PSIMarch2018

INTERVIEW
IFSEC International Brand
Director Gerry Dunphy of UBM
An event with purpose
With only a few months to go before IFSEC International 2018 at London
Excel, we caught up with Brand Director Gerry Dunphy of UBM to find out
what’s in store for those heading to the city this year
SI readers will know about the direction
Pthat IFSEC is travelling in, not just as an
event but as a 'happening' following the
announcement back in the December 2017
edition. The new focus follows a long process of
research with partner companies with the point
of getting into the DNA of what IFSEC really
stands for. It is with this in mind that we spoke
to Gerry Dunphy about the results of the
research and how the event will evolve to match
the demands and future direction of the security
industry.
What were you hoping to achieve as a
result of the research?
We know IFSEC is more than just a trade show
or a supermarket of vendors, it is a
representation of the whole security industry
and we have been trying to wrestle with that to
see what purpose the event serves. We see
IFSEC as an event where the entire spectrum of
the security world comes together for a common
goal. With the research we discovered some
high end concepts, but the
essence is that the
market we are
in is really
important and it reflects how important security
is in our daily lives; arguably the biggest
challenge that the world is facing. Our job is to
bring that seriousness to the fore and take it to
everybody from the installer to the Home
Secretary because their challenges are the same
and we all have a role to play to make sure goals
are reached. This is the direction that IFSEC will
be travelling in with the realisation that it has a
real purpose, which goes beyond driving people
into the hall and hoping they will walk around!
What form did the research take?
For the research we went to 543 visitors and
customers with the question of "What keeps
you awake at night?" and they came back to us
with some fascinating responses. We combined
all of the comments and themes so we could
build a strong set of personas to reflect the
different parts of IFSEC in terms of the type of
people that attend. Looking at their challenges,
concerns and gains are has allowed us to
determine what it is that they require back from
us.
For example, our installer persona runs a
small team of installers, business is good
carrying out a range of business and commercial
jobs, but where he has challenges is in keeping
up with technology - specifically IT/cyber as this
is a whole new discipline coming into his world.
There is a certain amount of thinking that
technology is moving so fast that installers are
always trying to catch up, so our role is to
bridge that gap and to bring in experts who can
help installers understand what is coming
through.
How will you help to bridge the gap?
From our point of view we have to make sure
that our audience is keeping up with the
constant march of technology; we don't want
people being bewildered by the systems being
talked about at the event. The common theme
we kept hearing in the research was that
installers wanted to be shown how to do things
with new technology, so we recognised that our
role here is to be the educator.
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