How do system integrators find their core advantages?

In recent years, system integrators have been caught between manufacturers and users. Competition among peers is fierce, and the cost of equipment and finance is increasing, which makes the profit of system integration shrink. How to find their own core advantages has become particularly important, whether to invest money and manpower to make their own platform-integrate different technologies and IT architectures, or cooperate with manufacturers-integrators focus on engineering projects and system integration. Which model will be more competitive in the future? Qualification is the foundation. For some large-scale projects, the project itself requires a very high degree of system integration. Some projects need the integration of geographical location information, material system information and OA system, which are beyond the operation scope of traditional system integrators. Integrators must constantly upgrade to get more projects. Qiu Jianping, deputy general manager of Chengtai Tuotian Industrial Co., Ltd. said: I always think that it is not enough to have a safety construction permit issued by the public security system. Real system integrators should also have the integration qualifications issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which have higher requirements for integrators themselves. At present, the bidding mechanism of domestic large-scale projects is biased towards the general contracting bidding system, and the entry threshold for project bidding is qualification. Platform vendors who specialize in software do not necessarily have the qualifications of integrators, especially the qualifications of system integration, building intelligence and confidentiality sensitivity. Without qualified qualifications, there is no way to bid and no way to win the bid. Lin Kan-hua, manager of the technical department of Shenzhen Ming Hao Security Engineering Co., Ltd. said: Generally speaking, highly qualified integrators win the general contracting right of the project, and then look for suitable third-party software platform developers for customized development. Because some projects will require some special qualifications according to special circumstances, the business source and business model of pure software platform developers also tend to cooperate with integrators. In the research and development of platform software, platform vendors have absolute advantages, and different software platform vendors have different characteristics and advantages. Based on the needs of platform vendors' own development, they will also pay attention to the qualifications and strength of integrators when choosing cooperative system integrators. Money and talents are the key. For system integrators, in addition to hard power such as qualification, the biggest competition in the future is the competition of soft power, such as talents and funds. In recent years, local government departments have launched large-scale projects aimed at stimulating domestic demand, and there are more and more large-scale and extra-large security projects such as urban rail transit, safe city project and World Expo, which bring great opportunities to large-scale security enterprises with abundant funds and excellent technical talents. For small and medium-sized security integrators, the living environment is not so good. In the past two years, the number of security projects in hotels, office buildings and real estate has decreased accordingly, and the living space of most small and medium-sized security enterprises has shrunk dramatically. At present, there are more than 6,000 domestic security integration enterprises, and small and medium-sized integrators account for the majority. Small and medium-sized integrators have the ability to undertake security projects independently, most of which are below one million yuan, but their profits are getting thinner and thinner in the fierce competition. Security projects often involve more equipment procurement, which will inevitably occupy a lot of project operating funds. Compared with large-scale integrators with stronger financing strength, most small and medium-sized integrators basically raise funds by themselves, survive on low-profit projects and have to undertake as many projects as possible. In such a living environment, once there is a funding gap, small and medium-sized integrators will be stifled and difficult to develop. At present, integrators choose many cooperation modes, including capital cooperation. Because there is no capital, many projects cannot be carried out. To make competitiveness bigger and stronger, we can't do without funds. With sufficient funds, competitiveness can be reflected. Qiu Jianping, deputy general manager of Chengtai Tuotian Industrial Co., Ltd. mentioned: Our company has reorganized its assets, and after the venture capital fund comes in, it has sufficient funds to hire senior talents; In the process of doing projects, the capital turnover is more flexible, and some good projects will not give up because of financial problems; More importantly, we have enough funds to develop software and hardware, and to develop new applications with added value. A win-win way for integrators to cooperate and learn, give full play to their subjective initiative, and actively explore new blue ocean projects. The endless modification demand and unpredictable after-sales service of users in the later period once again compressed the profits of system integrators. This is the dilemma faced by most integrators. For us, we have our own solution. The company's revenue from integration services for various software and hardware products has not been continuously compressed like most enterprises, but has increased. Qiu Jianping, deputy general manager of Chengtai Tuotian Industrial Co., Ltd. said that the key is to actively create valuable new applications for customers. For example, in the new application of access card we designed for customers, as long as visitors swipe their cards, the