Martin Woodhouse and Jason Van der Meer, InverseCurve – the market exclusive distributor of Torus across Asia, the Middle East and Africa – speak exclusively with ISJ Editor, James Thorpe.
Martin Woodhouse (MW): I have over 25 years’ experience in the security industry. For the last 12 years, I have been focused on key management and I’m now using my experience to explore different geographies and regional markets – from South America all the way to New Zealand and Australia.
I am focused on building the right channel partner networks and utilising marketing efforts to help people understand our offering.
I want to educate the market as to what the value proposition is of what we’re offering to each individual market.
Jason Van der Meer (JVdM): I have 15 years of industry experience. I started out in the key management sector as a customer, before moving into the distributorship space.
When the opportunity to join Torus arrived, I jumped at it. It really is a world-class solution and its proving this so far, particularly in the Australia and the US.
To be able to launch this product to the international market is fantastic and the reception we had at Intersec was great.
I’ve come from a technical background, but in this new role, I now get a good understanding of what customers are expecting.
Can you tell us more about Torus’s journey up to this point and what you see for the future of this technology in the market?
JVdM: There’s a dynamic shift happening – just look at the way access control is moving to the cloud and everyone’s starting to embrace IoT.
We know our solution is well presented for all markets and industries that are looking for innovative, cutting-edge tech.
Now we have seen the success of Torus in the US market, we know people are receptive to it. What people are seeing is the explosion of AI and the desire to make use of big data.
Torus is there to take this data and draw a picture of a security environment. By deploying a solution that has its own software platform, you can utilise this intelligence – and Torus has that ability right out of the box.
MW: The technology partners and alliances we have built help showcase just how good our cloud native platform is, how easy it is to install and how quick it is to get businesses online, gaining the capability to start driving efficiency and return on investment.
You have got so much experience in this industry. When we look at the hospitality market specifically, what are you most excited about?
MW: The speed of getting the system installed, online and driving the capability of the hospitality industry is vital.
People talk about this idea that in the future, there’s not going to be any keys in the security process. The likelihood is that there’s always going to be keys involved.
What we focus on is the back-of-house capability, where you may also be trying to drive efficiencies related to cleaners, front-of-house staff at a hotel or waiters in a restaurant, for example.
It all comes down to customer experience, and if we can streamline the back-of-house, we improve the front-of-house.
JVdM: An effective solution like an electronic key cabinet makes life easier for staff. The objective for Torus is that a cleaner or maintenance worker should be able to get access to keys within seconds.
The current process in a lot of hospitality settings, is that it can take five or so minutes to get a key. What if that key goes missing?
To find it, you may have to go and find a log book and see who signed it out. This sounds trivial, but this process is prone to error.
If you’ve got 20 cleaners and two facility workers, you’ve got to have someone managing access to keys. This process is probably one of the biggest time-wasters in your business.
With the Torus solution, people can get their keys, streamlining the entire business process. When we think about return on investment, it’s not even just about the cost of hardware, nor the potential loss of keys.
It’s about that professional and operational time.
MW: One critical aspect in the hospitality space is helping people understand the benefits when it comes to what these solutions can deliver.
There’s lots of hotels out there that don’t have any set processes or technologies. At this moment in time, how can they understand where efficiencies can come from by utilising a system such as Torus?
We help people get meaning out of the data that we collect, ensuring that they can drive the right processes and efficiencies – hospitality is no different to any other industry in this regard.
JVdM: Once you’ve got a key control solution, you’re managing access to keys and processes. The minute you then start integrating that solution with other platforms, the process becomes seamless.
However, if you’re a security manager at a hotel, whilst a single view of who has access is beneficial, they don’t actually know who’s on site or whether that person is entitled to be on site.
This is where the Torus solution offers a real value-add.
MW: I agree, Jason. When you think about shift changeovers in the hospitality industry, it’s important you create that efficiency and control by making sure staff can go and get their keys and get on with the job without any delay.
What does the next 12 months look like for Torus?
JVdM: Hospitality is a major focus for us. When we look at our success in Australia and in the US, the hospitality, commercial enterprise and tenancy management sectors are a big part of the business already.
We know, whether it be in Asia or the Middle East, that we can expect to see similar growth.
Some of these businesses are large – they are going to want a single platform view. Torus provides that.
You can have over 2,000 systems sitting on a highly scalable enterprise platform. What that will allow them to do is, at a corporate level, get a full, simplified picture of their locations.
The phrase ‘simplifying’ isn’t used to undersell what’s involved in having an electric key cabinet – because it’s quite complex – but is a testament to just how well the product has been designed.
