Page 31 - Security Today, March 2019

then because of the steadily increasing costs, started looking for a more economical way to support the deployment, maintenance and operation of those systems. The company that recognized the oppor- tunity presented by the desire for companies to control their IT costs was Electronic Data Systems (EDS), which owned the lion share of the market for a very long time and led to the creation of the category of services commonly referred to as “outsourcing.”
By 1980, the outsourcing model was being used in other in- dustries. For example, a Design, Build, Own, Operate, Maintain (DBOOM) contracting model was being used by energy services companies (ESCO) to provide measurable savings and advantages to government and business clients at every stage of their energy effi- ciency projects. Specifically, the value proposition for using this con- tract model is described by the following operational elements:
• Design: Drawing only from best-in-class energy infrastructure components without supplier bias, ESCOs can tailor a solution to
maximize efficiency or to manage development costs.
• Build: ESCOs can partner with local contractors to complete a project or recruit internationally renowned experts to oversee con-
struction, retrofitting or installation.
• Own: Clients can take control of the new facility or let the ESCO
run it and manage energy delivery.
• Operate and Maintain (O&M): ESCOs can train existing staff to
run on-site systems, take on all O&M responsibilities or recruit new staff to operate and maintain energy infrastructure.
The companies that deployed this model differentiated themselves
from vendors that pushed specific solutions, limited contractor choic- es or required long-term contracts. The DBOOM enabled ESCO pro- vided vendor independence and complete freedom of choice as well as measurable costs.
Slow to Adopt
So far, when it comes to systems and their components, the physical security industry has been slow to adopt the outsourcing model even though they led the creation of one of the largest “outsourced” mar- kets in the United States, the $64+ billion uniformed guard services. The primary cause of this slow adoption rate is the lack of vendors who have the resources needed to support an outsourcing model. Ad- ditionally, the security market has a culture of risk aversion that is compounding the slow adoption rate.
Finally, the need to control the costs within the physical security space has been accentuated by the risk from cyber-attacks. The in- dustry has become increasingly aware of the vulnerabilities that the physical security devices/systems pose to the security of the corpo- rate networks. Chief Security Officers (CSO) are finding themselves stuck in between knowing they need the physical security systems and the awareness that those same systems may lead to a serious security breach. We call this the “Insecurity of Security.”
Faster, Better, Cheaper
The convergence of CSOs and CISOs wanting to reduce the direct costs and the indirect costs while mitigating the vulnerabilities of their systems is a watershed moment within the security industry that taken together will outweigh the individual concerns that prevented them from outsourcing the deployment, maintenance and operation of their security systems.
The scorecard for delivering a fully hosted suite of consulting, technology, and professional services, or IaaS, will include the ability to create a collaborative ecosystem of platform providers, applica- tion software vendors, and hardware vendors. Initially, the technol- ogy services will include access control, video management, visitor management and critical communications. However, “infrastructure” refers to some or all of the security technology infrastructure as well as the management, maintenance, metrics and reporting needed to fully leverage the investment. This can only be delivered by a SOC and NOC provider with a depth of integration and managed services pedigree as well as the consulting services to create and manage the program from the perspective of the CSO.
Back to the Future
The underlining business model of IaaS is not a new one. Uber, VRBO, Airbnb, Wag and many others have been successfully lever- aging a model commonly referred to as a “sharing economy.” The concept of a sharing economy has been morphing since it first ap- peared in the U.S. around 2014 and still today, no one can agree on a definition. At its core, the concept takes advantage of a trend where consumers don’t want to “own” something like a car, vacation home, bicycle or an electric scooter, and would rather just purchase the ser-
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