“We want to find creative ways to solve problems using emerging technology,” explains Ben Jobrack, Product Manager at Aiphone, in conversation with ISJ Editor, James Thorpe.
Can you tell us about your role at Aiphone and your work on AiphoneCloud specifically?
As Product Manager at Aiphone, I’m primarily responsible for our AiphoneCloud platform. Day-to-day, I’m talking to everyone at Aiphone whilst also talking to customers – and the unique thing about being a manufacturer in the security industry is that we have many, many customers.
Whilst we consider dealers and security integrators as customers, we are also solving problems for end-users, such as security managers and security professionals who are responsible for the safety of others.
We’re balancing this relationship so that we can provide value equally.
A lot of the time, the end-user simply wants a product that works – they have a problem that needs solving, such as needing to talk to someone on the other side of a locked door.
From the dealer’s perspective, they likely want the install to be simple, fast and clean. I’m talking to these people a lot, and it’s great to hear their feedback.
From there, it’s my job to take what I’m seeing in the market, look at those problems, and work with our engineers to create solutions to solve them.
We want to find creative ways to solve problems using emerging technology and work with the sales team here at Aiphone to help representatives further position us in the market.
It’s also about collaborating with our marketing team to develop helpful resources and communicate the unique benefits that we can bring to our customers.
There’s a lot of different people I have to talk to and a lot of different hats I have to wear – but, it’s always great to look at these problems through different lenses, come up with solutions and then see people use that solution and be happy with it.
How do remote management capabilities simplify work for security integration professionals?
One of the things that we can do with a cloud-based solution is really take feedback from customers and make the product better over and over again.
This is something a little bit more challenging to do potentially with an on-prem product. With AiphoneCloud, however, it is easy for us to take feedback and update the platform.
And, if we release new products, we can incorporate those into the user interface and build iteratively to really simplify this for our customers.
The best part about AiphoneCloud is that it is accessible from anywhere.
Whether it is a technician on the customer site who’s programming the system or an expert at the office doing the software configuration, having this cloud-based solution provides layers of expertise that can be developed to help the project go smoothly.
This has been a great point of feedback for our customers.
There’s always that first visit: “We’ve got it installed, it’s working, we think we have nailed it – let’s sign-off this project.”
Then, a month later, the customer says: “Hey – this is great, but I really wish it also did X, Y or Z.”
With a cloud-based solution you don’t necessarily need to send a truck to the site to make that specific change for the customer. In fact, you can do it from your office and deliver more value. You can be more responsive and adjust things on the fly.
How does AiphoneCloud’s remote management improve response time and reduce downtime for clients?
With the cloud, it’s really changed the way we look at security, reliability and uptime for services.
The resources that many international companies can dedicate to redundancy and reliability are just going to surpass anything a local customer could provide to a certain point.
Plus, when it comes to data security and privacy, there are expert staff working for these providers who are building that into products from the ground up.
Since AiphoneCloud is a cloud-based product, there are alerting and monitoring mechanisms that we can put in place so that if a system goes down or a device stops working, we’ll usually know before the customer.
What efficiencies does centralising subscription activation and renewal bring?
It provides a good view into how customers are using the product and what they find valuable.
It helps us build profiles of users so that we can continuously identify valuable services for integrators to add so their customers can receive that value as well.
When it comes to the subscription that customers are activating, by having a more direct relationship we are providing a simplified view of billing so they can manage their books better.
Moreover, it also helps us identify opportunities where we can suggest products that would be a great addition.
How are you looking to further develop AiphoneCloud in 2026 and beyond?
We’re continuously gathering feedback to make AiphoneCloud a better and more reliable product for our customers.
Security integrators are a key user group who use it every day to install and configure our systems – and we’ve done a really good job implementing their feedback to build a strong foundation that supports their work.
We also want AiphoneCloud to be a great experience for end users, such as property managers, who need valuable information about who’s coming into their building, how their system is being used and who can make certain changes or adjustments if necessary.
This could be valuable in a multi-tenant environment, for instance.
One thing we will be focusing on in 2026 is our partnerships with other manufacturers.
How can we leverage AiphoneCloud to provide more capabilities and more value whilst more tightly integrating our products with theirs?
There’s a huge trend in the security industry: Cloud-to-cloud integrations. Increasingly, we’re seeing audio becoming a more important part of that overall security posture for a building.
Using AiphoneCloud to integrate audio with other systems is going to provide a huge avenue for our partners to unlock new integrations with our products.
With the advent of cloud, it’s really easy for us to build something that will scale and then provide as much value as possible to the customer on an even playing field.
You know that it’s a rock-solid product because it’s not just you using it in your small business – enterprise customers are using the same product with the same sense of security and reliability.
