Engelhard new CEO at Mate

McLEAN, Va.--Mate Intelligent Video, with headquarters here and in Israel, has named former Israeli Police Force Brigadier General Uri Engelhard its chief executive officer. Before his role there, heading the Technologies Branch for six years--where he was responsible for the information and computer systems, the electronic and technological processes, and the communication technologies--Engelhard held positions including chairman, CEO, and senior manager at Israeli hi-tech companies such as Sapiens Israel, Amdocs and Tadiran Information Systems. He comes to Mate with a mandate to "accelerate the growth of the company," which he acknowledges is impossible without working closely with the integration channel. In early January, Security Systems News asked for his thoughts about the channel and the industry in general: What are your goals for the company in your first year of stewardship? How will my readers, the integrators who resell your product, know you're accomplishing those goals? For this year I am determined to achieve three main goals along the path to making Mate the video analytics provider of choice for leading systems integrators. First we will continue to improve upon the reputation we have built for innovative, reliable and open architecture products. Next we activate programs to help our integrators and technical partners to sell, install and support intelligent video solutions for their clients. And lastly we will strengthen our internal team and work processes. Our integrators will see these initiatives in the form of well-defined products that are easy to sell and install and in the support programs available to assist them in these efforts. How will the corporate climate change under your leadership? I intend to focus on both long- and short-term result-oriented work for the benefit of the company's owners, employees and customers. I believe in transparency, maintaining a close relationship with our customers and partners, creating motivation, while emphasizing professionalism, service orientation, quality and meeting deadlines. What do you see as the single largest driver for increasing market demand for analytics and intelligent video? How can integrators push this driver forward? Automated video surveillance, people counting and tailgating detection solutions drive measurable improvements in the efficiency and accuracy of security monitoring and facility management functions through their ability to manage the flood of video data and extract key events requiring attention. Integrators must be able to explain how these technical capabilities create positive impacts on their customers' operating quality, safety, regulatory compliance and ultimately their bottom line. How does Mate work to make sure its products work with other products, including legacy systems that integrators are asked to accommodate? What are your views on interoperability, standards, and open-architecture? Interoperability and open-architecture are key features of any winning solution. Mate's work plan focuses on these features, as well as on remote upgrades to ease maintenance and support. Our products currently support legacy camera and DVR arrangements as well as newer IP camera and IP video server architectures in a plug and play manner. We have aggressively built and will continue to expand a top-tier group of technical partners with complementary products to give our integrators the maximum technical flexibility and competitive advantage. If you were advising an integrator on how he should prepare his company for the next 10 years of security technology innovation, what would be your advice? The world is constantly becoming faster; there is an abundance of information and technologies. I believe that the main effort for the integrator should be to understand their target markets, asking what customers really need and then finding reliable tools to help their customer achieve their objectives. To support their customers over the long term, integrators need an organized process to continuously evaluate and incorporate new technologies such as intelligent video into their solution sets based on their customer needs. They should look for reliable, innovative and flexible partners who provide them completive advantage and help them deliver measurable business value to their clients.