Milestone Shines Spotlight on Business Outcomes, Adapting to Partners at MIPS 2022
Milestone’s MIPS 2022 partner summit emphasized how the video technology provider is focusing on solving specific challenges and better assisting its partners.
MINNEAPOLIS — Milestone Systems’ MIPS Partner Summit returned last week as an in-person event, now invite-only, for the first time since 2020.
Held Oct. 24-26, at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, more than 400 Milestone partners convened to hear about the company’s roadmap, latest innovations, products and solutions.
The event was centered around four main ideas: “Beyond security;” business outcomes; responsible technology; and adapting to partners.
Beyond Security
Across multiple keynotes, the term “beyond security” was brought up. What Milestone means by this term is utilizing sensors that may already be installed in an application and using them for other opportunities.
During a healthcare panel, Bosch Business Development Manager Mike Guarino noted, “I talked to one of my counterparts who’s a security director in the hospital, and he said we’re trying to do more with less. We’re trying to do more with less and and how can we be more proactive and intelligent about utilizing those sensors intelligently.”
For example, an IPVideo Corp. Halo device can be utilized to track and confirm nurses are doing their rounds by integrating with Milestone. The Halo detects the nurses via audio and generates a report that can be viewed through a Milestone dashboard. The user can also view alerts and quickly pull up the corresponding video feed.
“Make no mistake, we will continue to focus on security and safety. That’s one of the most important parts for our customers and in our operations. But we will also invest in offerings and solutions beyond security. We believe there are business opportunities to seize and to more than double our business it requires to think outside our well-defined market,” Milestone CEO Thomas Jensen said during his keynote on the company’s strategic direction.
Business Outcomes
Milestone also announced that it would be shifting its messaging to discuss “business outcomes,” rather than specific products or features.
“For more than 25 years in technology, I’ve tried to understand what it is that keeps our customers awake at night. And if any of you have the illusion that they wake up tomorrow morning with the thoughts that ‘Gee, I wish I had that latest video surveillance camera or sensor, or that upgraded VMS system,’ I’m sorry, that’s not what’s on our customer’s mind,” explained Jensen. “What’s on their mind is the problems that they cannot solve. It could be crime prevention. It could be lack of employees in a hot labor market. It could be solving pollution or any other issues that they’re dealing with in their daily businesses. See, that’s business outcomes. That’s creating value for customers. The rest is just products.”
He continued, “And in my experience, technology companies have a bad habit of falling in love with their own products. That’s probably been true for Milestone as well. But you know, that’s our business. We should like our products but if we cannot convey to our customers what those products bring in terms of value to them, then shame on us.”
Responsible Technology
Also addressed during MIPS 2022 was “responsible technology.” In 2017, Milestone was one of numerous technology leaders from around the world that signed a document known as the Copenhagen Letter, which encourages people to use technology responsibly, and “move from human-centered design to humanity-centered design.” Milestone took that action further and implemented a “Copenhagen Clause” to its end user license agreements.
Jensen said Milestone will further strengthen its commitment to responsible technology in the coming months with more initiatives that focus on how it develops its technology, how it allows its technology to be sold and how it expects and allows customers to use its software in respect for human rights, individual privacy and data rights.
Adapting to Partners
Milestone is evolving the way it collaborates with its partners. To start, it removed about 2/3 of them in order to better focus on those that are most committed.
The company says its will now be able to better assist its most dedicated partners, which in turn will increase the level of quality its partners will provide to customers.
Milestone also plans to work closely with its partners to develop business plans at the beginning of the year. It also plans to improve its partner portal and communication departments.
For the first time in its history, Milestone is rolling out partner marketing with the introduction of its “campaign in a box.” The solution will provide partners with educational materials on both products and sales techniques, as well as social media toolkits, presentations, talking points and more.
The company is also putting an emphasis on regional marketing and opening a brick and mortar location in Arlington, Va.
New Technology Innovations
Announced during MIPS 2022 was Milestone’s new Cloud-native video surveillance as a service (VSaaS), Kite. The solution is powered by the Arcules Cloud platform and designed to be a hassle-free, secure Cloud solution that “grows with your business.”
Kite slots in next to Milestone’s xProtect and AWS VMS solutions. Milestone VP of Americas Tim Palmquist says Kite is ideal for the mid- to mid-low space. “The reason it fits into our portfolio is because of the trends in the industry that we need to address in our own business. It’s a natural compliment to what we do,” he explained during a press briefing.
Milestone also announced it plans to bring proven industry-specific video solutions to healthcare and hospitality over time. These initial verticals were cited as industries that already have technologies that can be built-out.
You can learn more about Milestone Kite and its industry-specific solutions, here. Be sure to check out more insights and visuals from the event in the video and slideshow above.
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About the Author
Steve Karantzoulidis, Web/Senior Editor
Steven A. Karantzoulidis is the Web Editor for Security Sales & Integration. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a degree in Communication and has a background in Film, A/V and Social Media.
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