A new EU study shows increased demand for hosted cloud solutions in security, such as VSaaS and ACaaS, due to impact of COVID pandemic.
Commissioned by Morphean, a hosted security provider itself, the independent survey revealed an increase in the necessity for businesses to adopt hosted video surveillance and access control solutions. 70% of the 1000 senior decision makers surveyed said this was the case, while 78% anticipate their organisations’ use of cloud technologies to increase in the future.
The published whitepaper: Landscape Report 2020/21: Hosted Security adoption in Europe, revealed that 51% of their companies currently use a cloud-based service for security solutions – an increase of 3% since 2019. Morphean believes this accelerated demand is also due to its low cost set up, flexible scalability and ability for real-time and remote access to security data, as well as the pandemic’s impact.
The whitepaper also discusses the digitalisation of security, strategic partnerships in the industry, and the opportunities a move to hosted solutions presents.
Rodrigue Zbinden, CEO of Morphean SA, commented: “The results highlight a hosted physical security market that will see strong growth in 2021 as cloud applications are proven to deliver business continuity in challenging times. At the height of the lockdown, many business premises were unoccupied and potentially vulnerable, but remote monitoring and maintenance made possible by hosted security were a welcome advantage. We also saw a spike in demand for
frictionless access control enabling a totally hands-free experience and negating the need for physical contact. Business leaders will now be considering the learnings from the past year and looking to apply them to boost productivity, streamline costs and make organisations more agile.”
For the security professional already working with cloud services, the growth in connected digital devices through the IoT is resulting in a growing appetite for physical security, such as network cameras, to enhance existing IT systems and assist business intelligence gathering. 95% agree that if an existing security system could deliver insights beyond security to assist decision making (i.e. occupancy or test and trace analytics), it would influence adoption.
More flexibility in working locations is the benefit respondents are most likely to identify from moving business functions to the cloud (50%), followed by easier collaboration (44%); more cost-effective (44%); safer/better security (38%). 82% anticipate the levels/frequency of remote workers and flexible working in their organisations to be higher post-pandemic and in the longer term than they were pre-pandemic.
Security will need to be enhanced to facilitate greater flexibility in worker patterns, adds Morphean. An access control solution which is linked to HR records, for example, can check the swipe of an access card against staff records. A staff member who is flagged as being on leave, absent or no longer employed will trigger an automated alert to the relevant personnel. Surveillance cameras also provide secondary authentication through visual clarification of an individual’s identity.
Other key findings revealed by the study include:
Rodrigue concludes: “For the physical security reseller, the study will demonstrate that hosted security solutions must play a major part in expanding their offering to a wiser customer base. Cloud-enabled physical security solutions represent an investment into improving security and operations, a chance to forge new business relationships, and an opportunity to embrace future proof technologies in preparation for whatever challenges the future might hold.”
Download this free report to find out more about:
