Envysion’s Latest

I found a great post the other day by Anthony Deighton, SVP of Marketing at QlikTech. His hypothesis is that business software users are now expecting the same simplicity and ease of use in their business applications as they get in their web and consumer applications.

This hypothesis is a key part of our strategy.  I reflected on this twice recently as I evaluated two very different services that had clearly not embraced this trend.

The first of these came while talking to our VP of Operations about our SAP Business One implementation.  We are in the process of migrating to this new system for our back office operations to facilitate our rapid growth.  I asked what he thought of the new package and the answer was “the software is incredibly powerful, it has more features than we’ll ever use, it isn’t very intuitive and the help is ABSOLUTELY USELESS.”  It appears we are investing in a tool that will definitely serve us well, but that is so complicated and unwieldy that we will likely only leverage a fraction of the value that it has to offer.  It also sounds like I am never going to want to hop on there myself and just poke around, as it would take a long time to learn.

The second of these reflections came as I walked the halls of the ISC West conference in Las Vegas.  I was at the show looking for new trends, talking to potential partners, and checking out the competition.  I happened to spend some time with a mid-level sales engineer type at one of the traditional DVR companies (I’d love to say who but will protect the “innocent”).  He showed me their new flagship DVR solution.  He quickly jumped to what he felt were the highlights, number three of which was the DVR administration tab where you could change whether or not the time and date appeared on the image when you viewed video.  He deftly showed me how you could not only turn it on and off, but how you could change where the time and date showed up on the image.  Getting excited at this point, he went on to say that of course you could change the font and the size of the text – which surely I would understand is a pretty powerful capability.

Seriously?  What do users want from a video solution?  They want to be able to quickly and easily see video that is important to them no matter where they happen to be.  You might argue that, hey, maybe it is important to someone to see the time and date positioned in a certain part of the screen in a certain font and that this is valuable to them to be able to control.  My response would be that when you combine this seemingly simple option with the hundreds of other parameters and features and functions and options and capabilities, you end up with exactly what we are getting with SAP: a solution that is over-engineered to provide a bunch of features that 95% of the users will never use, and, more alarmingly, a solution that is so complicated that your core users will struggle to master it.  You also create a big training barrier that will keep potential new users from being able to leverage your capabilities.

One of Envysion’s key tenets is to make our service easy to use, by anyone.  We are constantly incorporating user feedback to refine how we do things and make it easier.  From the looks of things at ISC West, not many people have read Anthony’s post.

To understand what I mean, it may help to keep in mind my background. I’m not a traditional security guy and don’t have that mental frame of reference. Maybe that’s why it appears to me that all the convergence definitions are very “security” focused. They tend to talk about how different security functions are converging or how security functions are being performed by other parts of the organization, such as IT.

The way I see it after talking to a lot of executives and operators in our market is that traditional security systems and functions are more and more becoming a part of both the day to day and strategic operations of the business. Said differently, people are finding ways to derive value beyond security from traditional security tools. When you utilize a traditional security tool, like video, for something that has nothing to do with security, THAT is what I call convergence.

Once other people in the organization start to leverage these tools, it adds an entirely new set of requirements on the people and processes involved. If the VP of Operations or VP of Marketing realizes that their team can benefit from video, then they will want it to be a tool that their teams can easily use. This means that the system has to work with other business systems and provide information that is relevant to marketing or operations. IT will likely need to get involved to make sure that everyone has access, that the application works nicely on the company’s network and that relevant systems are integrated. Marketing and operations will need to be trained on the tool. The Security Director is suddenly a pretty popular person and is invited to a number of meetings that he/she wasn’t involved in before.

Convergence is more than just the alignment of physical and network security and more than the shifting of security functions to other functional groups. Convergence is leveraging the security group and its systems to create broader value for the business.

Read any of the popular trade publications in the security or video world and you’re bound to find an article talking about convergence. Convergence is clearly a widely accepted trend that is said to be having a tremendous impact on the broad security market. While I certainly agree with this assertion, I’m not sure everyone talking about convergence is talking about the same thing. Here are a couple of examples to make my point:

“[Convergence is the] Formal cooperation between previously disjointed security functions” - CSO Perspectives

OK, this implies that convergence is something that happens within the security organization. They are likely talking about the overlap between logical (network) and physical (access) security. This is certainly happening, but is a pretty narrow view of convergence.

ASIS International defines convergence as “the identification of security risks and interdependencies between business functions and processes within the enterprise and the development of managed business process solutions to address those risks and interdependencies.”

This is better. This states that convergence is happening across business functions, extending outside of security. Only problem I have with this definition is that its general premise is still primarily security focused - that security is becoming something that crosses functional boundaries in the company. Again, I agree this is the case, but I think that there is a much broader ramification of convergence.

I’ve seen other definitions - some that focus on the convergence between the IT and security groups and some that focus on the convergence of systems onto the company’s IP network. I’ve even seen one that positions convergence as the inclusion of traffic and weather into your security systems (I didn’t say I agreed with all of them!).

From all of these I’ve formed my own definition, one that I think encapsulates the broader themes that we’re seeing in the market. To me, convergence is the transition of all things Security (people, systems, and processes) from a single purpose silo into a critical and integrated element of the overall business.

I’ll explain more about what I mean in my next post…

Matt Steinfort is President and CEO of Envysion.

 Go-to-market strategy.  This is a fancy way of describing how you market and sell your product or service.  Keeping things simple, there are two high-level options: you sell to the end consumer yourself (direct), or you sell to another company that then sells your service and probably some additional value to the consumer (channels).

