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 Prakash Prabhu, Country Manager, Axis Communications, predicts that physical security and surveillance segment will be the biggest growth opportunity in the IT industry
In 2009, economies across the world were ravaged by the worst-ever financial crisis in the recent history. And unlike previous slowdowns, which were restricted to certain regions of the world, this was truly global in nature.
Although India did not bear the brunt of recession like North America and Europe, 2009 was a year of uncertainty for the domestic IT industry. As a result, a lot changed in the industry.
IT companies were forced to relook at the way they conduct business, improve business efficiencies, and better the bottomline. Challenged by the economic depression, they had to rework their strategies to implement new, cost-effective business and technology models. As a result, concepts like software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud computing, managed services and virtualization gained momentum.
Towards the end of 2009, as the economy showed signs of recovery, the momentum of technology investments also began to build up.
Over the past year, physical security and surveillance market in India grew a lot faster than most other Asian regions. The acceptance of network video surveillance over analog installations has been overwhelming.
The government sector emerged as a big adopter of physical security solutions. With technology benefits like remote accessibility, new compression standards like H.264, quick response time and enhanced video quality, the adoption of network video surveillance in key public security installations became inevitable. However, despite an increase in the demand for IP and network security solutions, the recession did affect speedy closures on a few large projects.
Opportunities ahead
Industry estimates across sectors indicate a positive outlook for the Indian economy in 2010. In early December 2009, the Asian Development Bank upgraded its economic growth forecast for countries in Asia due to the better-than-expected performance of many economies in the region. India is projected to grow at 7 percent in FY2010. However, India may face challenges particularly from rising prices of energy. Unless certain preemptive steps are taken by the government and regulatory bodies, this might deter the boost in production and introduce inflationary trends in 2010.
From a demand standpoint, the growth in Indian physical security market in 2010 looks healthy. As per the 2009 edition of the IMS report, the Indian network video surveillance market, which is currently at $16 million, is growing at a CAGR of 54 percent and expected to reach $26 million by 2010.
From the video market perspective, the adoption of efficient compression algorithms like H.264 and superior video image quality through high definition streaming will make surveillance video more suitable for business applications other than its core application of security.
High definition video when coupled with video analytics will emerge as a tool for gathering business intelligence. In addition to the traditional sectors like traffic management, city surveillance, investigation, people counters, access control and production process controlling in nuclear and chemical industries; specialized video analytics will provide opportunities in areas such as automatic number plate recognition, people counting and face recognition.
In short, surveillance is moving beyond security. Moreover, with security solutions moving towards open standards and intelligent surveillance solutions, the target areas and opportunities have become broader.
Technology trends
Another trend that we foresee in the security industry is the convergence of the companies’ IT and security departments. With the growing need to integrate video surveillance system with IT-operated building management systems over the network, the planning and implementation of a holistic security system in an organization will fall under the purview of both the security department as well as that of the CIO.
In the coming years, we are also likely to experience demand for a concept like of surveillance-as-a-service, which is similar to the SaaS model. People at home and business will be able to avail surveillance solutions, just the way they make use of telephone, electricity and other utilities.
Areas of focus
In 2010, security vendors will focus on building intelligence on the edge in their solutions. Efforts are underway to launch cameras that have the capability to intelligently process images and send only relevant information to the security control room.
| Takeaways for 2010 |
Indian network video surveillance market is expected to reach $26 million by 2010
Video analytics will drive the future of the surveillance industry
Intelligent video will emerge as a tool for gathering business intelligence
There will be demand for surveillance-as-a-service
HDTV technology will drive the demand for network camera solutions
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Drive towards open networks will be a major driver for business. We have opened our network video products for third-party applications. This will contribute to development of innovative video content analysis software. HDTV technology will also drive the demand for network camera solutions in 2010, especially for sectors where greater image detail in surveillance required.
In terms of target industry verticals, transportation segment promises to be the biggest market. Frost & Sullivan estimates that this segment will spend $3.6 billion on security by 2017. The infrastructure sector also looks promising with rising investments in sectors like airports, seaports, metros and other Greenfield projects.
The retail sector too holds potential for surveillance solutions, thanks to the advent of intelligent capabilities in cameras that can help analyze the customer behavior that can be mapped for business efficiencies. With numerous self-service kiosks and ATMs mushrooming in the country, remote monitoring solution for the banking sector has also assumed importance. |