Part and parcel of our own 10th anniversary celebration, this Top 10 Special Report starts this month and will run over several issues of Hi-Tech Security Solutions, simply because there is so much information to digest, qualify and publish. This issue sees the publication of South Africa's first Top Security Brands survey.
Top Security Brands
'Brand' is a wholly misunderstood word, particularly in the business-to-business arena, where sophisticated research on the subject is lacking, and there is a general consensus that the impact of 'brands' is less than is the case in the consumer/retail market. Fast-moving-consumer-goods brand specialists talk about brand satisfaction (functions of price, quality, features, customer service and technical support), brand recognition, brand awareness and brand loyalty. And when you have a look at the results of Hi-Tech Security Solution's own Top Security Brands survey, I think you will appreciate just how important brands are in our own industry.
We think you will find a few surprises, as well as a few rankings that are less than surprising: would you believe that Honeywell, GE Security, Bosch and Siemens are perennial performers in the awareness stakes?
10 Most Influential
To drill down further into the significant players in the security industry, Hi-Tech will be publishing (next month) its list of the Top 10 Most Influential players in the security industry. This month, we introduce the concept using Datamonitor's own Computer Business Review 10 Most Influential in the areas of (logical) security, networking and storage. As these three areas are wholly influential in terms of the evolution of security technology, I think you will find CBR's comments of value.
Of course, there are many ways of slicing and dicing the technology industry into the winners and losers; the companies that should definitely be on a particular request for proposal, and those that should perhaps best be avoided. In the IT world Gartner does its via its famous Magic Quadrants, whilst Datamonitor publishes its own regular sector analyses, and there are many others too, each with their own particular goals and methodologies.
The HSS Top 10, for the most part (like its CBR counterparts), does not claim to use a strict, quantitative methodology. Ranking vendors strictly by their total sales, or by their estimated market share (another discipline entirely with its own challenges) is all very well, but that is not our main goal with this report. Besides, if anyone has either the resources or the commitment to research this information, do call me ... we have been asked for this (quantitative) information for the past 10 years, and have always had to say "sorry, but quantitative size-of-market data simply does not exist. There is too much paranoia in the industry and too little commitment to spend money on quality research to enable us to get it." Nothing has changed in that respect. But I live in hope that the momentum for such information is unstoppable. We will get there some day.
Back to the HSS 10 Most Influential. The HSS 10 Most Influential sets out to pick the most influential vendors in the key security categories on a far more subjective basis than quantitative analysis. This month sees us highlighting the effects of brand awareness! Next month we will focus on 10 Most Influential in the same sectors. For the last 10 years HSS has covered security industry news, day in and day out, in each of the industry's primary areas, so we will factor this experience into our selections. By definition then, the HSS 10 Most Influential will be subjective lists, but they are also just as valuable as many more error-prone quantitative sector analyses.
Methodology for Top Security Brands
So how did we come by the Top 10 lists we publish this month?
Well, aside from conducting research at Securex where we asked end-users (as most of our readers are, and certainly most Securex visitors are) to rank their favourite security brands (in the survey form, we listed dozens of CCTV, access control, alarms and other security brands, and end-users were asked to check the five brands that came to mind first), we also factored in our own thoughts, selecting vendors for the influence they have brought to bear on each sector through a combination of their technology prowess, market share, vision and even executive leadership.
Our list might rattle a few cages ... but hey, do not blame us ... blame your clients! They are the ones who told us what it is they think of the Top Security Brands. And the really astonishing aspect of the results ... is ... well, read on and find out for yourself.
You may not agree with all of our choices in this report, but I hope that you at least find it interesting and perhaps it will even spark some debate. Next month's 10 Most Influential will, likewise, provide some fascinating reading, and food for thought. As always, I very much welcome your feedback.
Sincerely,
Darren Smith
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