Brivo Founder & CEO Steve Van Till discusses innovation

Brivo Founder & CEO Steve Van Till discusses leadership, business resilience and the importance of customer feedback with ISJ Editor, James Thorpe.

Brivo is committed to transforming how businesses, organisations and individuals secure their spaces.

Renowned for delivering scalable and flexible systems, the company’s solutions leverage leading technology to ensure they integrate with modern infrastructure.

However, Brivo’s expertise doesn’t end there – the global provider’s focuses extend beyond the product.

Leadership, resilience and a strong emphasis on creativity are fundamental to Brivo’s success.

A culture of innovation is driven by Steve Van Till, Founder & CEO, who takes pride in fostering an environment that prioritises pushing boundaries over products.

The team continues to problem-solve, unlocking new opportunities and reshaping security as we know it.

Growing together

Brivo’s approach to innovation is exemplified by its unique initiatives that encourage employees to grow together and drive continuous improvement.

“I think a lot of people come across the word innovation and simply assume that it has to do with a product or technology,” says Van Till, speaking with International Security Journal Editor, James Thorpe.

“What we’ve done is create a company-wide contest for innovation which runs for four cycles per year. There’s a prize and the winning idea is implemented.”

This is part of the cultural innovation mechanism that Brivo has in place – a mechanism that has propelled it to the forefront of the cloud-based security solutions market. It is also the kind of innovation that Van Till and the entire executive team at Brivo looks to encourage.

“This innovation could be related to business processes. It could be technology. It could be a new product. It might also be a marketing campaign or simply something that nobody has ever dared to do before.

The concept, however, is to tap into the creativity of all the people in the company to encourage broader thinking. It’s a way of making everyone feel included; there’s no technical priesthood that gets all the credit for the things we do. It’s all about the company.

“One of the other things we have focused on from the beginning is strong employee onboarding,” Van Till continued. “This includes a full week at the Brivo headquarters. In fact, I personally do a one-hour orientation for every incoming class so that people feel connected to the business as a whole.”

Though Brivo has a proven model for achieving success, Van Till acknowledges that leadership can be fraught with unique challenges and demanding scenarios. “One thing I always go back to is the origin story for Brivo,” he said. “We started out with one product concept in one market – the Smart Box. This was designed to keep packages from getting stolen during the emerging e-commerce era.

“We needed to pivot the Smart Box into an access control system, however. In order to do that, we had to go through the painful process of making layoffs. The only way we got through this period was by making tough decisions and working closely with the people who remained to give them the confidence we were actually able to find a path forward.

“These experiences have helped me become a better leader over 20 years. My philosophy has always been focused on people. Today, I’ve managed to bring in an executive team that shares that same belief. We prioritise the way we treat people. One of the comments I always get from new members of the team when they join is: ‘Everyone has helped me.’

“I spoke to one person about this in a little more depth and she said: ‘At my last company, it was every person for themselves. People felt that it was a zero-sum game, where if they were helping me, they were hurting themselves.’

I was shocked to hear this. It felt like such an old school culture that I am surprised is still out there. Poor culture tends to be indelible and it’s hard to change – especially if the leadership hasn’t changed.

“An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man,” Van Till remarked, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’.

Technology trends

In October, Van Till kicked off the first full day of the 2024 Cloud Security Summit – hosted by Brivo and Eagle Eye Networks – with a session aptly named, “The New Security”.

Reflecting on his keynote, he shared his perspectives on the expansion of the security industry, highlighting how technological advancements, especially related to AI, are reshaping the landscape.

“I think AI is going to allow us to replace other functions in the security ecosystem,” he commented.

“One thing I was talking about with those who attended the Summit was this idea that the entire apparatus of the intrusion/burglar alarm infrastructure is outdated, unnecessary or redundant to access control and video systems that may exist at the same facility.

“Why do we have a parallel system that is less sophisticated than the two others? You can do most intrusion detection with a camera, plus AI, and map that back into the traditional zone system and forward things to a central station.

Given all the sensors that access systems have, why put another sensor there for the burglar alarm system? It’s a lot of extra work and one more thing to fail.”

Van Till believes that adopting newer approaches involving cameras and AI is more accurate, increasing efficiency and preventing the antagonization of law enforcement as a result of time-consuming false alarms: “I don’t see the majority of people investing in new intrusion infrastructure.

Many traditional burglar systems generate false alarms. That’s why, in the US, a huge lobbying campaign is taking place involving local law enforcement.”

Engagement and feedback

Leading companies prioritise customers. Brivo operates within a two-layer industry structure, selling to systems integrators who, in turn, sell to end users – this arrangement generates two distinct levels of feedback.

While there is significant overlap between the two, integrators also provide insights into how the business interface functions.

“We’ve got a partner portal where they can order products, manage accounts, create new accounts, on-board people and engage in CRM activities,” Van Till remarked. “That’s a big part of what we do that only systems integrators have an input in.”

Brivo receives varied feedback from each of the different segments it serves.

For example, the company’s multifamily vertical – which has been its fastest-growing segment, expanding by 40% annually for the past three years – faces a completely different set of concerns compared to more generic access control use cases.

“Random guests being authorised to enter premises by residents is a use case that doesn’t really exist the same way in commercial buildings, because you’ve got lobbies and visitor management kiosks in place. Moreover, enterprise users have a different set of concerns than small businesses.

In this case, we get more direct input from the enterprise end users themselves than from systems integrators as their representative.

“Every large company has a unique set of needs, resulting in less generalisation when it comes to the requirements in the marketplace. As a result, Brivo engages in conversations to understand the specific demands of their business processes. This has proven to be highly effective.”

Another announcement highlighted by Van Till is the company’s transition to a more unified platform. This shift enables customers to obtain necessary services from a single source.

With the rapid growth of PropTech, users are often overwhelmed by the multitude of applications they need to manage; Brivo aims to streamline this by reducing the number of providers customers rely on, while enhancing each solution with more features and functionalities.

This approach simplifies the user experience and delivers value by consolidating essential tools into one comprehensive platform. “We have access, video, visitor management and intercom,”

Van Till remarked. “We’re going to continue to build out that suite of services so that people can get everything they need from us, instead of trying to cobble something together on their own.”

“A truly frictionless experience”

Van Till also said more about the launch of his book – ‘The New Security’ – which, as stated on his website, aims to convey ‘optimism about significant changes taking place in the security industry, driven by cloud, mobile, social, big data, AI and IoT technologies’.

He explained: “One of the themes that runs through the book is looking at the transformation of the security industry.

“There are quite a few different influences; for example, the arrival of big tech.

There’s more intelligent solutions that are coming into play and I think there’s going to be more disruption as well as greater opportunity to monetise new things.

Mobile credentials are a great example of this.

“I think the drive towards user experience is going to continue to be a differentiator for companies in the industry.

One of the things I’ve learned is that anytime you launch a new product in a channel-dominated industry, there’s a lag effect. First you have to educate your sales team, then they have to educate the channel – they have to be able to convey that message to end users.

“It takes a good year from the time you launch something, up until the point you start seeing uptake. We’re at the beginning of that uptake curve with Brivo Door Station, for example.

We have it all over our office and I’m impressed every single time at the speed of its facial recognition capability. As I’m walking towards it, even when I’m eight paces away, it picks up my face and unlocks the door.

“I was happy when I got mobile credentials on my smart watch, because I could just hold my watch up to the reader – but the facial recognition is even faster.

“I just walk towards the door, it recognises me and I’m in. It’s a truly frictionless experience.”