Phillip Antoniou, VP of Sales, MOBOTIX, speaks exclusively with Security Journal Americas about his time at the company and what’s in store for the Americas market.

MOBOTIX have established themselves as a key player in the security industry, particularly in the middle east. Now, the company is evolving to become more involved within the Americas and Phillip Antoniou is spearheading that growth with his new role as VP of Sales. Security Journal Americas spoke exclusively to Antoniou to find out more.

What does your new role involve?

As of July 1, 2022, I took over as VP of the Americas. I’ve been with MOBOTIX for ten years now and I have also been a customer of MOBOTIX before that. I have held the positions of Vice President (VP) of the EMEA region and I was also interim VP of APAC. With this exciting new responsibility my role is to look after the Americas region as a whole to increase our investments and our footprint in the market while supporting our channel.

Have you encountered any challenges so far having transitioned to the Americas?

There are always challenges in any market, our biggest in the Americas is that we are the best kept secret in the industry BUT this will change. We are increasing our communication to the industry itself with what we can do, what we have to offer and how we can provide a greater return on investment (ROI) with cutting edge solutions focused on our verticals.

It is getting that communication there. Once we move further along in our expansion that message will become more prominent.

Why do you see the Americas as such an emerging market for the company?

I would not call it an emerging market, I would call it more strategic. We’ve been present in the Americas for roughly 18 years, but we have always been very conservative, more than anything else, about our expansions.

The potential is beyond contestation and with the hunger we see to adopt new technologies and analytics, different solutions and being more about the data that video solutions can deliver, as opposed to just having a camera there, the Americas as a market is very much a region that MOBOTIX is fully committed to.

Do you think MOBOTIX’s products are a good fit for the Americas?

If you look at our portfolio and the integration platform MOBOTIX HUB that we offer, the answer is a profound yes. Our solutions are ONVIF Compliant and we can integrate with any other ONVIF technology out there.

If you look at the hardware side of things, from the cameras, whether it is PTZ’s, bullets, IoT range, SMART AI cameras, even thermal cameras – again, they are all ONVIF based but also NDAA compliant and TAA compliant. They meet the requirements top to bottom. There is nothing that we have that does not fit, as it all conforms to market wants and needs.

We can look at analytics as well. Whether it is license plate recognition, fall down detection, intrusion detection and gun detection, with alliance partners that we work with as well, all of these are actually criteria for being successful in the Americas. It fits the industry, it fits the need and it fits the actual requirement.

Looking at licence plate recognition which is on the Edge, we can back that up into the Cloud, so the amount of hardware needed if the application requires it is being reduced. Alternatively, it can be more centralized from a server. Either option is there, so it’s not just having one solution for the application, it is having multiple different versions, depending on the need at the time and what the end user is looking for.

This is what MOBOTIX is about – the flexibility and modularity of what we can do with the product. Plus having German engineering behind it, means the reliability and the quality is always there as well.

Are there any vectors that you are looking forward to investing in or taking advantage of, within the Americas, in the future?

We can apply our portfolio to pretty much every vertical that exists out there, but if I had to say where we are prevalent and where we have the most advantages, I would say industrial applications, transportation, utilities and the energy sector. Those have shown again and again that MOBOTIX is at the forefront with the solution but also with the reliability of the solution and the return on investment.

The analytics we offer also provide much needed automation and data, whether it is perimeter control or fall down detection for patients, that makes us different from everyone else, we can deliver what the partner needs.

With those verticals mentioned, are there any potential collaborators or partnerships that can be formed?

Without a doubt, that’s how we go to market. We have an end-to-end solution within our industry but there are always other components that you can add on. There are even other solutions that you can add to ours – and it also works the other way round as our solutions can be added to others that could increase the offering and make the information you are getting back to the end client, that increases the appeal.

We are hugely focused on the relationships with our technology partners who we work with very closely. We develop opportunities, solutions and we do joint events with them which is something we are very invested in. No one can work in the security or IT industries anymore, without having this kind of collaboration of technical alliance with others.

We know what we are good at and we are not going to go out tomorrow and try and make telescopic poles for rapid deployment, we are not going to make solar panels for rapid deployment, we are not even going to make smoke detectors to integrate into schools for the detection of vaping, for example, but we integrate with companies that do provide these and other products that fit to ours. The result of this is that the joint offering can be even stronger.

For more information, visit: www.mobotix.com

This article was originally published in the bumper September edition of Security Journal Americas. To read your FREE digital edition, click here.

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