Interview with Neil Norman, CEO of Human Recognition Systems

Company referenced in this item: Human Recognition Systems

FB
Can you please provide our readers with a brief background of your company?

HRS
I started Human Recognition Systems in 2001, with a clear vision to establish a company which is recognised as an innovator and pioneer in the field of biometrics.

Whilst working within the strategy side of Accenture, the American Global Consulting firm, I was introduced to a then, rudimentary fingerprint reader. The potential of biometric technology had a significant impact on me and I quickly recognised there was a gap in the market that presented significant opportunities.

As the UK’s largest independent biometric consultancy and system integrator we have built a solid reputation for delivering large-scale, prototype projects to the public and private sectors. We are responsible for delivering the concept of a design all the way through development, test and then into deployment.

Our success includes an iris and fingerprint-enabled methadone dispensing system for the Department of Heath – now used in over 100 UK prisons – and the first mandatory biometric access control scheme for all staff working airside at Manchester Airport.

We have also invested heavily in developing our own intellectual property; where we own a series of biometric business platforms, which are specifically built around a business problem. These business solutions are positioned as MSolutions; the ‘M’ symbolised as the ‘man icon’ from our brand name but it also stands for ‘Managed’ solutions.

MSite, is specifically targeted at the construction industry. It is an integrated biometric workforce management system which uses identity management to enforce health and safety, payroll and general site security for construction clients. We estimate that we have in the region of approximately 120 site installations across Europe.

FB
I understand that your expertise is in the areas of iris, finger, face, vein etc. How do you choose which biometric best fits a client’s needs?

HRS
The fact that we are an independent consultancy means we are not reliant on any one biometric. Whilst we work closely with all of the world’s leading biometric companies we are uniquely placed to offer truly unbiased recommendations based on the business problem we are presented with.

We have a ‘best fit for purpose’ approach to business which has a number of benefits to our clients because it means we can take all elements of a project into consideration including: the issue that needs to be resolved, any limitations, commercial implications and future proofing the solution.

All biometrics have different benefits and different disadvantages depending upon the population that you’re trying to capture the biometrics from; the familiarity with the technology; how regularly they will be using it, or what pollutants exists in that role. There is a whole series of questions that come into play and it’s impossible to determine which biometric is right for the client until you have performed a full review.

However, we are increasingly being asked to look at systems that have multiple biometric capabilities to add increased layers of security and to ensure that 100% of individuals can be biometrically enrolled onto a system.

FB
You mentioned your MSolutions and the one in particular regarding the construction vertical; would you describe the industry vertical markets that you concentrate on? As well, would you fill us in on which vertical has seen the greatest growth?

HRS
We have developed MSolutions that specifically target the construction and aviation sectors but we also work within national security, for example with central government, defence, homeland and border security sectors.

Our growth within the public sector has enabled us to develop specific biometric platforms that can rapidly speed up development time on bespoke projects. Most recently we have developed a mobile biometric platform for the defence and homeland security sectors which facilitates a whole host of capabilities and is flexible enabling the customer a choice of biometric devices dependent on their specific requirements.

The MSolutions we have developed for the aviation sector are MFlow – a series of automated business solutions that improve passenger flow through airports. Our most recent success is with MFlow Exit Lanes, which was initially trialed at Manchester Airport’s T3, but has now been rolled out to all three terminals. We have also recently installed MFlow Exit Lanes at Newcastle Airport’s international and domestic terminals and we are working with a number of other UK airports.

One of the first solutions we delivered in the airport sector was our MSecure Biometric Staff Access Scheme, which integrated Manchester Airport’s legacy card access system with iris biometric and a volumetric portal to ensure access into secure airside zones was impenetrable. The success of the introduction of the system across the airport resulted in it becoming mandatory for all airside staff to be biometrically enrolled, in March this year.

The MSite solutions are a series of three solutions targeting the construction industry. Whilst all three essentially provide the same benefits to common issues faced by the industry, they are configured to best meet the needs of each customer.

MSite is available in a single site, civils or enterprise format dependent on the level of customer requirement and the needs of each job. We have recently won ‘Preferred Supplier Status’ with Carillion UK, which means all jobs undertaken by Carillion that meet basic ROI criteria will be installed with the MSite Enterprise which will deliver a central reporting function.

As a business we are experiencing significant growth across all the sectors we are operating in and expect that growth to continue throughout 2010.

FB
Would you care to describe a recent deployment of one of your MSolutions?

HRS
MSite is our most successful solution to date with over 120 deployments across Europe. We have recently launched a new version – MSite Civils which has been developed to meet the challenging needs of the civils sector, whilst still delivering all the benefits of the standard MSite solution.

Carillion UK were the first company to use the new MSite Civils solution on the Edinburgh Trams project. The brief to Human Recognition Systems was to implement a workforce management solution that is networked across 5 sites throughout Edinburgh using 3G wireless technology and is linked into a central reporting system that provides workforce management, health and safety and payroll data. This solution is the first of its kind to be used in the UK.

FB
I’m also of the belief that now that biometrics are starting to become more commonplace, that market is definitely ready to explode.

HRS
I think the publicity generated by the numerous National Identity Schemes and other high profile biometric projects has educated the general public and opened up biometrics to a much wider audience and this will inevitably have a positive impact on market growth.

