Facilities of all types looking to secure their buildings typically look to CCTV, access control and intrusion detection as their top three “go-to” technologies. Visitor management, historically handled as an afterthought, has come a long way in the past decade and now includes fully electronic options that can be integrated to security systems. But are buyers going for it or is it a “want to have but it’s not in the budget” technology?
“We are seeing more activity in visitor management than we have in its history,” says Lee Porter, category manager for visitor care, Brady Corp., Milwaukee. “In the last 17 years or so there has been a gradual increase in interest and awareness of visitor management, but even more so in the last couple of years. People are realizing they have done a good job in security of taking care of all the other groups of people; but visitors are typically that last group of people they pay attention to. They are starting to think more about the people coming into their facilities.”