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Industry CEOs Comments on 2017 at a Glance

2017 witnessed various ups and downs across business communities in India, including Private Security Industry, in pursuance of multiple reforming policy and regulatory initiatives taken by the Government of India. While calls for Make in India, Digital India and Skill India, Safe City and Smart Cities, and other critical infrastructure development projects have opened far-reaching opportunities for the industry to flourish, demonetization and implementation of GST have been ordered to keep a hold on the unaccounted transactions, corruption, and other malpractices during business deals.

The private security industry is one of the fastest growing business of the country which has been growing at the rate of more that 20% in recent past, much higher than the global growth rate, and various reports suggest that it would continue to grow at the similar rate.

When the year is now heading to close, SecurityLink India spoke to some eminent players of the Indian Security Industry to find the actual experiences they have been through. Here are some excerpts:


  Sanjeev Sehgal, Founder & Managing Director, SPARSH


SecurityLink India: About six months on, what is your take on GST and the implementation thereof for you and the security industry at large?
Sanjeev Sehgal: Today, there are less complexities when we sell products from one state to the other; now we don’t have to pay multiple taxes like CST, Entry Tax, Octroi etc. This would certainly be helpful in expanding market nationally. Things have become less complicated now.

However, the biggest challenge which GST has offered is the payment of GST at the time of removal of stocks from the factory, even in the case of branch transfers. It is adding pressure on working capital requirements, which is always a major issue for manufacturers.

GST is turning India into one common market, leading to greater ease of doing business and big savings in logistics costs.

SecurityLink India: How has the ‘Make in India’ call impacted you and the entire security industry so far?
Sanjeev Sehgal: The ‘Make in India’ initiative gives distributors in security systems a platform to reach out to people through an organized method. Since its launch, the Make in India initiative has started showing results. Increased production outputs and growing FDI into India are seen as a result of the initiative. IP video surveillance and CCTV are quickly becoming the norm in public spaces. With the security industry slated to grow to a INR 80,000 crore industry by the year 2020, the ‘Make in India’ initiative has already given this industry a major boost towards that direction.

SecurityLink India: Kindly name and give a brief about the products and solutions that you floated during 2017.
Sanjeev Sehgal: The security market is experiencing an upward trend in upcoming technologies. We at Sparsh have successfully introduced contemporary trends in the surveillance market with Cloud surveillance. We have recently introduced an Indian cloud computing platform, developed indigenously in India. Remote monitoring, Wi-Fi integrated solutions and customized solutions for specific verticals are some of the upcoming technologies in the security solutions market developed by Sparsh. These aid in solutions such as ANPR, critical infrastructure, border security etc.

SecurityLink India: Which are the major projects you accomplished this year?
Sanjeev Sehgal: This year we have bagged some prestigious projects such as Delhi schools, FCI, CISF etc.

SecurityLink India: What are your plans for the new year?
Sanjeev Sehgal: In the forthcoming years, we would like to take the idea of ‘Made in India’ and ‘Make in India’ to a global platform as a leading CCTV manufacturer of India. Sparsh as a brand will target Government, Safe City, Smart City and SMB market and which is the large and sizable business opportunity for us. In the Union Budget, there were many provisions for ‘Make in India.’ We are benefited by such initiatives as an indigenous Indian manufacturing company and brand.

Smart Home solution will be another area we would be targeting for growth. In the near future we have plans to launch many new products in this space.

 


Robbin Shen, Director, India & SAARC, Dahua Technology


SecurityLink India: How would you rate this year for you in terms of business opportunities and procurements in India?
Robbin Shen: 2017 has been a successful year for Dahua as our security products and solutions have been well received and accepted in the market for their intrinsic strengths such as high quality, durability, reliability, and the capacity to function in all weather conditions. Thus we can claim it has been an excellent year for us.

 

SecurityLink India: India has jumped 30 places to 100 in the World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’ Index. What does your wide-ranging experience in security industry suggest?
Robbin Shen: The current Government of India has taken a number of industry-friendly measures such as Smart Cities, Safe Cities, Digital India, and recently the implementation of GST. They have certainly made favorable impact on the prospect and ease of doing business environment in the country, albeit, it has yet to go a long way at the regional and local levels.

India has enormous potential and it will become a major market for us.

SecurityLink India: About six months on, what is your take on GST and the implementation thereof for you and the security industry at large?
Robbin Shen: We welcome the GST initiative taken by the Indian Government. It has reduced the prices of many security items from 28 percent to 18 per cent. There are suggestions to reduce the rate further which, if implemented, will be a boon to all the stakeholders from manufacturers to customers. As prices decline affordability increases, and that makes more people to install security devices to safeguard their lives and properties.