As I mentioned earlier, I think there has always been huge potential for biometrics because of the benefits it can provide over more traditional security technologies. The industry is now reaching a maturity whereby the technology and biometric hardware has progressed to a point where it is consistently delivering to meet customer expectations.

I believe there is still a gap in the UK market for more system integrators specialising in biometrics. Inevitably as a market experiences significant growth you see a lot of new businesses emerging, looking to take market share, but not always with the right skills to deliver.

Human Recognition Systems is committed to best practice in the design, development and delivery of biometric systems and as part of that commitment we made significant contributions to the development of the UK’s first industry standards – National Occupational Standards for Human Identity and Biometrics – which were officially accepted by the UK biometrics industry in May 2009 and have been endorsed by the BSI and Intellect Association.

FB
You recently won the Frost & Sullivan Customer Value Leadership Award, would you care to tell us some more about this please?

HRS
In the UK our skill set is still very rare. It is often a skillset, in terms of country-wide, that is filled by temporary entrants from some of the global systems integrators. From a European-wide perspective, Human Recognition Systems represents the highest concentration of biometric capability.

This includes the full spectrum of disciplines, from consultants to change mangers, to developers, to engineers, to technical architects. As a result of our specialist team, we’re able to understand our clients requirements and design a biometric system that will be closer to the final installed system than, probably, any other company.

We can begin a project and develop a system based on informed decisions at the initial concept stage, this is were we have built our reputation and this is the aspect Frost and Sullivan recognised.

FB
This provides you with a unique look at the marketplace; given that fact, what would you say are the greatest challenges that the industry is facing?

HRS
The scale and global spread of biometric driven solutions will demand a supply chain that is well resourced; with credible infrastructure, experience and knowledge. At the moment it is questionable that the availability of such infrastructure and knowledge is in place. There has got to be some consolidation in the market place.

At present, it is exceptionally confusing to customers on how they should build a biometric platform, and in particular, many of the brand names from which they’re going to procure solutions are unknown to them; so, getting that trust built up is quite a challenge at the moment.

The biometric industry is still very young and it is important to quickly establish some general, guiding principles that will make it easier for customers to confidently engage with biometrics without feeling compelled to rely on the three or four “usual suspects” at the top; such as those who always get involved in the large scale programs.

There is a lot of innovation making its way through the ranks and as part of the consolidation exercise and building trust in the marketplace, we must be careful to ensure that we don’t turn off the taps of innovation from some of the new, but smaller, players that are entering the arena with perhaps new fingerprint algorithms or whatever it may be.

The second thing that I believe is a real challenge is that we must invest not only in the technology skills per se, -so, not just the components or algorithms being developed - but implementation experience.

Implementation experience in the market, I find, is very thin on the ground. And by implementation experience I’m not just referring to building the systems and then deploying them. I also mean the individuals and consultants who get involved in the decision-making processes. Too often, very early on, decisions are made about algorithms when it’s completely inappropriate to do that; this, effectively, limits the options that clients would otherwise have available to them on some of these larger systems.

I believe that the third challenging area for me is with regard to government procurements. Governments need to recognize that with innovation comes risk. More often than not, much of that innovation is housed within some of the smaller companies around the world and thus, they need to adjust their approach in how they go about procuring innovation.

As an example, some of the procurement rules might ask for ten examples of where you’ve done this before. Well, all that tends to do is limit the customer to two or three companies, when in actual fact; there is a broad choice of innovation available from other organizations, which would afford them far greater value for their money.

FB
I couldn’t agree with you more; that’s a very important area given the fact that biometrics is still a fairly new industry; and even though it’s been around for quite a few years now, it’s still considered very much of a growth industry and it needs that kind of testing and experimentation.

HRS
I believe there are two dangers of market consolidation.
First and foremost, it creates a false view. The client assumes that all the technology that they are procuring is the intellectual property of that particular organisation. That organisation may have indeed grown their business around a particular fingerprint algorithm, or an iris algorithm, but, the reality of it is, they are no different from the Systems Integrators as they OEM a lot of equipment and a lot algorithms. So, a company that began with fingerprint recognition is now suddenly going into iris recognition—as an example.

The second danger is, that without the customer realizing it, they are being biased towards a certain particular technology selection and they’re not embracing some of the other trends that are going on in other technological areas—such as, open source, interoperability, etc., and therefore, they’re investing in some rather closed systems.

FB
Neil, what can expect from HRS in the coming year?

HRS

Firstly, we are going to be focusing on building our portfolio of MSolutions.I think it is incredibly important that we establish and develop our own IPR within the biometric market place.

Our approach is to use in depth customer knowledge to really understand their pain and with our internal team of business unit managers, product and partner, internal developers and technical architects - design and deliver new and exciting platforms and solutions that are built based on a sound business case.

The second thing that we’re doing is we are trying to challenge the big players, the large systems integrators, head-on. We’re trying to send out a message that basically says, ‘we might not be the biggest but we are the best!’

Since I started Human Recognition Systems in 2002 we have built a reputation for designing, developing and delivering some of the biggest biometric projects in the UK. We have delivered over 460 live biometric systems , that have managed over 30million transactions, and counting.

Those are our two main goals: first, to market far more directly to the customer and secondly, engaging in the launching of a great deal more of our MSolutions.

FB
Neil, I thank you very much for taking the time to speak with us.