Enterprise security: Getting people through the door securely

ISJ chats enterprise security and the importance of scalability with Brivo’s Jason Kaveney.

Can you tell us more about the Brivo enterprise solution?

The Brivo enterprise solution delivers the best credential management, whether that’s physical credentials like smart cards, digital credentials in Brivo Mobile Pass or advanced credentials like biometrics or license plate recognition.

We know that at the end of the day, customers are looking to get people through the door safely and securely. We achieve this by providing a seamless user experience.

By having strong experience, it gets everybody invested in the security of the company.

For administrators, we place a huge focus on reporting and data visibility.

We have enterprise specific tools, like Data Explorer, to generate custom reporting based on your own individual audit and compliance needs, as well as, the reports that are being required either for security management or other groups within the company.

Not many other access control solutions have the kinds of reporting capabilities that Brivo offers for an enterprise customer.

Lastly, Brivo runs as an open platform. No matter what hardware you’re using, whether it’s Brivo panels with Brivo readers or Mercury panels with HID readers, we make it easy for you to take your current security posture and add Brivo services in a way that makes sense for you.

You don’t have to rip and replace your hardware to use Brivo Access and you can easily integrate Brivo with other software tools that you’re using today, such as Azure or Okta.

As an enterprise customer, there are many decision makers you will need to include in the conversation.

Brivo’s solution is a way to get more people in the room and more people bought into the idea that access control is more than just locking doors.

It really can be something that’s central to the operation of your business.

What are the main challenges when it comes to securing businesses and organisations?

One of the biggest challenges our customers are facing is high turnover. Companies are trying to keep up with the constant changes in employees.

Whether that means managing user access by issuing and retrieving badges or digital credentials, or training and onboarding new security staff, you really need a platform that is going to be able to grow with you.

When an access control system comes on board, it has to be productive right away. It can’t be difficult to use and the interface has to be intuitive.

You need to have all of those core functions clearly labelled, clearly available at a moment’s notice.

From the user’s perspective, they need to be able to get their credentials on their first day of work and they have to be able to go where they need to go and interact with their readers.

Brivo wants to make sure that everyone has credentials at all times.

While much of the access control experience is pretty consistent across solutions, it’s really about creating a seamless experience with them.

That’s why we launched the Brivo Mobile Pass with Apple Wallet and are now launching with Google Wallet.

This way, people can easily follow processes and less people are propping doors open or letting them tailgate behind them.

How important is scalability when it comes to designing solutions for enterprise applications?

Scalability is arguably the most important thing to keep in mind. It’s not something needed on day one but you should have solutions that are going to scale with you.

Every access control solution is going to work at small volumes – local on-prem or cloud-based.

The question is: What do you do if you have 50+ sites and 1,000+ users?

Your solution needs to work great on day one and work great on day 100 when you have ten times the traffic. You need a solution that scales and a cloud-based architecture is key.

We built Brivo as a cloud-based solution to start, so it scales with you.

Brivo can support customers large and small. We have API integrations with many technology partners – from identity providers Azure, Okta and Google Workspace – to property management systems. 

How do your solutions enable seamless user experiences whilst offering effective protection?

Enabling a seamless user experience whilst offering effective protection is probably the biggest challenge in access control because they are two competing arms in a lot of ways.

The most seamless user experience would be to walk to a door and it magically opens and the most effective security would be a total lockdown with 50 steps before access is granted.

Neither one of those is going to work for a company.

As we build solutions, we identify who’s the customer versus who’s the user.

For example, if it’s a higher security application, such as a bank or server room, we focus on using features such as anti-passback, identity connector, multi-factor authentication or leveraging single sign-on.

Digital credentials, like Brivo Mobile Pass, enable seamless user experiences whilst offering effective protection. People very rarely forget their phone.

If you put someone’s credential on their phone, you know they’re going to have it all the time.

They’re not going to lend it to somebody, pass it around the office or accidentally leave it in the parking lot.

Brivo brings together multiple security applications: Access control, video and alarm management into one platform.

This creates unity, keeps things in sync and improves the user experience at the same time.

While user experience and security are seemingly competing ideas, in a lot of ways, the more you improve your user experience, you’re going to improve security at the same time.