SecurityLink India: Kindly name and give a brief about the products and solutions that you floated during 2017.
Robbin Shen: We have launched a number of security products, solutions and latest technologies – mainly Extended Power over Ethernet Devices or ePoE including network cameras, switches and network recorders. The Dahua ePoE IP system supports upto 800 meters distance between the ePoE cameras and ePoE network switch or ePoE NVR with embedded switch. It overcomes the limitation of the Ethernet and PoE tradition as both restrict the distance to 100 meters between network ports.

We have also launched Thermal mini hybrid bullet cameras, Bluetoooth cylinder smart lock, cost effective attendance machine, security oriented POE switch, and HDCVI 4.0 by deploying signal modulation mechanism and noise reduction technique.

SecurityLink India: Are you participating in IFSEC India this year? What has been your experience of participating similar forums in terms of achieving the business goal?

Robbin Shen: Yes, we are participating in IFSEC in a big way this year. We will be launching the latest technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security and Machine Vision at the exhibition.

We always believe in participating in such essential forums and our experience so far has been excellent and quite rewarding. They highly contribute toward our business opportunities as we come across numerous decision makers, opinion holders, security professionals, and prospective clients and customers.

SecurityLink India: How do you compare going to market through forums like IFSEC vis-à-vis your internal road shows in terms of ROI and accomplishing business targets?
Robbin Shen: Both are very important and both contribute in their own ways. While forums like IFSEC bring our target audience under one roof, road shows offer us to reach out to target audience. In terms of RoI both require creation of awareness among target audience.

SecurityLink India: Kindly share a brief about the best moment for your company during 2017?
Robbin Shen: Our recent four week long ‘Security Week’ initiative for brand promotion in 45 star partner offices across 21 cities in India, in association with our national distributor M/s Aditya Infotech Ltd., have received tremendous response from the market, and I believe that has been the best and unforgettable moment and experience for us so far. The campaign has been a huge success.


Milind Borkar, Vice President of Sales ME, Africa and SAARC, Infinova


SecurityLink India: How would you rate this year for you in terms of business opportunities and procurements in India?
Milind Borkar: Infinova is primarily focused on critical infrastructure projects like city surveillance, airports, metros, railways, highways, oil& gas industries and so on. Fortunately, 2017 has so far been a promising year for us where we have managed to close quite a few critical projects such as Hyderabad Community CCTV project, Vizag Smart City, Nagpur, Baroda Eye, domestic and international airports with Infinova cameras and software, IOCL, NTPC, SHAR etc. We expect to maintain this growth rate in 2018 as well.

SecurityLink India: India has jumped a massive 30 places to 100 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. What does your wide-ranging experience in security industry suggest?
Milind Borkar: The government is taking efforts to schedule and complete projects on time. It is also welcoming foreign direct investment which would help in building the infrastructure and technology strength in India, and thus creating more employment in the country. In addition, since the government is encouraging Make in India concept, several organizations are revisiting their strategy for India. Infinova has also capitalized the opportunity and setup a 8000sq.ft. large manufacturing and assembly setup at Pune. This has benefitted our customers a lot as they can now take the advantage of quick delivery periods, price advantage and faster turn-around time for resolving issues.

SecurityLink India: About six months on, what is your take on GST and the implementation thereof for you and the security industry at large?
Milind Borkar: The impact has been moderate to minimal on the security industry, specifically when we talk of mid to large size projects where initially customers used to shell off lots of money on importing products through CVD, SAD, VAT and so on. Today, the customer stands to a bit of benefit through GST implementation, while all the above-mentioned taxes have been called off.

SecurityLink India: How has the ‘Make in India’ call impacted you and the entire security industry so far?
Milind Borkar: To cater to the growing demand for surveillance products in critical infrastructure projects, Infinova has expanded operations and we have setup an 8000sq.ft large manufacturing and assembly setup at Pune. This facility will be a local unit for all major products sold in India. This is a major leap towards Make in India Movement. Infinova has also setup a large facility space at Hyderabad, which not only caters as a large warehouse facility, but also to fulfil all the service support expansion requirements. This facility is catering to all major projects in South India including Hyderabad City Surveillance and Hyderabad Community CCTV projects.

Infinova will also soon host the product software R&D center in India. This will enable us in serving our customers more efficiently by means of quick customizations, firmware development, product improvement etc.

