Alfonso Mata tells us about the challenges faced by the industry
“Our society is in continuous change and the states resulting from such changes last less and less… until new changes occur. This will become more evident with the revolution that the introduction of artificial intelligence is already bringing to many areas of society and, in particular, to the security sector”. Alfonso Mata González, General Manager of SCATI
To begin with, what do you think are the fundamental premises that a security company must currently follow in order to adapt to the new needs?
Without a doubt: active listening to our customers. To adapt to change you need to know what the customer needs. There is a lot of competition in the video surveillance market, but there are not many companies like SCATI that are able to customize solutions and adapt them to change. Therefore, the key is to be able to actively listen to customers, to understand what their problems are in order to adapt the technology to their needs.
Secondly: developing own technology. We are developers and we do not depend on anyone to be able to provide these customized solutions to our customers. In short, trying to understand what you need and being able to put it into practice is a fundamental value in adapting to technological change.
And the third element, focused within the video surveillance and security chapter, especially in video, is to be able to offer a complete solution. That is, from end to end: from the cameras to the application used to operate the system, through all the intermediate elements that exist: recorders, management servers, all types of analytics, license plate readings, facial recognition…
Concepts such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data… how do you think they will affect and what implementation will they develop in the fields of security in the coming years?
These are technologies that are already in place. The clearest application in the security world, and the one in which we are specialists, is to analyze the video to extract information and data. Artificial Intelligence is a novel mechanism to perform these analytics, extracting, as I pointed out, information with increasingly interesting applications such as the classification of people or objects.
Being able to offer a security manager an investigation tool to locate in video images “people with a red sweater or a certain yellow car” is possible with these tools thanks to algorithms.
Today this is key, and many of our customers are already asking us for this type of application. In addition, there are others that are also booming, such as the reading of QR codes through cameras. These new solutions are aimed at extracting information and being able to trace the supply chain.
Where is security technology heading? what will set the trend in the video surveillance sector in the coming years?
Technology is moving towards digitization, hyperconnectivity and process automation to gain speed and efficiency. This issue, added to the artificial intelligence we mentioned earlier, is a differentiating point in the solutions, as it adds value to our customers’ businesses.
We are facing an increasingly competitive and demanding market, where the incorporation of AI and Big Data will be the key to make the difference against the competition in the sector.
How do you foresee SCATI evolving over this decade to adapt to society’s new security needs?
SCATI is a company that has always been characterized by its ability to adapt to the needs of its customers. Users are becoming increasingly demanding and require comprehensive, comprehensive solutions with a higher level of customization.
SCATI’s evolution will always be in tune with that of its customers, providing more and more products in the field of electronic security, beyond video surveillance and even beyond security. And the recipe for doing this will be the same that is in the company’s DNA: proprietary technology, flexibility and maximum care in the pre-sale, execution and post-sale of the projects. In this way, we provide integral services, evolving from a video products company to a company that develops and commercializes technological products and services in the field of security and the application of technology for the automation and control of critical business processes.
No one knows what new disruptions will emerge in the next ten years, but SCATI will always have its customers at the center of its activities., to be a technology partner to guarantee investments in security technology, addressing the challenges imposed by technologies that we cannot even guess at today, new corporate policies or new regulations that will undoubtedly appear to humanize the artificial intelligence applications of the next decade.
“Our main objective is to continue to consolidate our position in the markets and verticals in which we operate.”
What is the company’s business strategy for the coming years?
Our main objective is to consolidate our position in the markets and verticals in which we have a strong presence: Europe, the Middle East and Latin America. At the sector level, we will continue to focus on offering customized, high-value solutions for banking, logistics and critical infrastructure.
Our goal is to continue offering technological solutions and to provide more complete services.
We are also developing our activity in other markets such as Southeast Asia and creating other business areas to expand our portfolio of solutions. We have recently created a new division oriented to the development of our own Access Control and Systems Integration solutions. With this leap, we seek growth within the aforementioned markets, in addition to positioning ourselves as a benchmark in the development and commercialization of technological products and services in the field of security and the application of technology for the automation and control of critical business processes.