camera can automatically track the visitors who carry this card as needed, without running and controlling the pan/tilt or background operation. As long as you establish a relationship and enter the visitor's ID number, you can view the trace of any visitor. The product itself does not have this function, but through communication and discussion with customers, we can process and develop the product from the customer's standpoint and create new applications, so that customers feel that this new function is what they need, and then customers are willing to pay for this new application. Win-win mode of cooperative learning With the continuous expansion of the scale of security system, the use of security system has diversified business departments, diversified business needs, multi-level business management institutions and complicated operating environment. At the same time, the security market is further subdivided, and platform vendors are playing an increasingly important role in the security industry chain. However, the time for platform manufacturers to become independent links in the security industry is not yet ripe, the industry has not yet formed a certain pattern, and the market is still changing. For small and medium-sized integrators, there is no need to make their own software. It is wise to find a platform vendor that conforms to the enterprise's own characteristics and is cost-effective. Lin Kanhua, deputy general manager of Shenzhen Ming Hao Security Engineering Co., Ltd. said, of course, if you develop your own R&D strength, it is also feasible to consider building your own platform. After all, there are still many constraints in the cooperation mode. In the process of construction, the project will encounter places that need to be changed and coordinated, and it is not easy to run in areas involving their respective interests. For example, in order to achieve product access and functional integration more conveniently, it is necessary to have original code permissions and complete data, but the cooperative platform vendors think that these data are sensitive, unwilling to open or require higher prices, which is difficult to handle. If it is your own platform, communication and cooperation will be smoother. For example, Lin Kanhua said: At present, we mainly adopt the mode of cooperation with platform vendors. As far as the current situation of the company is concerned, although we have been continuously investing human and financial resources in platform development, there is still a gap in experience and development strength compared with professional software platform vendors because of the different business fields and development priorities of enterprises involved. The successful solutions of platform vendors, feasible programming and codes, and even the development of collaborative management mode are all worth learning by integrators. Relatively speaking, successful project implementation cases of integrators, diversified customer needs and extensive cooperation resources of manufacturers are also needed by platform vendors. For both sides, cooperation is actually a kind of mutual promotion, at least for now. There is specialization in the industry, and large integrators will not cover everything. In architectural integration, various subsystems will be involved, and sometimes you will encounter areas that you are not so good at. Chu Liangliang, chief engineer of Shanghai Jiankun Information Technology Co., Ltd. mentioned: For example, the power amplifier, microphone, simultaneous interpretation and sound generating device in the conference system are not our specialties, so we will seek the cooperation of professional engineers specializing in conference systems and let them come to the hardware of the conference system and integrate them into our system. There is also a fire alarm subsystem, and we will also cooperate with those fire engineers with professional qualifications. Development and Obstacles The domestic security industry has maintained a good growth momentum in the context of the sluggish global economic environment. Chu Zuliang, chief engineer of Shanghai Jiankun Information Technology Co., Ltd. said: The cakes in this market are very large, and the number of large integrators is limited, so they will not be eaten all. Moreover, the diversification of market demand will also give small integrators room to survive. For example, some old buildings can be rebuilt with only a few cameras. They don't go to those big engineers, and they don't need to pass the acceptance of the public security bureau. Then they just need to find the little engineer. There are many projects that have fallen into the market gap like this. Because the profits are too small, large integrators will not compete for this part of the market. Chu added: Only by building yourself into a distinctive enterprise according to your own conditions will your vitality be strong, which is the same in any industry. Now there are two trends in the development of the whole security platform market: one is the vendor platform, which makes a unified interface for its own products; The other is a third-party software platform, which has good compatibility, and will consider the interfaces of products of various vendors and the needs of Party A. When referring to the difficulties that integrators will encounter in playing the role of platform vendors, Lin Kanhua said three points: First, the support of hardware vendors involves upstream core vendors such as compilation algorithms and chip vendors; Second, there are still some technical obstacles in system architecture and programming language for the compatibility of different software and hardware; In addition, the market and profit are particularly important. Profit is related to the investment in R&D and the development of the company, and is subject to the deep-rooted concept in China-it is generally believed that the inertia thinking of buying hardware and sending software will gradually change with the more open and mature domestic market.