This is the conclusion of a survey of UK IT directors, released by IT service provider Comunica.
According to the survey, the financial sector has taken the lead in implementing this technology, with 31% having implemented it already and a further 38% planning to do so this year. A quarter of IT directors interviewed from the retail, distribution and transport sector have already adopted physical security over IP, and a further 52% expect to do so in the next 12 months.
Manufacturing has been sluggish in taking up security over IP, with just 9% so far, but the signs are very positive for the future, with 43% planning to implement it in the next 12 months.
A third of the IT directors of the 100 companies surveyed said that, as a result of being able to control physical security systems over IP, this area would become their responsibility instead of the facilities or operations departments. In the manufacturing sector 57% of IT directors expect their departments to become responsible for physical security, and in the retail, distribution and transport sector it is 32%.
The main barriers to the adoption of security over IP given by IT directors are cultural and acceptance issues (20%), followed by availability of personnel resources and skills, cost versus benefit, reliability and complexity of infrastructure.
Rick Marshall, managing director of Comunica, commented: “As IP based devices proliferate, the trend of physical security being controlled by the IT department is a logical step, as this department is already responsible for IT security. Many of the objections to the adoption of security over IP are a result of a need to educate both employees and managers about the benefits and cost savings that can be achieved.”
Evidence that IP communications (IPC) is going mainstream is backed up by a separate Cisco-sponsored global survey, which predicts that 50% of traffic will be in IP this year.
Conducted by Sage Research, the study says this is driven by the fact that companies are increasingly looking to IPC – which involves running voice and data communications together on a single network – as a requirement to boost return on investment. The study also shows that productivity improvements are as much a driver behind IPC adoption as the desire to save network infrastructure and operational costs.
According to the survey, more than half of the enterprises that responded indicated an average productivity gain of nearly four hours per week per employee, owing to an increased use of telephony features, such as collaborative conferencing, unified messaging and find-me style messaging.
