thing to have a bunch of business units and another to truly integrate their offerings. But the potential is there and given the number of players showing interest, I think we’ll continue to see security better and better built in.

Derek Slater,

dslater@cxo.com