5 Best Practices to Meet Demand and Standardize Operations
At the start of a new year we often see thought leaders making predictions about the year to come. We’ve even done this ourselves: a couple of months back our co-founder and CEO, Chris Hugman, shared his insights and expectations for 2025 on this blog and then again with Security Sales & Integration (SSI).
Of course, not every speculation or prediction comes true. But each year as we get into the year, industries start to see consensus develop around certain predictions and industry trends. These are the ones to watch.
For 2025, we’re seeing growing agreement that this is the year organizations become more strategic in how they deploy the cloud in their environments. And this has significant implications for the physical security industry
The Connection Between Cloud Strategy & Physical Security
To understand this connection, we must start with a related point: organizations want to modernize video surveillance or access control systems to take advantage of new capabilities. For example, 42% of physical security industry respondents in Genetec’s 2025 State of Physical Security Report plan to incorporate some form of AI in their security operations in the coming months. But they want to do this without scrapping their existing investments. To achieve this, many businesses will likely place a bigger emphasis on hybrid on-premise and cloud systems.
While rollout of hybrid cloud systems is traditionally IT territory, system integrators still have a role to play: ensuring that their clients’ infrastructure will be up to par to adopt new technologies.
In his SSI interview, Chris was asked to finish a sentence:
SSI: “Finish this sentence: 2025 will be remembered as the year that the security industry…”
Hugman: … “went from being a necessary overhead expense to an innovative strategic resource for the customer.”
Integrators become strategic resources and partners because of the infrastructure changes necessary. Practically speaking this looks like documenting clients’ current systems, determining what security technology and infrastructure “survives” to the new system and what needs to be upgraded and/or retrofitted.
As system integrators do this, standardization is the key to successful modernization.
Chris put it this way, “As companies grow larger, scalability becomes a bigger concern, which in turn leads to process improvement initiatives. A big benefit of this move toward standardization and digitization is improved continuity throughout the customer lifecycle to capitalize on customer lifetime value and recurring revenue.”
Why a Standardized Approach to System Design Is Essential
A standardized approach is needed because new physical security technologies add technical complexity to system design. Requirements (not to mention client expectations) are more exacting, and the cost of getting elements wrong can balloon quickly.
As Chris mentioned above, scalability is also a concern: standardized processes can be replicated and followed at scale, and they rely less on experiential knowledge. When every integrator does things in slightly different ways, details get missed and processes rely on “institutional knowledge” that less experienced employees may lack.
To standardize in this way, many system integrators will need to optimize their current resources and labor wisely, focusing on using technology and processes to meet the sweeping and strong demand to upgrade and refresh systems.
So how exactly should system integrators standardize processes as they prepare to modernize client systems? System Surveyor has identified 5 best practices that, when applied together, improve standardization results.
1. Mapping existing systems in a site survey
First, to modernize an existing system you first need to know what that existing system is: what are the component parts, and what kinds of infrastructure are connecting those parts?
Many organizations lack an up-to-date representation of their physical security system and/or access control system. If they have a schematic or some other representation, it’s almost assuredly out of date, failing to account for changes over the life of the security system.
But without an accurate map of existing systems, it’s nearly impossible to determine with any accuracy what needs to be thrown out, what can be upgraded in place, where retrofits are needed, and what kinds of overall infrastructure changes (e.g., modern network cabling) will be needed to achieve the client’s modernization goals.
Our recommendation: conduct a site survey to collect the information you need to create this map, System Surveyor as a site survey tool that makes this easy and efficient for nearly anyone to complete . With our modern, cloud-based platform as the foundation for your site survey, you can create a functional, living digital as-built that represents the physical security system in its current state.
2. Collaborating on system design
As video surveillance and access control systems and their components become more complex, system designs need to become just as much more precise. It’s no longer enough for a system integrator to mock up a system design by hand or merely describe the plan in a document or PDF. Modernizing the technology used in the system without modernizing the system design process itself is a recipe for costly mistakes, miscommunication and rework.
Instead, collaborate visually on system design — and bring more people into the process as you do so. With a visual, collaborative system design platform that runs on the cloud, you can invite members of your own team, clients and vendors/product specialists to collaborate in the same design, in real time.
This is a truly game-changing approach to system design: clients can see with much greater detail a visual representation of exactly what’s going into their modernized systems, giving them an earlier moment in the process to point out anything they suspect needs to change. This kind of collaborative platform allows system integrators to learn and benefit from product specialists employed by vendors–bringing these professionals into an actual system design allows for integrating more complex and even unfamiliar technology.
The benefit for your client is clear: access to the latest capabilities, which are built into an expertly designed system that functions optimally. And the benefits to your company are significant as well:
- Access to specialized knowledge from vendors
- Earlier buy-in from clients
- More professional presentation
- Improved accuracy in system designs (leading to less rework and more savings)
3. Specifying products and infrastructure
Legacy system design proposals tend to be general rather than specific — because there wasn’t any other way to do them. But with a modern security camera system design platform like System Surveyor, system integrators can get as granular as they want in their system designs.
System Surveyor allows users to specify specific products from many vendors, complete with product information and tech specs. For certain products (like cameras in a video surveillance system), System Surveyor can even show angles and depth of view on the design. Users can add product data for products not yet incorporated into the platform, which continues to expand its catalog and vendor partners.
Let’s not forget about infrastructure, either: for example, AI-enhanced cameras need cabling, in some cases both power and data. Mounts, brackets, central processing units, the list goes on— specifying exactly what a system needs in terms of products and infrastructure further increases the accuracy of a design (and of its bill of materials).
4. Generating accurate bills of materials (BOM)
Speaking of the bill of materials: increased system complexity and, in some cases, component costs may lead to clients and would-be clients who want a clearer, more transparent look into what they’re paying for.
For system integrators following the three previous best practices, this isn’t a huge ask. You already know exactly what components the system calls for, no guesstimating required.
Plus, System Surveyor tracks component costs along with other data points for thousands of devices and components. With System Surveyor, an automated bill of materials is always available, accounting for every single element that’s been placed into the system design.
This BoM updates in real time, too. If a client wants to know how upgrading or downgrading a certain device type will affect the total bill, you can show them instantly. Combined with the visual data on camera capabilities, this enables a great collaborative sales experience. You can show a client exactly what they’d lose in terms of coverage, image quality, camera depth and so on by downgrading (and exactly what they’d gain by upgrading).
5. Working with a digital as-built for ongoing management
Complex systems may require more ongoing support and maintenance. This is both a complication and an opportunity for system integrators.
First, the complication: someone must keep track of what support, updates and maintenance is required of various system components. This historically has not been a point of strength for businesses with physical security systems. But when a digital as-built is available, businesses and system integrators alike can keep the as-built current when changes are made. And System Surveyor includes maintenance schedules and end-of-life estimates for many security devices, giving users a clearer sense of what’s needed when.
Next, the opportunity: increased complexity leads to an increased need for ongoing maintenance and updates, and this increased need can translate into more revenue for your business.
This modernization moment is the perfect time to introduce a long-term maintenance plan or relationship, where your business becomes more than a system design and implementation house. You become an on-call service provider — and you reap the monthly recurring revenue that comes with that added responsibility. Then, years down the road when a client needs a major rebuild, you’ve nurtured that relationship so that they don’t look for options; they come straight to you.
