The security landscape is constantly evolving, with organisations forever adopting new technologies and altering strategies for prime optimisation. Here, Gustavo Gassman, Vice President & Head of Emerging Markets, HID, offers his thoughts about the latest emerging trends businesses will be embracing in 2023.
The last few years have challenged the status quo more than any other time in recent history. The pandemic influenced nearly every aspect of our world, including the need to quickly adapt to a touchless and socially distanced environment. This new landscape introduced an interesting paradigm — on one hand, there was an increased demand for new technologies to support remote working at scale, while on the other, the same demand created shortages for the very technologies needed to address these challenges.
And so, the security industry as we know it had to adapt quickly and seamlessly.
Given this scenario, there is an invaluable advantage in better understanding what’s driving the next innovations and the technology that supports them.
With more than 30 years of experience, HID was in a unique position to gather perspectives from security professionals about the topics they are most concerned about addressing in 2023. Our survey revealed five common themes.
- Sustainability is important to businesses
End users are increasingly demanding that suppliers provide footprint transparency in terms of their operations, product sourcing and research and development practices. Respondents are saying that sustainability is important or extremely important.
To support this growing demand, security teams are leveraging the cloud and the Internet of Things, even more, to optimise processes and reduce resources. Additionally, new products and solutions are being strategically developed to address sensible energy usage, waste reduction and resource optimisation.
Key Considerations
- Develop a roadmap – Sustainability programmes require an actionable roadmap with defined objectives and goals, projects and plans. Spend time understanding your customers’ sustainability goals to ensure your strategy aligns with their expectations and vice versa.
- Plan for ESG metrics – While almost every manufacturer has waste, recycling and disposal plans, leading organisations also have a robust procurement and product development blueprint that incorporates reporting of that data, such as greenhouse gas emissions and regulatory compliance.
- Favour sustainably minded suppliers – Identify and work with suppliers who demonstrate sustainability efforts in their organisations. This creates a sustainability component within the full value chain and helps you communicate sustainability KPIs and ROI.
- Hybrid work is here to stay
The majority of survey respondents are offering a hybrid work model. With that, Multi-Factor Authentication and passwordless authentication have become important in adapting to hybrid and remote work. Mobile and digital IDs are also growing trends.
Key considerations:
- Integrate physical and logical infrastructure – Security and IT teams must join forces to successfully integrate identity and access management tools with physical security devices.
- Establish a Zero Trust framework – As organisations continue to demand SaaS-delivered identities that work as one for physical and logical access, there will be greater involvement of security and risk leaders in defining access policies for all users.
- Break out of silos – Collaboration between IT and security will become increasingly important as IDaaS brings new form factors and capabilities with the cloud and on-premises authentication and management systems.
- More people and organisations will likely embrace digital IDs and authentication
Identification and authentication are more commonly completed via mobile devices, including smartphones and wearables. The growing popularity of digital wallets from major players is a key driver of this trend. And expanded capabilities allow smartphone users, for example, to add keys, IDs and digital documents directly in the wallet app. These include, but are not limited to, driver’s licenses in eight states, verifiable COVID-19 vaccination information, employee badges, student IDs and hotel room keys.
Key considerations:
- Place the user and privacy first – Users are demanding digital identities, although many organisations must find ways to reconcile physical ID policies that prove who employees are and where they should be – such as wearing a photo ID on their person – and the push for mobile credentials. Digital IDs also carry personal data, which means issuing institutions must be able to speak to how data is stored when privacy concerns are raised.
- Remove barriers to entry – Digital identification provides a significant opportunity for value creation, and digital servitisation will play a vital role as suppliers begin to organise around service models and service-led growth. Especially compelling for the security industry is the potential for a more seamless end-user experience by minimising friction points. End users who embrace mobile wallets in a mobile ecosystem will be ready and willing to leverage the same applications for identity verification, such as digital driver’s licenses and corporate credentials.
- The industry embraces contactless biometrics to eliminate fraud
Biometric technologies represent a major break from more conventional means of access control. Using biometrics as an additional authenticating factor (e.g., biometric scans to verify an individual’s physical identity) can help organisations eliminate unauthorised access and fraud. The use of biometric technologies will likely grow shortly, according to the survey.
Key considerations:
- Adopt privacy and data protection; know the law – End-to-end encryption will reinforce the already strong privacy protection of using a biometric in Multi-Factor Authentication. And while the organisations that gather biometric data are primarily responsible for protecting it, users should be provided with the knowledge needed to protect their biometric data. Finally, regulations and compliance regularly change, so it’s important to stay informed of the law and related timelines.
- Understand and prepare for the challenges – Objections to biometric use are largely based on perception and the public concern that an identity tied to physical characteristics could lead to some form of surveillance. At the same time, the public has largely accepted biometrics, especially in the case of fingerprint and facial recognition as a means of unlocking a smartphone or authenticating a bank account. The convenience factor has largely outweighed the concerns, but organisations should recognise and be ready to address user hesitations as they emerge.
5. Optimism around supply chain constraints begins to emerge
Supply chain issues impacted many security organisations in 2022, although there is optimism that conditions will improve in 2023. Small companies, those with fewer than 1,000 employees, were highly impacted.
Key considerations:
- Think globally, act locally – Look for suppliers who have a global strength but a local presence. These organisations have more reach and can help you in regionally specific ways thanks to their proximity to those markets.
- Be flexible; get creative – If what you’re initially looking for isn’t available, there may be a competent alternative that meets your needs, even if you haven’t heard of it.
- Rely on data, communication and patience – Data and analytics can be used to better predict buying patterns and support forecasting, as well as help you to identify underlying drivers that provide better visibility into needs and lead times. Keep an open dialogue with your partners and suppliers, who can help you understand your options and make sure you are the first to know as the environment changes. Most of all, be patient.
By better understanding the aforementioned topics, security professionals will be better prepared to adapt faster, deliver exceptional digital and physical experiences, and capitalise on breakthrough innovations in solutions and services.
Click below to share this article