“Our key focus area is the smart cities”
Sanjeev Gulati Country Manager, VIVOTEK speaks about key functional areas of VIVOTEK in the India perspective
Brief us about VIVOTEK’s presence in India.
VIVOTEK has been present in India for the past 10 years through distributors, but our direct operations here started in the year 2013, We started the India office in 2013 though as a channel based company; we still go to our market through our channel, mainly distributors and dealers. We have three major distributors in India namely Autocop, ATOS and Redington.
Can you elaborate on this channel GTM for Vivotek?
We go to market through our system integrators. Unlike electronic products, surveillance products need a number of complete service offerings. For example, camera itself is not a complete surveillance product; it requires a networking device, a recording device and then the display as well along with the remote units like mobile and handsets. We are only in the field of cameras, DVMS or the NVR, and not in the field of final handover because it requires an integration process. So the system integrator plays an important role here.
How many system integrators do you have? And what would be their profile?
Presently, we have 100+ system integrators in India including the small and the medium. This is a mixed bag including IT, Security and the other domain specific system integrators. Out of 100+ SIs, at least 40-45 belong to the IT domain. Predominantly though it is more a security domain with biggies like Honeywell, Siemens being good partners with us.
When IT surveillance came into picture, everyone started thinking IT SIs will play a major role. However, these security SIs made conscious efforts to learn and adapt the IT technologies faster and so they have come up in standing in front of the IT providers.
Tell us the rationale behind the partnership with TrendMicro.
The partnership with Trend Micro was inked because cyber security has become an important component in the surveillance domain. Surveillance system is getting hacked frequently; especially with few Chinese players whose systems got hacked recently. We are a very research oriented organization and being the manufacturers for cameras, we needed to deliver secure kind of surveillance solutions to the customers. The tie up with Trend Micro is one of the steps to bring in this cyber security
What is the role of CTDI in the Vivotek scheme of things?
CTDI is our service partner. Earlier we had a service provider called Autocop, who was our distributor for about eight to nine years as well. But in 2016 when we added two more distributors, there was a need of some dedicated neutral service centre and CTDI was identified as the same. We are now associated with CTDI for the past three months for now and they are providing the post sale services and the client related services.
Who are your main competitors in the surveillance space?
See there are more than 50-60 brands in the CCTV industry and everyone is targeting different sectors. Our market is mainly the smart city; otherwise, we are looking at big corporates, safe city, and intelligent traffic management and other surveillance which are specifically in the segments like highway, toll management, highway traffic management, automatic number plate recognition.
As far as large enterprises are concerned who are the customers?
We have supplied to Vodafone, to State bank of India for data centers and to a number of IT companies as well. We have a good breakthrough in diamond and other jewelery segments, Retail and diamond factories are using our camera to identify pilferages happening there.
How can you ensure the quality of the product?
We are in this industry from a very long time and we don’t have any analog system ever. We are manufacturing the IT camera since 18 years, I think the oldest from us is only Axis, as Axis has started from 1997.
What are the trends you can see in the adoption of surveillance there?
Adoption of surveillance system is going towards the IoT.. More intelligence will come up with camera soon and camera can able to talk to the other devices in the integration platform And you have touched with the security aspects earlier with camera. So that is also a big opportunity for the development of surveillance. More intelligent kind of a thing, more smart kind of the thing is in the anvil.
Which are the major customers where you have recently deployed?
The Kiran hospital which has opened 6 months back inaugurated by our PM in Surat is all secured with VIVOTEK cameras; around 800 cameras we have installed. The biggest one is J.W.Marriot; we have done four of them. I think in Bangalore, Mysore, Delhi and Kolkata. Kolkata was the new one.
What will be the key focus areas in future?
See the key focuses will be the smart cities and the intelligent traffic management again because those are the key areas for the government.