access control

“We’ve a great conversion rate once customers see our products”: Inner Range Q&A

Avatar photo

Contributor

Author Bio ▼

Adam Bannister is a contributor to IFSEC Global, having been in the role of Editor from 2014 through to November 2019. Adam also had stints as a journalist at cybersecurity publication, The Daily Swig, and as Managing Editor at Dynamis Online Media Group.
March 22, 2018

Sign up to free email newsletters

Download

Whitepaper: Multi-residential access management – The move to digital

Inner Range is a provider of access control and intruder alarm systems and is exhibiting at IFSEC International in June.

We caught up with Tim Northwood, the company’s general manager, to find out the company’s history, its current product range and business model and its plans for expansion – plus what he hopes for and expects from IFSEC 2018.

IFSEC Global: Hi, Tim. Tell us a bit about Inner Range for those who don’t know too much about you…

Tim Northwood: We design and manufacture intelligent integrated access control and intruder detection systems suitable for entry level right up to enterprise level. This includes highly encrypted end-to-end solutions suitable for government, military or critical national infrastructure customers.

“Integration is at the heart of what we do”

Integration is at the heart of what we do: we bring together access control with multiple other products or disciplines, such as CCTV, lifts, building management, visitor management, intercoms, realtime location, keylockers and many more.

This streamlines what our customers need to think about, saves them time and generally makes their working lives much more straight forward.

Inner Range was founded in Australia 30 years ago but we’ve been working in the UK since 2000, so you could say we’re coming of age here this year.

IG: So how would you describe your position in the market, in the UK and internationally, and how are you evolving and growing?

TN: We’re the international market leader in our ‘home’ regions of Australia and New Zealand and we have a strong representation in another 20 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Russia.

The UK is where we are currently focusing our attentions to grow our market share. We have warehousing and a technical support team at our European HQ in Reading, Berkshire. We’ve also just taken on two new sales managers for the UK.

Inner Range is less well known than some of our competitors here in the UK. But we have a great conversion rate when new customers see what our products can do for them.

We’re confident we can grow our UK presence and provide businesses with high quality products to achieve the solutions they need.

IG: Are there any particular groups of people you’d be expecting or hoping to meet at IFSEC 2018?

TN: I’m expecting to see lots of our existing international clients – it’s always good to check-in with them catch up. But I’m hoping to meet new customers from a broad spectrum of business backgrounds.

“Our products span the market from entry level (one input, one door) right up to enterprise level systems with millions of users and thousands of sites”

We are not a ‘niche’ provider. Our products span the market from entry level (one input, one door) right up to enterprise level systems with millions of users and thousands of sites including those with watertight security needs.

What’s more, our products are all scalable. This makes them very cost-effective as our clients only pay for what they need.

I hope we’ll meet lots of new customers and start helping them solve their security and systems management challenges.

IG: When you meet integrators at IFSEC, what will your message be?

TN: For integrators, we’ll be reiterating our message about the wide market appeal of our products. We’ll talk about the scalability and cost-effectiveness of our products, whether end-clients have one door or 500,000 doors.

It’s also important for them to know about the support we offer. We have a technical support team in Reading and we provide factory-certified training courses integrators can do face-to-face or online.

We have two levels of training. The standard level allows integrators to become ‘certified technicians’ while our ‘advanced technician’ course allows clients to benefit from an extended warranty on their hardware.

Either way, we’re always there to support our integrators.

IG: Are you showcasing any new products this year?

TN: Yes, definitely. We have a new suite of software improvements that include scalable vector graphics to help security staff pin point access points, alarms and systems needing attention.

We have a new mobile app that allows security staff to check the validity of people’s credentials by using their phone to read security passes anywhere on site. When valid cards are read, corresponding photo ID appears and security staff can suspend credentials if need be.

In addition, we’ll be showcasing our Application Layer High Availability solution where they run multiple instances of our system at the same time. Controllers and clients automatically connect to available nodes to ensure an “always on experience” minimising costly and/or vulnerable downtime.

We’ll have something to show on Licence Plate Number Recognition and a few more surprises too.

IG: How secure are your products in a cybersecurity sense?

TN: They’re all highly secure when properly installed.

All our data is fully encrypted and access to our servers and clients is encrypted.

For clients with particularly sensitive security needs, we have a product that offers end-to-end encryption and Mac authentication.

The main risk to cybersecurity is always if people connect their system to the outside world without protecting it with a firewall. We guide all our clients on how best to secure their system – none have been breached so far.

See the latest products from Inner Range in action at IFSEC International, 19-21 June 2018, ExCeL London. They will be on stand F410. Register now.

Subscribe to the IFSEC Insider weekly newsletters

Enjoy the latest fire and security news, updates and expert opinions sent straight to your inbox with IFSEC Insider's essential weekly newsletters. Subscribe today to make sure you're never left behind by the fast-evolving industry landscape.

Sign up now!

man reading a tablet, probably the IFSEC Global newsletter

Related Topics

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments