Securing your holiday home with the best security system

Vikram Atwal, Director at VySecure Pvt. Ltd, a company offering complete security solutions to home owners, speaks to Holiday Home Times on why a holiday home owner must install a security system in his home.

Excerpts of the interview...

Please tell us something about your company, VYSecure.

Vikram Atwal: We at VySecure are neutral to vendors, manufacturers, and technologies. Instead we are customer-centric, which means we understand the requirements of a customer, and then work with them to identify the best solution, and then work with them to procure from different sources and implement it at their site.

As per our vendor list, we deal with most US, EU, and some Chinese and Indian brands. Our projects typically cover, CCTV, IP Cameras, Iris-Scan, Face Scan, Bio-metric and smart card based authentication systems, and then the access control includes magnetic locks, tripods, bollards, turnstiles, and boom barriers. Most of our projects are at large farm houses, factories, power plants, and now entering the developers market.

For holiday homes, some other elements that are of utmost necessity and the solutions to which we deliver are, intrusion alarms, video door phones, and electric fencing.

How can a home/ residence profit from the security products you deal with? How big is the Indian market for home security products?

Vikram Atwal: First and foremost, our products can surely make holiday homes and their owners to become more secure, and vigilant. As per the Indian market, it’s still in its infancy, while so many new properties are coming up, and even our traditional homes are under threat to burglary, regular theft, and in some cases murders, etc. Hence this market is only going to grow, and explode, but it will take some time. So far the largest organized player is Zicom, while others are trying to establish themselves. There is the danger of many un-organized players, who fool the customer with a quick buck, and provide sub-standard products with no service. This market should keep growing at a rate of 30 to 50 percent in the near future.

What are the major deterrents for individual home owners who keep away from these products because they are not aware of what’s best for them?

Vikram Atwal: No established retail outlets, or other forms of distribution by any real player. Very little understanding or knowledge. Many un-organized players who can be misleading.

Suppose any home owner wants to buy your product whom should he reach and where (how big is your marketing network)?

Vikram Atwal: We do not have a marketing network. They simply can reach us by mail, info@vysecure.com or reach our head of this company, Ret. Lt. Col. CS Prabhakar at +91-9711333980. We are operating in Delhi-NCR, Goa, Mumbai, Pune, and Chennai at the moment.

What is the minimum investment required to install a security system in a villa and an apartment?

Vikram Atwal: We have had some installations that have run into Rs. 12 lacs and above at farm houses, and large independent houses. But here the clients only wanted the best equipment, though we have also been doing installations worth Rs. 25,000.

My personal bet is, for a holiday home owner who has a typical villa or an apartment, 2 to 3 cameras, 1 Door Video Phone, is more than enough. The cost for the same should be around Rs. 25,000. The only element that one cannot state is the wiring. While if the property is in a scheduled area, than they may want to look into a burglar alarm system and barbed wiring on top of their wall (electric or non-electric).

One another aspect I will like to talk about is the actual perception and reality of security using any of these products. We must be clear, that these products do help, especially keeping in mind today’s day and time, when the amount of incidences have grown many folds. But these devices have limitations, so every home owner should use their own caution, basic knowledge, and check the vendor who does their work and also employ a good guard company.