Ahish P. Dhakan MD & CEO
Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd.
Hikvision India is one of the leading video security solution providers in India. In addition to the security industry, the company extends its reach to Smart Home Products and Solutions, Industrial Automation, and Robotics to achieve its expansion plan. The endeavour is to provide superior pre-sales and post-sales service through collaboration with local distributors and its allied partners.
Driven by the ‘Make-in-India’ vision, the company manufactures a wide range of video security products at its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility near Mumbai. Building on innovation and research and development initiatives, Hikvision India is committed to provide best quality products with agile technical support through its Pan India branches and employees.
Recently, SecurityLinkIndia had an opportunity to speak to Ashish P. Dhakan, MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd. in length, here are some excerpts:
Where do you see the security industry is heading in India?
We as one of the leading stakeholders in the Indian physical security market are driving the AIoT product innovations and solutions. We are offering myriad solutions based on the top technology trends that are shaping the future of the security industry. These are AI enabled applications, AIoT technology and multi-dimensional perception capabilities. The cloud computing and cloud based security services are experiencing good growth in the Indian security market. Developments and applications of cutting-edge technologies in this ever-evolving industry such as AI, machine perception, and IoT, are breaking boundaries.
We have seen security systems become deeply integrated and more comprehensive. It is expanding capabilities to do more intelligent tasks to improve efficiency in security as well as other operational functions. And all this is happening across many different industries and types of organizations. Hikvision India is experiencing a good growth, while metro cities are the key markets for the advanced AIoT technology driven security products. In the meanwhile Tier-II and Tier-III cities are the emerging markets, they hold big potential for the growth and expansion.
How do you find the security market today in India, and what are your strategies to stay ahead in competition?
Indian security market continues to be the most lucrative market for products and solutions. The market is brimming with huge opportunities as Indian economy is soaring to new heights. The regional supply chain complexities, policy frame work and price sensitivity continue to be some of the challenges.
In the Indian scenario the fastest growing verticals are Homeland Security, Banking Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) and Real Estate. The other key vertical markets like retail, education, transportation, heavy industries, manufacturing and hospitality, are also experiencing growth due to increased demand for security solutions.
We continue to bank on customer centric approach and ecosystem partners in the wake of growing competition.
What are the key security technology trends that are defining the future of the India security industry?
The latest security technology trends are driven by the AIoT technology and diverse applications developed around it. The key trends are as follows:
AI applications and open ecosystems
We have seen more diversified AI products and applications that help solve intricate problems daily and meet customers’ fragmented needs. AI’s acoustic and textual capabilities are also being explored by the industry, beginning with visual AI. For example, AI-powered audio anomaly detection is being used to detect equipment failures in industrial environments for heightened levels of worker safety. Furthermore, AI technology itself is evolving to the stage of self-learning with training and optimizing itself much faster than supervised learning.
All of these require more ecosystems with open technologies, open resources, and even open protocols, for collaborations in the industry. Open technologies, such as container technology and virtualization technology, have significant potential for our industry, which are making hardware products more open.
AIoT Trends continue
Taking artificial intelligence further, we believe the combination of AI and IoT (AIoT) will continue to be a major trend, reshaping the scope of the security industry. More AIoT solutions have been introduced that will not only provide intelligent protections but also help advance the efficiency of operations in a multitude of industries and organizations.
AIoT will create an important path for boosting digital transformation across several industries. This can be done by creating a digital twin, bridging the physical and digital worlds. For example, in industrial park management, virtual sites can be created by applying 3D modeling, using VR and AR technologies to represent and reflect the real ones, empowering them with the dynamic insight to act quickly to make the whole site run smoothly.
Visual experiences improve
Capturing security imaging with sharp clarity and color around the clock is a core demand for users of video security, but dim light at night has always been the biggest challenge to achieving this. Now, with the development of several new imaging technologies, we are seeing these challenges removed. Bi-spectrum image fusion technology that employs two sensors is being used to combine IR and visible-light imaging to reproduce vivid colors in dim lighting conditions. Artificial Intelligence-based image signal processing (AI-ISP) technology leverages deep-learning algorithms to radically improve visual noise reduction for nighttime image optimization.
Multi-dimensional perception capabilities
For security applications, perception capabilities are going far beyond visible light, extending out along the electromagnetic spectrum to expand capabilities of perceiving the physical world in new ways. And these multi-dimensional perception capabilities also converge to create innovative solutions that can accomplish a multitude of new operations, such as radar assisted video systems for perimeter protection, integration solutions of video and sonar arrays for traffic management, and alarm systems with a wide range of detectors for smart home applications.
Why video security audits are gaining importance in the security industry?
Despite all the buzz around AI and IoT, what has not changed over the years in security management is the resilience, discipline, alertness and due diligence, now it is required more than ever despite having the best hardware and software systems. The security managers have a hard task to justify the huge investments incurred in installing security systems. The CCTV Security systems are expected to give return on investment (RoI) by providing vital clues on past and present security breaches.
This is the reason why the regular CCTV Security Audit is a mandatory norm for the seasoned physical security professionals. It helps to find the loopholes in performance, technical glitches in system and security breaches captured on the video security feeds stored in the command and control system. The urgent need for a professional CCTV Security Audit is felt by the organisations and Chief Security Officers across the verticals. Keeping the constant check on huge stacks of Video Security data and systems is mission critical requirement. It is important to do the regular audits of video security feed and systems by compiling professional security audit reports on past video feeds and system status. A professional CCTV audit helps to identify the fault lines in the security management. It is a holistic overview of the entire security ecosystem, including a thorough check of hardware, software and system related redundancies.
What is the latest update on ‘Make in India’ front?
Make-in-India 2.0 is a collective success for all the stakeholders. India is fast developing into one of the top manufacturing hubs across the world. There are multiple reasons for the positive industry sentiment for local manufacturing. The government’s flagship ‘Make-in-India’ program is one of the key drivers to boost the manufacturing sector. They are helping to lower dependence on imports and boost local production of high-value products. The other reasons that are helping to regain the momentum for local manufacturing include, economic stability, robust legal system, cost effective labour, skilled workforce, high quality production, and cost savings on import duties, domestic market demand and ease of doing business.
Hikvision India is committed to the ‘Makein-India’ vision with a long term perspective. Our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility at Vasai is a living testimony of a phenomenal progress that is happening in the Indian video security products and solutions segment. These solutions are customized for Indian environment and conditions and specific local requirements. Our mission is to be aligned with the government of India’s ‘Makein-India’ program to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub. Through the local state-of-the-art manufacturing plant, Hikvision India is manufacturing its wide range of products and solutions as per our long term commitment to ‘Make-in-India’ vision.
We have taken many pioneering initiatives like ‘Make-in-India,’ Digital Transformation, Localization and Research and Development (R&D) have yielded good results in the rapid growth and development of the security industry. We have worked diligently over a decade to build an ecosystem to foster growth, innovation and excellence in the security product manufacturing. Our dedicated efforts and foresight has paid us rich dividends.
What are the future plans?
We are working on the elaborate future plan to expand the partner network across India in Tier-II and Tier-III towns to live up to the growing demand in the market. The expansion plans are underway for the ‘Make-in-India’ manufacturing facility. There is more investment and team expansion happening in the R&D Center. We are also expanding our RMA Centers to strengthen the service support.
There is a renewed focus on skilling and training program to impart the latest product and technology updates to ecosystem partners and security professionals across India. Hikvision India is regularly conducting skilling and training programs across India, these initiatives are driving the electronic security product manufacturing to a new phase of growth. We are consistently contributing to the cause of job creation and employment generation through the manufacturing and allied activities across India.
