Security Sales & Integration April 2021 - 12

INDUSTRY PULSE

HOT SEAT

Opening a Path to
Differentiate in the Market
▶ Openpath launched four years ago in

stealth mode, then introduced its PropTech wares via the dealer/integrator channel less than two years later. Based in Los
Angeles, the company's platform focuses on integrated technology to provide
frictionless mobile access and scalable
Cloud-based solutions that can also be integrated with legacy systems. Co-Founder
and President James Segil joins the conversation with a market forecast for the
remainder of 2021, plus trends, opportunities and more.

What are your overall expectations
for the rest of the year?
▶ James Segil: I would say that the one

thing you can expect this year is the unexpected. There is no predictability. I think
that we're going to continue to see a wave
curve where different areas open up and
close down based on vaccination rollout,
based on variants of the disease, and all
those different components.
I will say, however, that gyms are opening back up. We're seeing people go back
to exercise, and they're moving outdoors.
Restaurants and retailers are starting to
open up and move their purchasing experiences to more sort of ecommerce-assisted experiences.
Commercial office is coming back in
a very strong way. We're already starting
to see a lot of people returning to work
and returning to the office - more in the
suburbs, less in the urban centers, but I
think that will return shortly over time.
Schools are touch-and-go right now.
For the most part they're not really well
or densely populated. You'll start to see
certainly [a return to] houses of worship.
Industrial has never stopped. Warehouses
have been jam-packed. Our life sciences
customers who are doing medical labs
and the like, jam-packed.
I expect 2021 will be a rebound year
and I think the fourth quarter you'll start
to see people just really getting back into
the built world.

How are sales conversations
evolving as business models move
to service-based?
▶ JS: Learning how to sell a solution that

is more IT-centric - how to talk to an
IT buyer who is used to seeing stuff in
the Cloud, is used to paying an ongoing
annual subscription fee for technology -
that is a different conversation than one
the typical access control system integrator was having with a more physical security facilities buyer in the past.
Involving the IT buyer in the purchase
decision has allowed for a level of comfort
in the traditional physical security buyer,
" OK, Cloud is good. It's approved by IT.
My [CISO] is on board. HR loves it because it connects to the IT systems that
they use to manage their workforce, so
all my users are synchronized. There's encryption; I'm going to meet all my compliance and audit requirements. "
There's a lot of learning that's happened
within our channel to really get into that
IT solution selling mode. But they're
finding that it's very, very sticky and it's
differentiating them from the more commoditized work that was happening before, where a door reader is a door reader, a
camera is a camera, just put something up.
Now my channel partners are going
in with a differentiated solution that is a
smarter solution, that offers more value
and they can win the business that they
were otherwise having to bid on in an
RFP in a commodity kind of way.

Coming into a space you are trying
to disrupt, what have you found
frustrating about the industry?
▶ JS: When we got into this category, we

realized that there was a real interesting
gap that existed that we could plug. This
was the biggest frustration we had in the
security industry; there's a huge disconnect between the cybersecurity posture of
an organization and the physical security
posture. The two strategies are not well
connected and what we wanted to do was

12 Security Sales & Integration APRIL 2021

SS2104 pp12-13 Hot Seat-People.indd 12

JAMES SEGIL
Co-Founder and President
Openpath
say, " Look, you're spending all this money on firewalls and technology to protect
your network. But somebody can literally
walk into your office, take a laptop with
all your company's information on it and
have the keys to the castle. "
So you have to tie your physical security strategy into your cybersecurity strategy. And that's where we saw a gap and
a huge opportunity, and that's why we
entered this market in this space. We're
involved with IoT in every element of our
home life. Now we need to see that migrate to the built world. That's what we're
trying to do. We're trying to kind of get
the security industry to move a lot of the
technology and capabilities from IoT in
the home, from enterprise cybersecurity,
into the property space, into the built
space of the commercial world.
We are seeing traction. But, man, it is
slow. People will say, " Well, you know,
I've never done this before. I don't if I
really want to do this. " Well, this is the
time. This past year was evidence more
than anything else that change is required
right now in order to survive.

FIND IT ON THE WEB

For more from our conversation, search
" James Segil " at securitysales.com

securitysales.com

3/22/21 9:53 AM

http://www.securitysales.com http://www.securitysales.com

Security Sales & Integration April 2021

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