Status quo and development of domestic security engineers

In the early stage of security products entering the market, due to the particularity of the security engineering market, some security engineering companies have achieved certain development under the umbrella of industry protection. Although there is no large-scale enterprise, it can ensure the survival of the company and can develop slowly. With the continuous expansion of the security market, traditional large-scale system integrators have begun to enter the security industry and the change of national policies on the security industry, which also makes security engineers face new challenges. In the face of fierce competition, how should security engineers choose?
1、 Status quo of security engineers:

The security engineering companies referred to in this paper are those mainly engaged in the construction of security products at the beginning of the establishment of the company, excluding the enterprises newly entering the security industry from the original large-scale system integrators.
1. Market resource bottleneck:
The early demand for security construction mainly comes from the government, public security, banking and other industry users. With the development of the security industry, the security product engineering projects of these customers have basically entered a saturated state, that is, most departments have installed security systems. However, according to the customer visit in a province last year, most of the engineering companies are still looking at these customers, and the development of new market demand is still in its infancy. The result of this situation is that several companies have competed for a few projects with limited competition, and they have entered the stage where the project is dominated by price competition and various suicide compromise clauses (such as serious unreasonable payment cycle, long payment term, etc.). The security industry was originally a sunrise industry, but due to the predatory development of market resources by the engineering companies, instead of developing new market resources, the engineering companies were ultimately in a passive situation in all aspects. The development history of system integrators has also well illustrated this point. Those companies that choose to transform at the right time have begun to have new development. Where is the survival market of engineering companies? 2. Bottleneck of capital resources
The number of early contractors is relatively small, so it is relatively easy to obtain projects, and the payment method of Party A is relatively good. However, with the fierce competition, the payment requirements put forward by Party A are very strict. Many project contractors' construction belongs to the advance construction, and they can repay on time in case of good credit, but in case of poor credit, they don't know when the project payment can be paid off! In the current situation of China, it is not a wise choice to sue the government to recover the project funds. However, more and more capital advance construction has become the bottleneck of the further development of the engineering companies due to the shortage of capital chain of the engineering companies.
It is understood that in a prefecture level city, a large engineering company has millions of yuan in construction receivables alone. This is an extremely heavy burden for enterprises, and once the capital chain is disconnected, there will be a great crisis in the survival of enterprises. Another extreme phenomenon is that some engineering companies can obtain large-scale projects because they have established good relations with relevant departments in the industry for many years, but they are suffering from no ability to advance funds. Even though Party A has good payment conditions (payment according to project progress), they still cannot win the project. This reminds us of many system integrators, which seem to be very large, but it seems that some companies disappeared overnight. Security engineers are also facing similar situations. The guarantee of the capital chain has affected the survival of engineers!
3. Misunderstandings of product line
As there are many categories of security products, and with the development of the industry, the market provides a wide range of products. The procurement of engineering companies is faced with the promotion of products by many manufacturers or dealers every day. However, due to the particularity of security products, if they are used rashly, they will often have a lot of adverse effects on the project. For example, the products purchased cannot be linked due to incompatibility, which affects the construction progress on the one hand, and also gives Party A a bad impression on the other. Establishing a perfect procurement system is one of the problems for the further development of the engineering companies.
Now, engineers are more responsible for providing Party A with design solutions, but in fact, many engineers' understanding and understanding of system products is difficult to reach the level of dealers' understanding. After purchasing products, various problems occur in the construction due to various factors (such as system incompatibility, agreement incompatibility, etc.), and some projects create reasons for Party A not to pay. Moreover, more often than not, in order to win the construction contract of the project, they are not objective in terms of quotation and material selection, and even choose unfamiliar systems or products for the project and other short-term behaviors, which affect the construction of the product line of the engineering company. Even some purchasers choose different products in different projects in order to balance the relationship with manufacturers and dealers, which also brings great trouble to the commissioning after construction. The above gives a general introduction to the current situation of the engineering companies, and how to go about it?
2、 The change of engineers
1. Look for new market resources
With the development of economy, security work has also been promoted to a certain position. Now many new industries have started to use security products, such as postal services, airports, enterprises, shopping malls, etc. These are new growth points of the security market. It is understood that an engineer in a certain place published an advertisement for providing industrial system solutions in a professional magazine, and many relevant departments called the company. In this way, the company realized the transformation of its market role, and even chose to give up projects with poor payment, great difficulty and low profits. By developing new market resources, the survival environment of enterprises has been changed. When the security industry has entered the buyer's market, it can still obtain a good choice.
Some engineering companies actively develop foreign markets, but in fact, they have developed local resources well and actively guided new customers to enter this consumer group, which is more beneficial than developing foreign markets. After all, there are many uncertainties in field development, and the risks are difficult to control.
If we continue to develop in the existing market resources, the resources will be exhausted one day, and it is difficult to form a seller's market. Party A always has the right to decide. On the one hand, it is difficult to obtain higher profits, on the other hand, it has a great impact on the company's capital chain. Developing customer resources of new channels is a way to solve the survival of engineering companies.
2. Horizontal combination, standardized market and reasonable competition
There is an old Chinese saying that "one person is a dragon, and a group of people are worms", which means that the Chinese people have a poor sense of cooperation. The author also once had a good idea: "Be an engineer alliance" to form an organization for security engineers to share resources and develop mutual assistance. However, due to various reasons, it can only be an idea, which is difficult to implement in practice. But in fact, this kind of alliance already exists, that is, we often say that the relationship between certain companies is relatively good, and they often "encircle". This is just a loose alliance. If we really achieve an in-depth cooperative alliance, on the one hand, we need the mind and consciousness of leaders, on the other hand, we also need a certain basis for cooperation. No matter what level of cooperation, if you want to survive, cooperation is the trend. Let others survive is also let yourself survive! Now many industries have established chambers of commerce or associations, which are more cooperative. Zhejiang merchants can survive well, largely because they have a good sense of cooperation, and Zhejiang Chambers of Commerce across the country have played an immeasurable role in the development of Zhejiang enterprises. On the one hand, cooperation can form a barrier, on the other hand, it can become a negotiation resource for Party A. The establishment of a long-term construction team requires high costs. On the one hand, there must be continuous projects to ensure the stability of the team. On the other hand, the market competition is fierce now, and the quality of the project is a guarantee for collection. Therefore, strengthening cooperation and sharing of the construction team is also a way of cooperation, especially in the case of more construction in different places, it is also a good choice.
3. Formation of system solutions
At present, in the security industry, although many solutions are made by engineers, due to the characteristics of engineers (that is, mainly construction), they cannot systematically contact more products, so they need to cooperate with dealers to improve the optimal solution. However, due to China's national conditions, in the case of non-standard market (the acquisition of projects mainly depends on the relationship), these are also ideal! Perhaps the future is an effective means of competition.
Choosing a fixed partner for long-term cooperation is also a long way for security engineers! On the contrary, the engineers often use different products, and the troubles in the scheme design will not be discussed. The after-sales service and maintenance will also be very difficult because of too many familiar products!
When acquiring projects, security engineers often target different industry systems. If each industry uses a set of solutions, it will affect the embodiment of industry characteristics in the system. Moreover, even if it is an industry, different parties will have different requirements. Due to the characteristics of the industry, they often face the choice of different products. If the engineer cooperates with the dealer or even the manufacturer to jointly launch a set of system solutions for a specific industry, the engineer will take the initiative in the process of project acquisition, just like the previous large-scale system integrators.
4. After sales service revenue generation
With the increase of engineering projects, Party A's demand for system maintenance is also increasing. Such services are often paid and the income is stable. The maintenance of the security system of the ICBC system in a certain place adopted the bidding method, but due to vicious competition, there was a service price that should not appear. If the contractor takes these subsequent services as part of the contract when signing the construction contract, the result will be better.
Security products involve security issues. The purpose of construction is to ensure that the system can work normally and achieve the role of prevention. With the popularity of the industry, Party A's understanding of system maintenance has changed to some extent. During construction, some Party A requires the service ability of the engineering contractor and the local maintenance service center of the supplier to ensure that the system can operate normally in the shortest time after applause. 5. Horizontal development and expansion of system integration business
With the development of security engineers, some of them began to intervene in the field of system integration. But after all, there are only a few well developed security engineering companies. Now the national security policy is also adjusting, that is, some provinces and cities begin to cancel the rating of security engineering companies and replace them with the system integration qualification uniformly issued by the Ministry of Construction. Because system integration has been developed for many years and the profit is relatively low, many system integrators have also started to set foot in the security field. Because the system integrator has certain advantages, that is, to realize the general contracting of the project, and then subcontract the security business to the engineer, the system integrator has already taken a part of the project profits in the hands of the security engineer.
As the combination of security industry and system integration becomes closer and closer, such as monitoring and alarm networking relying on network for signal transmission, it also provides the possibility for security engineers to transform into system integrators. However, if we specialize in security engineering, from the perspective of market demand growth in the security industry in recent years, it can also be a way, but the premise is that we must develop new market resources!
As a part of the industrial chain of the security industry, security engineers have a very important position, because they deal directly with Party A. If they break away from the practice of relationship and project, they can really provide some services to customers, and do something well, there is still a lot of room for steady development!