SecurityLink India: Kindly name and give a brief about the products and solutions that you floated during 2017.
Milind Borkar: We have sold a number of 2MP box cameras, 4MP motorized bullet cameras, 2MP minidome cameras, 2MP PTZ dome cameras, 2MP PTZ dome IR cameras, explosion proof cameras, and video management software. All our cameras are ONVIF certified and possess leading industry certifications. Almost all are enabled with H.265 compression, excellent night vision clarity with high sensitivity. The cameras have built-in HLC, High WDR and Smart IR features. Most of our cameras are also embedded with intelligent functions such as wire cross detection, regional invasion detection, defocus detection, field of view change detection etc. Our explosion proof cameras are IECEX and CCOE approved which becomes important criteria for acceptance into industrial projects. Infinova video management software V2217 has a simple and intuitive GUI, and is loaded with several key features such as multi-lingual dashboard customized with support for more than 50 different languages, and support for several camera brands and types such as HD, 360-degree, Ex-proof, thermal etc. The software is also integrated with several different sub-systems such as access control systems, fire alarm systems, perimeter detection systems, intrusion detection systems, and so on.

SecurityLink India: Which are the major projects you accomplished this year?

Milind Borkar: Hyderabad Community CCTV Project, Vizag Smart City, Nagpur City Project, Baroda Smart City Project, AAI projects, IOCL Delhi, IOCL- DSO HSO, WBSO etc.

SecurityLink India: Kindly share a brief about the best moment for your company during 2017?

Milind Borkar: There are a number of moments that were worth celebrating for Infinova this year. The most recently Dr. Jeffrey Liu, Founder and Chairman of Infinova has been honored with the Gold Shield Award by the Global Security Industry Alliance (GSIA) – one of the most celebrated awards in the security industry. It recognizes Dr. Liu’s vision and contributions in building and expanding Infinova over more than 20 years.

Infinova was also selected as a Smart City Project Recommended Brand by the GSIA, and it also received the Golden Tripod Award for its facial recognition and analysis platform and VS210-P series facial recognition camera. Besides, our V8582-T2 Series has been acclaimed as the Most Innovative Product of the Year by the Secona Shield Award.

Our winning the largest face recognition projects in the world-Shanghai FR project, with about 4000 cameras protecting two million residents within nearly 1000 communities in Shanghai, was another celebratory moment for us.


Ashish P. Dhakan, MD & CEO, Hikvision


SecurityLink India: How would you rate this year for you in terms of business opportunities and procurements in India?

Ashish Dhakan: The year turned out to be a great year for Hikvision in terms of growth and expansion. We are grateful for the overwhelming support from the partners, dealers, distributors and system integrators. Today, Prama Hikvision India’s consistent success is a part of Indian security market growth story.

SecurityLink India: How far are you from the set target of business for FY 2017-18?

Ashish Dhakan: We have performed much more than the target set for the financial year 2017-18. Prama Hikvision India has established an impeccable trust and reputation among security industry professionals in India. The collaborative success achieved by Prama Hikvision in the Indian security market belongs to Hikvision team and their partners. This year Hikvision has experienced exponential growth in the security and surveillance business in India.

SecurityLink India: India has jumped a massive 30 places to 100 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index. What does your wide-ranging experience in security industry suggest?
Ashish Dhakan: There are many indicators like World Bank S&P (Standard & Poor’s), Moody’s etc., which reaffirms our faith in India’s robust economy. The awareness about security products and solutions is growing in the country day by day. Global terrorism related incidents and emerging local threats have created a demand for robust security solutions. All stakeholders have taken strong initiatives to implement the security solution across verticals. In the Indian security market, many big-ticket security projects are getting implemented by the government, private and public-sector companies. Due to enhanced threat perception, end-users are coming forward and planning to have comprehensive security solutions (video surveillance, access control and intrusion) for securing their applications, operations, establishments and enterprises.

We are getting great response from the dealers, distributors, system integrators and end-users for Hikvision’s latest solutions from the market. Today, Hikvision has the largest market share in the Indian video surveillance equipment market.

India is one of the fastest growing markets for security products and solutions across the globe. The Indian security market is currently moving towards a mature stage. In the next 10 years, India’s security market will experience a boom like never before. The government’s smart city mission and digital India initiative are creating new opportunities for the security Industry.

SecurityLink India: About six months on, what is your take on GST and the implementation thereof for you and the security industry at large? What are your suggestions for the enhancement?

Ashish Dhakan: GST being a new indirect tax reform has brought a complete revolution in the Indian economy. Under GST, India has become a common marketplace and it reduces operational cost. It will further lead to reduction in logistics & operational cost of many products and services.

