Its not just Mobotix that wants you to get trained!!! Have a look at this IPVM report
Philip George TelExcell
Please note that the below mentioned are the views of IPVM and not directed to any Company/Induvidual. The below feedback is from the American market and the situation unfortunately is quite similar here (broad overview)!!!
----Philip George
Integrators Don't Know What They Are Doing
by John Honovich, IPVM posted on Jun 04, 2012We surveyed 50 surveillance manufacturers asking them what their most common problems and challenges were when working with integrators. While the question was left open ended so manufacturers could say whatever they wanted, overwhelmingly manufacturers kept repeating the same thing - 'integrators' lack basic technical knowledge.
While manufacturers could have cited various issues like integrators not selling enough or not being loyal enough or not paying their bills, very few did. Instead, the comments kept going back to a lack of knowledge, a lack of training and the resulting problems that it causes.
Two important points should be kept in mind:
- Not All Integrators - Clearly not all integrators have this problem and a number of manufacturers did explicitly note this.
- What it is to be an 'Integrator' - Lots of people call themselves 'integrators'. An integrator's skills can range from genius to barely tying their own shoes. Many times, it would be more appropriate to call some 'integrators' installers or trunk slammers.
That noted, here are the specific issues and comments that manufacturers offered.
Lack of Basic Knowledge
Underlying their responses were concerns about a lack of basic knowledge:
- "Knowledge level and technical expertise of integrators do not match what is required for IP surveillance system. "
- "Most of our integrators are from security world and they don't want to learn new technologies."
- "Integrators lack experienced IT engineering staff. Enough said."
- "Migration from legacy (analogue) to IP - many integrators came unprepared into this new domain and lack networking know how."
- "In general new recruits to any SI organization don't spend enough time in learning/training in fundamentals of IP networking, video & storage."
- "I find the IP/Networking knowledge level of integrators sorely lacking. Most have difficulty with extremely basic operations like changing their cameras/servers from DHCP to Fixed IP."
- "We just went through a series of IP training courses in Canada with a major distributor (we met with 100 dealers in our trainings) and 90% of dealers had no idea how to change their laptops from DHCP to fixed IP to be able to connect an IP camera."
Lack of Commitment to Training
Many manufacturers felt that not only did integrators lack knowledge, they lacked the drive to get training:
- "They will not invest in training."
- "99% of them: don't want to be educated"
- "Not much commitment to training on new products"
- "Sending untrained people to jobs when they have trained people."
- "Lack of training/desire to train (mainly from security sector not IT)"
- "Lack willingness to commit to training. I hear: “I’ll send people to training as soon as we’re awarded this project…”
- "Being an integrator vs installer - The expectation is that they have tested and figured this stuff out, and gotten themselves trained as required."
- "Integrators doing what could amount to a bait and switch, sending their smartest guy to training, but sending an untrained underqualified person to install."
- "Most integrators will delegate training to one or two technicians and a few sales guys for ordering parts etc. But it is the use of best practices (of any product/solution implementation) that is really hard to find time for."
- "Belief that product training is unnecessary and lay blame on the manufacturer when they can't complete a job thus forcing the manufacturer to step in to correct the issues...then getting upset when a direct relationship with the end user develops"
Manufacturers Pay the Price
The net effect, manufacturers reported, was more cost, complexity and problems for them:
- "Manufacturers spend way too much time doing installation support as opposed to real tech support."
- "There are not so good ones that simply slap the camera up, and when even the slightest thing goes wrong they don't know what to do because they've never used the camera before and have not taken any time to familiarize themselves with it."
- "A vast majority of integrators do not have basic trouble-shooting skills and expect the manufacturer to bail them out of trouble on the systems they were paid to integrate and support."
- "Often times their installers / technicians believe they know everything and do not take the time to read the instruction manual included with each product."
- "If it doesn't work it's down to the manufacturer to resolve any issues. Happy to take the profit but not the headaches/challenges associated with larger IP systems."
- "As a VMS provider, we often get the brunt of this as our software is the "glue" that connects all of the parts together, so we end up spending five hours discovering that the latest IP camera firmware-du-jour has a bug, or that they have not designed a proper network"
- "Integrators all but demand that manufacturers provide on-site assistance for deployment and software de-bugging prior to customer turn-over regardless of the size of project."
- "Integrators utilize inferior components for their network infrastructure (switches, etc) or place other systems on the camera network which compromises the performance of the system."
- "Training and troubleshooting often takes the form of starting at the most fundamental terminology and hours of explaining and teaching before you can even start looking for the problems. Something as simple as changing a network address on a server with 2 NICs can become hours of troubleshooting."
Integrator's Responsibility
Integrators must know the fundamentals of IP networks, video surveillance and the products they use. As a professional, there has to be a minimum level of knowledge. Without this, everyone loses - the end users, the manufacturers and the real integrators. The only ones who 'win' are those 'integrators' getting business at the expense of their customers and partners.
Manufacturer's Responsibility
However, manufacturers have responsibility as well, especially when it comes to training on their own products. They need to make it as easy as possible to get that knowledge. Many still do not. The undisputed poster boy of this is Milestone, who badgers integrators to pay thousands for multi-day training, has no online video training available, complains about their integrators unfairly burdening them and then rolls out abyzantine support plan that may or may not charge integrators for phone help.
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