Increasing adoption of cloud services primary driver of growth in global critical infrastructure protection market: research

The increased adoption of cloud-based services among enterprises is the primary driver for growth in the global critical infrastructure protection market, according to global market research company Technavio.

Research analysts at Technavio predicted on Wednesday that the global critical infrastructure protection market – which includes technology (cyber and physical security) and physical security (software, alarms and notification systems, surveillance systems and access control systems) – would increase at a compound annual growth rate of more than 13% between 2016 and 2020.

Technavio noted in a statement that cloud-based services are deployed for a number of applications such as authentication, video management, and storing biometrics information. “The adoption of cloud-based services is on an upsurge in small and medium-sized enterprises compared to large enterprises, due to their cost-effective nature,” the statement said. “Furthermore, cloud-based security services offer flexibility and scalability to accommodate the varying needs of consumers.”

During 2015, the Americas occupied more than 41% of the market space to become the dominant shareholder in the global critical infrastructure protection market, Technavio reported. However, the growth of the market in this region is expected to witness a decline because of the early adoption of critical infrastructure protection solutions during the forecast period.

“The rise in availability of integrated security solutions is the latest trend in the market,” said says Amrita Choudhury, lead analyst, information and communications technology, Technavio Research. “End-users prefer integrated and converged critical infrastructure protection solutions over standalone critical infrastructure protection security solutions as they provide better support and functionality. The reduced overall cost of integrated critical infrastructure protection solutions is expected to increase its adoption amongst consumers in the coming years,” Choudhury said.

Currently, access control systems – which grant access to employees to protected areas only when their identity matches the information stored in the organization’s database – account for almost 40% of the overall market share to dominate the global critical infrastructure protection market. During 2015, the physical security segment (which includes software, alarms and notifications systems, surveillance systems and access control systems) dominated the market, accounting for more than 64% of the market share. “The growth of the access control systems market can be attributed to the increased adoption of access control systems to prevent unauthorized access to data and facilities,” the statement said. “The growing adoption of advanced technologies such as multifactor authentication and multimodal biometrics is expected to further fuel growth in this segment by 2020.”

The research also found that “the growing workforce mobility will compel a number of organizations to start implementing cloud-based services for business purposes, which in turn will propel the demand for this market during the forecast period.”