BUSINESSES globally, of any size or industry have learned many lessons from the pandemic. Processes like remote working, biometrics or even sustainability, which took the backseat before the pandemic found new importance during the lockdown. What’s driving the next innovations especially after the restrictions of COVID, along with the technology that supports them, has made the security industry more innovative and empowered.
An inaugural study by HID, a worldwide leader in trusted identity and physical security solutions, called State of the Security Industry Report, gathered responses from 2,700 partners, end users, and security and IT personnel across a range of titles and organization sizes representing over 11 industries reveals five common threads that are reshaping the security industry.
Sustainability is not just a trend. Nearly 90 percent of respondents acknowledge sustainability as an important issue with end users demanding that suppliers provide footprint transparency in terms of their operations, product sourcing and research and development practices. 87 percent of respondents said sustainability ranks as “important to extremely important,” indicating it is not just a passing trend.
Mirroring this finding, 76 percent said they have seen the importance of sustainability increasing for their customers. Today, security teams are leveraging the Cloud and the Internet of Things, even more, to optimize processes and reduce resources. Additionally, new products and solutions are being strategically developed to address sensible energy usage, waste reduction and resource optimization.
Identity “as-a-service” (IDaaS) to support hybrid work should not be an option but the standard. 81 percent of respondents have a hybrid work as part of their business model. Some 67 percent of respondents state that multifactor authentication and passwordless authentication are most important to adapting to hybrid and remote work, while 48 percent point to the importance of mobile and digital IDs. However, relative findings also reveals almost half of the organizations aren’t quite ready to implement a comprehensive IDaas strategy.
Digital for identification with mobile authentication to propel many more mobile access deployments. Identification and authentication are more commonly completed via mobile devices, including smartphones and wearables. The growing popularity of digital wallets from major players such as Google, Apple and Amazon is a key driver of this trend. And expanded capabilities allow smartphone users, for example, to add keys, IDs and digital documents directly in the wallet app. These include, but are not limited to, drivers’ licenses in eight states, verifiable COVID-19 vaccination information, employee badges, student IDs and hotel room keys. Commercial real estate companies (40 percent) are outpacing other verticals as large commercial real estate firms are leveraging mobile access as part of their larger tenant experience apps, according to the HID survey.
Nearly 60 percent of respondents see the benefit of contactless biometrics which represent a major break from more conventional means of access control. Using biometrics as an additional authenticating factor (e.g., biometric scans to verify an individual’s physical identity) can help organizations eliminate unauthorized access and fraud. The importance of this trend is exemplified in the survey data, which shows that 59 percent of respondents are currently using, planning to implement, or at least testing biometric technologies in the near future.
Supply chain issues continue to be a concerning factor, but optimism begin to emerge. According to the survey, 74 percent of respondents say they were impacted by supply chain issues in 2022, although 50 percent are optimistic that conditions will improve in 2023. Most affected are commercial real estate companies, with 78 percent citing supply chain problems as their main concern.
More than two-thirds of organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees indicate that they were highly impacted by supply chain issues in 2022, but they are also the most optimistic that these issues will resolve in 2023.
By better understanding the aforementioned topics, security professionals will be better prepared to adapt faster, deliver exceptional digital plus physical experiences, and capitalize on breakthrough innovations in solutions and services. Read the survey in its entirety here.
