System Surveyor at ISC West 2022: New Features Save Integrators Time, Increase Sales
System Surveyor will be showcasing new features such as Accessories Builder, which makes it easier to add and specify products using its intelligent system design platform.
ISC West 2022 will be held March 22-25 at the Venetian Expo in Las Vegas. Ahead of this year’s show, SSI heard from System Surveyor Founder Chris Hugman about what the company will be showcasing at ISC West, its value proposition and more.
What is a leading product or offering your company is showing off at ISCW this year, and what makes it unique or special?
System Surveyor has added an Accessories Builder feature to make it easier to add and specify products using our intelligent system design platform. System Surveyor users are specifying tens of thousands of products within the application each month. The devices often need to be outfitted with various accessory parts and components. For example, a camera in a particular location may need a wall mount, a lens and a specific bracket.
This new Accessories feature allows users to predefine associations between devices and compatible accessories, eliminating guesswork, streamlining ordering and saving time. System integrators, manufacturer partners, corporate security personnel, and others can create a library of accessories, associate them with specific devices and System Surveyor Element Profiles, and share them with other System Surveyor users. Automation of the proper accessories enables customers to streamline and complete the Bill of Materials (BOM).
For integrators in particular, this new capability will enable them to generate proposals faster and more accurately, ensure delivery of the right components, and drive more cost-effective installations.
Any other products or offerings would you like to highlight?
Late last year we added more granular control of Site Access Permissions and ease of administration. From a business perspective, system integrators and corporate users can better secure the confidential information of their own customers or sites.
System Surveyor also continues to expand our Manufacturer Partner Program. As we add partners, our community of users and their partners and dealers have more device and accessories options to automate in the system. Campus and corporate technology professionals can also do budget estimation and request for quote with accurate details to their integrator partners. Our most recent manufacturer partners are Digital Watchdog, Turing and Rhombus Systems.
What else is new or noteworthy about the company for 2022?
System Surveyor has become the standard for system design and life-cycle management with global and regional organizations alike. We continue to see growth in number of users and revenue.
We are particularly excited to see the growth of the collaboration aspects of System Surveyor enabling the ecosystem of those involved in making physical security systems effective. Our users are developing new use cases between end user customers, system integrators, subcontractors, manufacturers and A&Es by leveraging digital transformation with a move away from sharing PDFs via email. Our new video can be seen here to show the vision.
We’ve expanded our development and growth team adding new employees in development, customer success, customer support, marketing all with a common mission to provide outstanding customer service. In addition, we’ve started to hold Community sessions to get our users together to share ideas and plan to enable more of that coming this year and into 2023.
What is your company’s overall value proposition to security dealers/integrators? Why should they do business with you?
We purpose-built System Surveyor to address all the challenges we experienced as former system integrators. The System Surveyor platform enables integrators and physical security leaders to digitize site surveys and streamline system design, installation, and maintenance through the life cycle. Using a mobile tablet, personnel can collect all system requirements and IoT assets in one application, then sync to the Cloud for centralized access.
Users can visualize and collaborate with project teams, customers, subcontractors, and other stakeholders to create an accurate system design and a ultimately a digital as-built. This expedites the entire process, including reviews and approvals.
The benefits to integrators are increased sales, higher customer satisfaction rates, quicker project completion times, and enhanced long-term service levels. Consulting firm Fidelio Works conducted a study last year with 12 System Surveyor integrator customers to determine the business ROI for our platform. Integrators increased efficiency and time savings by 35%, improved profit margins by 10%, increased sales conversions by 20%, and more. Calculate the ROI and download the report here.
What do you see as some of the top opportunities in the marketplace right now?
As the industry recovers from the pandemic, new opportunities abound. We surveyed about 200 security professionals recently, and more than 90% of system integrators said they have a favorable business outlook this year. Half of the corporate and campus professionals we surveyed said their budgets will increase this year (versus only 11% in 2020).
With challenging supply chain issues, being able to streamline product design, decisions and procurement is critical. Modernization is a big opportunity. Many system integrators adopted new virtual technologies during the pandemic, making it possible to do business remotely (such as site surveys and collaboration) and even widen target markets. In our survey, both the integrators and in-house security personnel are interested in ways to collaborate digitally on system design.
However, adoption is still nascent for the industry overall. For example, 73% of the integrators we surveyed still use paper, pencil, and a notebook for doing site surveys and gathering system requirements. That’s down from 82% in 2020, but it’s still a far cry from where the industry needs to be. The top two challenges for SIs year-over-year remain gathering accurate customer site information and customers requesting multiple proposal revisions.
The end users’ top challenges highlight two other areas of opportunity for system integrators: 1) Helping customers work with building management on security changes and responsibilities (this rose from #7 in 2020 to #1 in 2021), and 2) working with clients to standardize disparate systems and technologies across locations.
Anything else you would like to add?
We’re excited to be back in person at ISC West! We look forward to seeing everyone at our booth 5064!
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