Genetec, which sells only through channel partners, has made their flagship on-prem solution available as a SaaS offering for the first time, and is targeting it at the physical security industry.
Jennifer Elliott, Senior Director of Channel, Global, at Genetec
Genetec, a Montreal-based provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions, has launched Security Center SaaS, built for the physical security industry, to be sold through channel partners. It is a massively scalable, open, and unified SaaS solution that combines access control, video management, forensic search, intrusion monitoring, automation, and other advanced security capabilities.
“The company has been around for over 25 years, with the global HQ in Montreal, and other satellite offices in Quebec and across the world,” said Jennifer Elliott, Senior Director of Channel, Global, at Genetec. “We have always been focused on security but more recently have also focused on operations and intelligence.”
Elliott said that Genetec was the first to offer a security solution as a service, with Stratocast, a Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) solution.
“That was 10 to 12 years ago,” she stated. “It highlights our strength in physical security, which positions a lot of devices that capture data on the edge, and has you take the data and use them for more than just security. Now Security Center SaaS once again redefines the possibilities for cloud-based physical security.”
Elliott said that Genetec is not the only company that offers this type of solution, but she stressed that they do do it better.
“There are a number of players in security who offer solutions similar to this one, with things like video surveillance and access control as a service,” she stated. “Our new Security Centre SaaS is the first to be natively built across all those disciples. We also deliver them in a unified way. You don’t want to have to manage a lot of different integrations. Our solutions are designed natively from the ground up to be hardened and to be managed together.”
This is also the first time it has also been available as a SaaS offering.
“The on-prem solution has been our flagship for many years – but we have had pieces and parts available as a service. “Elliott said. “This is the first time we have brought them all together on a unified code base offered solely as a service.”
Security Center SaaS is ideally suited to meet the needs of customers in a wide range of verticals, including retail, education, corporate campuses, banking, healthcare, and cities, because of its abilities to centralize the monitoring and management of multiple sites, and to scale from low-density deployments up to thousands of sites and devices with hybrid storage and processing. Most of the customers are enterprise, however.
“Partners do consider us for the midmarket space as well,” Elliott said. “They need feature sets that are as sophisticated as enterprise, but they just don’t have the scale. We occasionally get an SMB customer, but it’s not common.”
The Go-to-Market model is channel-only.
“We work entirely through accredited network partners,” Elliott stated. “We do not sell direct, and have not for at least 15 years. We are a global business, strong around the world, and worldwide our partners are in the low four figures.. We do have some who address multiple markets.”
A few dozen of these are in Canada.
“They generally go to market as physical security integrators,” Elliott said. “Access control has a lot of safety implications.”
Looking ahead, Genetec has other changes on the horizon.
“In November last year, we started a beta for a new Web portal partner experience,” Elliott said. “We have an online store that is coming into the advanced nature of the 21st century. Our industry has been very legacy minded, but we are bringing a simplified experience. It will be able to get partners to move from design and quoting to delivering software in 10 minutes. That’s a substantial change. We aren’t looking to remove complexity, but to make things easier to deploy and provide templates. All this is coming to the fore with the delivery of this SaaS solution.”
Security Center SaaS is available globally in April 2024 from certified Genetec partners. It is offered in tiered subscription plans based on the number of device connections needed.