Determining the best go-to-market strategy can be the difference between rapid growth and years of slow customer traction.  At Envysion, we have a pretty clear idea of how we should get to market over the long-term, which is to sell through channels.   This isn’t rocket science or some blindingly insightful strategy on our part; it is simply recognition of where we fit in the market.  Our expertise is the software and networking part of our video service.  We can and do provide the other elements of a video system - the equipment, the cameras, the installation - but there are plenty of companies that specialize in those services that we can partner with.  There are also numerous existing sales teams out there calling on our target markets who would love to have another value-added service to sell.  The conclusion then is that our growth potential is tied more to getting other people to sell our services than it is to selling our services directly.

If you agree with this, then you may wonder why I believe the bulk of our sales in 2008 are going to come from our own sales people.  You may also wonder why I think this is completely appropriate.  Jumping right into a pure channel sales model is complicated.  One, if you start selling first to the channel and not to the end-user you lose the direct customer feedback that is critical to developing your service.  Two, without your own customer traction and proven value proposition, it can be difficult to get the attention of channel partners.  Three, without the ability to sell on your own, you have very little leverage with your channel partners as you negotiate the partnerships.

So, ironically, the best way to kick-off a strong channel program is to first sell directly.  The trick then becomes knowing when to take your foot off the direct sales efforts and shift those opportunities to partners.  Despite our long-term channel plans, we are running full speed selling directly in 2008.  This gives us time to understand our customers and sort out the best channels and gives our prospective partners time to figure out what to make of us.   The more success we have selling direct, the sooner we’ll get traction with our channels.

Matt Steinfort is president and CEO of Envysion.

Someone famous once said, “Any publicity is good publicity.”  Does it count if you aren’t even mentioned?  After reading the “2007 In Review” issue of Nation’s Restaurant News, I would say it absolutely does!

Let me explain.  One of the “Significant Technology Developments” highlighted by NRN for 2007 was the following:

“Escalation in foodservice company use of in-store, digital video security systems that are accessible via the Internet or private network and use software to better detect problems. Operators, including CHIPOTLE MEXICAN GRILL INC. of Denver, turned to this technology to monitor stores for best practices in service, as well as to protect margins by reducing theft and limiting liability in cases where employees or customers claimed injury. Fueling the trend were rising operating costs, the greater availability of affordable high-speed Internet or private-network connections, and the falling price of surveillance equipment and related third-party services.”

They may not have included our name, but they were talking about us. How do I know? Chipotle was cited as the embodiment of this trend, and they are exclusively using Envysion Video. I am extremely proud to be working with such a progressive company like Chipotle and am equally proud that our service has been so quickly recognized as having an impact on the entire restaurant industry.  Other players have been in the industry for years, but we’ve been able to make a difference in Envysion Video’s first year!

I’ll spend some time on future posts explaining why I think our service is so dramatically different than other solutions out there.  Until then, have a great holiday and look for more excitement from Envysion in 2008!

Matt Steinfort is president and CEO of Envysion.

You might ask me based on my background what I know about running a restaurant or a financial institution or any retail establishment for that matter.    The answer is - not  as much as you do.  As a former management consultant, I’m used to having to answer that question while trying to convince you that, despite my lack of content knowledge, I can help you improve whatever business you’re in.

Without hesitation, I can look customers in the eye and tell them that while I don’t know more than they do about their business, I do think I can help.  My premise is simple: I believe that if I can give you a simple way to see what’s going on in your business through our video service, you’ll figure out new and innovative ways to improve your operations.

Numerous video providers in our space make a very similar claim - that they can help you improve operations. I would argue that they lack two key capabilities that keep them from fulfilling this promise.  The first is the ease of their system - is it “simple”? If you don’t make the service incredibly easy to use by everyone in the organization, people won’t use it.  Most video systems are incredibly over-featured and complicated and are used by only one or two people in the company and only for a very narrow purpose, mostly security. 

The second element our competitors lack is the ability to take what they learn from their customers and continuously improve their service.  You’re better off if your video service can roll-out enhancements and adapt its product in a rapid and continual manner.  Most traditional video providers have one or two releases a year and are limited in how quickly they can react to customers’ needs.  Even when they add a new capability, they only impact customers that buy the service from that point forward, unless they can convince existing customers to upgrade from older hardware and software.

At Envysion, we make video incredibly easy to use and our Software-as-a-Service architecture enables us to continually react to your feedback and rapidly make new capabilities available to all of our customers, both existing and new.

You know your industry better than I do, and I’m OK with that.

Being relatively new to the blogosphere, one of the first things I’ve found with blogs is that it helps to have an understanding of the blogger’s perspective and goals when you are reading his posts.  Is he trying to sell me something?  Is he promoting a specific agenda?  How did he get to where he is? What is the basis of his expertise?

You could determine this over time by reading posts and drawing your own conclusions as to the blogger’s motives and intent.  You could determine this by researching the individual and forming a picture of the person and his perspectives based on what you can dig up.

I’ll try to save you some time on our blog as a) we don’t have a history of posts to read yet, and b) you probably won’t spend any time researching who we are.

Who are we?  We are telecom guys who have brought the technology and expertise of building and running large scale Internet applications to the video surveillance world.  While others in this space think of equipment and speeds and feeds, we think about the network and the software and, most importantly, how it can be applied to create value.

What are my motives?   If you are a customer, I want you to understand how we can help improve your business and why we are different than anything else out there.  If you are a potential partner, I want you to understand the opportunity that we can provide to increase your revenue and profits.  If you are a potential investor, I want you to understand why our team and our service have the potential for dramatic growth.  If you are a looking for a job, I want you to want to work here.  If you are an industry expert, I want to share perspectives on the market.

With that said, we’ll use this forum to share our thoughts and ideas on everything from video to security to the challenges of building a strong Internet company.  Please come back here often and see what’s on our minds.