Lead, Follow, or Get out of the way!
Posted by Dave Fowler on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 @ 02:32 PM
The first time I heard this saying it was relative to management style in a fast moving startup company. The basic message was...if you see a problem, take a leadership role and fix it, or team with other people to fix it. Doing nothing was not an option.
Some months back I was speaking with a number of corporate physical security professionals and technology supplier execs about the state of the Physical Security market and this saying leapt to mind. A common theme was the amount of money that was being spent to try and integrate and manage all the disparate security systems in their organizations. Over the last 4-5 years analysts say we have spent over $250B+ (yes ...billion) on technology for physical security yet often I hear that we have not substantially lowered the risk to our facilities, people or operations. Equally interesting, despite the application of all kinds of new and more effective networks and security technology to lower our risk and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our security, we continue to spend increasing amounts of money (growing at 3.5-5% per year) on hiring guards to augment the security technology (Lehman 2007 Security Industry Report).
While there are lots of reasons for this situation, one that stands out for me is our inability to intelligently integrate and leverage all the investments we have made in security assets. We can blame it on a lack of standards, or on unwillingness of vendors to open up their APIs, or the speed in which technology is changing, but at the end of the day we all know that "doing nothing about it" is a ticket to our own industry's version of a wall street meltdown.
It's not like we haven't been here before (love the double negative?). We went through this with networking, system management, data bases, and information security management. And in each case the leadership of a number of companies and organizations in providing innovative integration software and initiating standards efforts helped to stimulate not only the growth of the industry but the cost effectiveness of it as well. It's time for the Physical Security market to follow suit.
With the introduction of this site we are working towards a similar model. Bringing together industry experts and companies who have an interest in sharing information about the state of the state of the art in Physical Security Information Management (PSIM). PSIM is the industry term for integrating multiple disparate security devices and systems into an intelligent system that helps increase the security of an organization while lowering risk and improving operational effectiveness and efficiency.
If this is an area of interest for you I encourage you to get actively involved with the discussions on this site. Take a leadership role in directing the industry. At a minimum this site will offer a way to stay up to date on what likely is the fastest moving area of the physical security market. Given the speed of change we are facing maybe the right message is...
Lead, follow or become road kill.