New construction has continued to grow as a result of low interest rates in 2016 and that has positively impacted the security marketplace. Yet the limited availability of skilled labour is becoming a large issue as it leads to higher cost of labour. This also creates a challenge in recruiting, training, and retraining a capable staff in building construction and maintenance activities. As a result, there is a continued desire to improve our efficiency in production, commissioning and the management of buildings.
Security convergence and integration
One accelerating trend is that ownership and management stakeholders of physical and logical security continue to converge. Other developing trends are that cyber security is a topic of increased discussion and concern for those in physical security, and there is an increasing demand for sites to manage more assets, in a smaller space, with a lower budget. Finally, the growing volume of integrated, networked architectural hardware solutions is increasing the need to manage mechanical and electronic competencies.
Comprehensive mechanical and electronic security
Looking ahead to 2017, the increase in construction and utility costs will place further stress on both acquisition and operating costs. The increased breadth of disciplines participating as stakeholders or decision makers in access control will be another growing trend. The final trend we expect to see is that there is a growing end user request for integrated experiences within the environments where they live, work, and learn. As a result, the “winners” in 2017 will be those who position themselves to coordinate comprehensive mechanical and electronic needs as well as those who are capable of articulating value proposition to their stakeholders.
Looking ahead at Allegion
In 2016, we at Allegion continued to takes steps in helping end users utilise a greater blend of electronics credentials and solutions to solve needs more effectively than mechanical products alone. Another success for us was the development and delivery of solutions that helped accelerate the adoption of electronics further within environments, most notably, electronic locks and credentials.
Looking forward to 2017, we plan to continue to grow our collaboration with Access Control Software providers and other third parties to help deliver a range of flexible integrated solutions that serve the current and future needs of customers. As it stands, Allegion has more than 50 Alliance Program partners with which we collaborate.
See the full coverage of 2016/2017 Review and Forecast articles here