The government has set the ball rolling by implementing path breaking reforms like GST (Goods and Service Tax) and demonetization. After initial teething troubles both of these reforms have been accepted by the market. There are some course corrections (GST rate & compliance adjustments), which are underway as per the market feedback.

The best options for taxation and import duties are often discussed by industry bodies and associations. To be modest, a 5% GST slab coupled with reasonable import duty can be expected from the government for the speedy growth of the Indian security industry.

SecurityLink India: How has the ‘Make in India’ call impacted you and the entire security industry so far?
Ashish Dhakan: We appreciate the vision of our Honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ program. To enable ‘Make in India’ program to fire the engine of growth and jobs, some basic structural shifts now need to be made as per industry specific requirements. The program should help an ecosystem built through attractive taxation, talent pool development and university collaboration.

SecurityLink India: Kindly name and give a brief about the products and solutions that Hikvision floated during 2017.
Ashish Dhakan: Our latest product launches include the world’s first Deep Learning ‘DeepinMind’ NVRs with a new series of IP cameras. The new ‘DeepinView’ IP camera series delivers the power and intelligence to boost the value of surveillance system performance across a broad range of security and management applications.

Critical analytics such as false alarm filters, facial recognition, people counting and ANPR can now be reliably implemented in existing and new surveillance systems with versatile applications, providing a sophisticated level of tracking and alarm activation during incidents or even for pre-incident alerts.

The latest range of Hikvision cameras offers great value in terms of ease of use, quick installation and competitive pricing. Their specialty is inbuilt hardware function. Even the basic entry level Hikvision CCTV camera has video analytics functions like line crossing, object left, WDR etc.

SecurityLink India: Which are the major projects you accomplished this year?

Ashish Dhakan: Our vertical solutions team has made a significant benchmark in the industry specific solutions. Some of the key verticals that are creating a splash in the market by implementing Hikvision solutions are smart cities, city surveillance, transport, education, pharma, healthcare, banking, hospitality, and so on.

Hikvision’s solutions for transportation sector are getting good response from the end-users in India. Some of the significant railway projects implemented by Hikvision are Integral Coach Factory and Modern Coach Factory, Railway Coaches and Western Railway (CCTV in Ladies Coaches in Mumbai Local Trains). In the public transport segment we spearheaded Haryana State Road Transport, Naya Raipur BRTS and Jabalpur City Bus Service. We have developed and implemented a special solution of vehicle mounted PTZ for Karnataka state and Assam Police patrolling vehicles.

Recently, Hikvision has provided a comprehensive security solution for VIBGYOR Group to safeguard their students and schools in 25 locations spread in seven cities including Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur, Vadodara, Surat, Bengaluru and Lucknow, which is by far one of the largest surveillance and security solution projects in the education sector in India.

SecurityLink India: Are you participating in IFSEC India this year? What has been your experience of participating similar forums in terms of achieving the business goal?
Ashish Dhakan: IFSEC is one of the most coveted exhibitions related to the security Industry in India. We are participating in it with unabated interest to showcase Hikvision’s latest products and innovative technologies (Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, AI Cloud, Big Data & IoT).

This year, we are premiering whole new range of vertical specific solutions including smart city solution, intelligent traffic solution, mobile solution, education solution, retail solution, PPOG solution and banking solution. We have plans to display the latest products in following categories which are Turbo HD 4.0, Easy IP 3.0, Intelligent Storage, EZVIZ Series IP Cameras, UAV + Jammer, UVSS, VDP Solutions, ACS, Hikvision Alarm Solution (Pyronix), Cloud Storage, Robotics, Specialized Products, DarkFighterX and Face recognition.

SecurityLink India: How do you compare going to market through forums like IFSEC vis-à-vis your internal road shows in terms of ROI and accomplishing business targets?
Ashish Dhakan: There is no comparison between IFSEC and Roadshows. Both of these are two unique platforms with different business objectives. The ROI should be the benchmark for measuring them, but there are different set of challenges in each case.

SecurityLink India: Kindly share a brief about the best moment for your company during 2017?
Ashish Dhakan: The best moments were when Hikvision was placed in No. 1 position by IHS Markit Report and a&smag Security 50 Rakings. IHS Markit named Hikvision as the world’s leading supplier of video surveillance products and solutions. According to IHS report based on 2016 data, Hikvision has the market share of 21.4 percent for CCTV and video surveillance equipment market worldwide.

SecurityLink India: What are your plans for the New Year?
Ashish Dhakan: We are launching AI-powered technologies in the Indian market. Continuing to solve real-world challenges and create value for end users in multiple vertical industries, this advanced technology will be helpful in three main areas which include Edge Computing, Cloud Services Integration, and Industry Applications.

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