Access Control

Most Corporates install systems which are based on global standards and policies, however what’s interesting is that Global Pricing standards are followed in India as well for systems and features which are not relevant or used in India.

Today modern access control systems have advanced greatly to lower cost of per door installations plus adding features like integrated photo badging, integration to digital video / CCTV, telephone entry systems and many more features that provide for scaling of access to corporate assets.

While my knowledge on Access Control is limited, I have found that over 60% of the installations in India specifically corporate installations use only a small percentage of the features available in the systems. I haven’t found any of the Security Managers complaining about the lack of feature utilization but the thought has always played in my mind that if a feature to price evaluation was done would the same Security Managers and Commercial Bean bags start looking at installations in a new manner.

Some Security Managers may not even know a feature is available in the system and the fault lies with the installer and OEM for not educating the end user. This is not because they don’t want to educate the end client but most of the time due to lack of information that the local teams have about the systems themselves.

Our Security Managers are some of the best in the world and would probably find a relevant method to use a particular feature of the system to suit Indian conditions and most of them know what will be used and what will not be used in India.

Access control systems which are sold to Corporate Clients use Enterprise class licensing and the OEM rides on this to sell at a price level negotiated for Global Clients in India… So we end up paying for what is never going to be used.. What if the Security Manager had a say and indicated feature to price benefit exercise? It would shake up this market and get prices downwards.. Prices would be re-negotiated on a region to region basis and we would still end up with some of the best technologies at a lower cost.

I may not be 100% correct on this assumption but hey the pressure would be on the OEM to justify the kind of price and service provided in India.

I am actually quite keen on seeing what the experts in this field have to say about this thought process and would anyone actually go about this exercise to downscale feature availability based on installations?