Assa Abloy launches a multi-discipline security ecosystem combining software and hardware in one environment
In an exclusive interview with In Security, ASSA ABLOY reveals its latest access control platform and explains how Incedo™ Business integrates with the company’s world-leading range of locking devices. Our discussion then moves to a broader consideration of responsiveness to the needs of specialized verticals and the increasingly important role of data analytics.
Responding proactively to a backdrop of constant market change and demands for connectivity, ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions EMEA has released a platform-based management solution for access control. Incedo™ Business is the company’s flexible, scalable offering that empowers users through seamless interaction with ASSA ABLOY’s world-leading locking and cabinet solutions as well as potential for the widest possible range of third-party offerings such as video surveillance, alarms, intercom and smart building management, as they become available.
Incedo’s three-tiered system management options — Lite, Plus and Cloud — will scale from entry level up to cloud-based administration. Lite is for on-premises use, Plus is a PC-based software version and Cloud offers remote connectivity. Incedo™ Business will evolve towards total integration with its open API approach and will work alongside other non-security disciplines such as time & attendance and workflow management.
The product has outstanding potential for franchise organizations in its Cloud version which allows head office managers to add, remove and fine-tune whole sites effortlessly in a way that ensures uniformity of working practices across franchisees so ensuring that managers across a diverse geographical spread know exactly where their employees, contractors and visitors are at any time. Centralized compliance visibility and control via a single portal are vital for anybody working on this kind of business model.
Stephanie Ordan, VP Digital and Access Solutions at ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions EMEA, said: “Agility and responsiveness are at the core of Incedo™ Business. Different people don’t just need their own combination of access times and entry points, their requirements and user privileges may well vary daily.”
Agile response and optimized decisionmaking
Stephanie continued: “Incedo™ Business enables managers to initiate, amend or cancel access around multiple premises in rea time. Our latest offering means customers can make the best possible decisions using the best possible information from both granular detail and site overviews.”
The scope for optimizing safety, factoring out threats and reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) is unlimited. In a period of straitened budgets, this revolutionary management system with its intuitive software interface maximizes return on investment. Easy management of people movements at a site, even one with a complex regime, produces significant economies and a heightening of protection for all.
Evolving credential types
ASSA ABLOY’s broad hardware offering includes wireless door locks (Aperio®), wired wall readers and digital cylinders. Users can present their identity with proximity cards, tokens, fobs, smartphones (via a mobile key) and even biometrics when available, so benefiting from smart connectivity for total control and convenience. Incedo™ Business is being launched with a preliminary set of hardware and intelligent devices from the ASSA ABLOY locking range. The range of credential type and hardware will evolve and grow, with the company paying particular attention to the needs of target verticals who may have specific requirements as well as legacy installations moving to the new solution. All future ASSA ABLOY releases will be compatible with Incedo™ Business from inception, and stakeholders right across the industry will benefit from a growing portfolio.
This innovative management platform is future-proof and will stay at the end-user’s side as market conditions change. It embodies flexibility and can be scaled both up and down effortlessly. ASSA ABLOY cannot accurately predict every precise industry change, but the R&D team has ensured that flexibility to adapt runs throughout the product suite. The development and launch are the response of an innovation-driven company to a fast-moving landscape in which doors are being required to be smarter, connectivity both simpler and more far-reaching, and access management more precise.
Installation of Incedo™ Business is speedy, makes no great demands of the end-user and keeps disruption of core activities at the site to a minimum. This is an ideal option for any small-medium location such as schools, medical clinics, multi-occupancy residences, retail outlets, fitness centres, leisure destinations and small or medium-sized hotels. It is both an indoor and outdoor solution extending to the widest range of entrances including every type of gate right up to agriculture and the transport sector. ASSA ABLOY conducts regular ‘voice of the customer’ (VOC) client surveys which have revealed that regardless of the industry, there are common expectations running across the client and installer base. These include simplicity, transparency, visibility and single points of reference and command, all of which are embodied in the new release.
Thomas Schulz, EMEA Product Marketing Director at ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions EMEA, said: “Incedo™ Business is an evolutionary step in access control based on our engagement with end users and responsiveness to market trends. Closeness to our user base is vital and we’re looking forward to reaching out to clients in a collaborative manner in order to develop special features and options for niche vertical sectors. The range of hardware from the ASSA ABLOY group and the scalability between the three management options of Incedo™ Business can be seen as a buffet or smörgåsbord in which the user comes away with the best fit and exact combination they require.”
ASSA ABLOY will release ‘vertical’ sector-specific software add-ons as the product matures and feedback is received from end-users, installers and consultants. Versatility is crucial and third-party integration is a major goal as the product grows. ASSA ABLOY understands the benefit of co-operation and interoperability as well as any other manufacturer in the security sector and will always discuss value-added native integrations via an application programming interface (API).
Striving for truly intelligent access control
As the access control sector matures, the simple act of securing a door becomes a given. A safer world is one where access control is truly intelligent so allowing admin to be rationalized, making for time savings and faster responses. Customers are looking for solutions that will take the data from door usage and analyze it to produce useful output that will identify the trends that allow them to rationalize staff movements, site layout and working methods.
ASSA ABLOY now offers robust data-enabled hardware that gathers information and the company will work with clients at reference sites to pioneer true data analysis so adding value. Door usage and staff behaviour information at these locations will become a roadmap by which customer needs are better served in developmental steps that move from access control right through to PSIM and building management systems.
Incedo™ Business offers a connected security experience that complements the advances currently being made in facilities management and ensures that the access control sector can keep pace. It ensures that legitimate users of your site have a regulated but hassle-free ability to get to the areas that correspond with their seniority and job profile.
Site supervisors can now benefit from the ultimate in efficient rights management from a versatile and truly graphical API with prompt issuing and amending of credentials. Smarter, greener and integrated ecosystems are trending in every sector and Incedo™ Business is the logical outcome of ASSA ABLOY’s R&D in the current climate. The company expects to publicize case studies where time-poor security staff have benefited from the streamlined functionality of the software. Integration between software and hardware has become truly seamless and the next big step will be multi-tasking, with versatile access control software being able to perform a time & attendance role as well as safeguarding staff who are working alone or in areas of a site with high risks.
For further information please visit Assa Abloy Opening Solutions
