In business and personal life today, digitalisation increasingly means moving to mobile, reports ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions EMEIA.
Mobile-first is becoming the norm across every region and most industries. In Western Europe alone, there are 459 million active smartphones (Smartphones in Europe – Statistics & Facts, Statista).
Only a fraction of these are currently used for digital access, but this is changing fast: One projection suggests mobile credentials’ CAGR will be more than 22% over the next seven years (Mobile Access Control System Market Report, Research Dive).
This rapid growth seems only natural. For building access, it is more secure and more convenient, for both users and managers, when the smartphone also becomes a key.
Mobile access benefits the organisation. From their perspective, digitalisation helps to maximise the productivity of existing assets.
The reliability and flexibility of digital access solutions help businesses prepare the management of their premises for the challenges to come.
By also adopting a mobile ethos, in access and beyond, businesses increase convenience for users and the security of buildings.
Smartphone keys also provide everyday benefits, in terms of security and convenience, for the building user.
Mobile, then, is a win-win, so it is easy to understand why, according to one analyst, mobile is “the dominant trend in access control” (The evolution of mobile credentialing to mobile access solutions, IFSEC Insider).
Making life easier for users and facility managers
For staff, contractors and visitors, using mobile keys for access helps them to act faster, work smarter and collaborate more productively.
Similar convenience benefits have already made banks, travel agents and food delivery services into mobile-first sectors.
With mobile access, building users no longer need to carry or keep track of keys, fobs, badges or cards. They appreciate the added convenience.
Importantly, from a facilities management perspective, mobile access enables the secure movement of people into and through business premises – and streamlines daily work for site managers by enabling them to control these premises remotely.
Mobile credentials are easy to amend or de-authorise. Changes to anyone’s access permissions can be made over the air, without dedicated readers or asking a user to check-in their credential.
Remote access management via smartphone and a secure cloud, then, saves facilities staff time and hassle.
They work more flexibly, even remotely, benefitting both their wellbeing and their organisation’s productivity.
Mobile credentials are also more secure. Users almost never lend their phone to anyone else, even for a few minutes.
It’s also much harder to lose than a badge or keycard. Furthermore, when a security administrator cancels a mobile key – say, someone loses their phone – it is blocked immediately.
When a tenancy, employment contract or authorised visit ends, there is no longer any need to waste time with handover meetings. A few clicks delete the access permissions.
David Moser, SVP & Head of Digital Access Solutions at ASSA ABLOY Opening Solutions EMEIA commented: “At ASSA ABLOY, we were quick to spot the complementary benefits of mobile access for both users and facilities managers.
“So many of our access innovations provide the option to make access not only digital but also mobile.
“This applies both to our keyless solutions and to our award-winning programmable key-based digital solutions,” he concluded.
A choice of mobile access solutions from ASSA ABLOY
ASSA ABLOY offers customers a choice of mobile access solutions, both within complete digital access systems and via devices which plug seamlessly into an existing security management solution.
Multi-residential housing is just one sector, among many, where the advantages of mobile access have caused a rapid growth in adoption.
Fast-growing build-to-rent housing provider Becorp is just one that has benefited from its convenience. For a planned new development in Barcelona, it sought a digital alternative to mechanical keys.
Becorp realised that a keyless solution would save property management time, which is often spent handling hundreds of physical keys.
The burden on staff is especially great when properties are newly occupied or vacated, a regular occurrence in large build-to-rent complexes.
Residents instead use secure mobile keys in their own SMARTair Openow app.
“Severe pressure”
Becorp’s Xavier Casals explained: “Physical key management for any large development puts severe pressure on operational costs.
“Choosing SMARTair wireless locks and mobile management via Openow helps us to minimise them.”
“Instantly update permissions”
David Moser continued: “We have several more mobile access solutions, providing customers with a choice to meet their exact needs.
“For example, CLIQ Connect is a mobile extension to ASSA ABLOY’s CLIQ programmable key access solution.
“With this added mobile functionality a keyholder no longer needs to update access rights physically in person.
“Their system administrator simply opens the CLIQ Web Manager – from anywhere – and updates it. The key-holder makes an encrypted connection between their programmable BLE key and the app on the mobile to instantly update permissions from the cloud,” he concluded.
“Very little maintenance”
At Eau de Valence, in France, it chose battery powered CLIQ Connect keys with this added mobile capability to streamline the management of remote workers, who access sites via with CLIQ electromechanical locks equipped with mechanical disc cylinders with encrypted electronics.
Christophe Nublat, Head of Study and Works Division at Eau de Valence remarked: “All the energy is in the key.
“There is no power supply to the lock and therefore very little maintenance.”
CLIQ Connect
Several of its programmable keys have CLIQ Connect technology, to allow supervisors to update their key access permissions on the move, via BLE, in the event of a problem arising when they are away from base or on-call – an innovative, convenient, user-friendly application of mobile technology to access digitalisation.
