The access control market in Saudi Arabia is witnessing rapid growth as governments and large enterprises increase investments in securing smart infrastructure projects and aim to create smart connected environments. Businesses in Saudi Arabia are rapidly leveraging mobile technology in their workplaces. The freedom of choice to enable access control from smartphones and wearables is driving organizations such as financial institutions, transport, oil and gas, and SMB’s to upgrade their current access control systems to mobile access, which can be used in a mixed technology environment along with advanced smartcards.
“The public sector is emerging as a major contributor to the rapidly growing access control market, as a result of its investments in smart infrastructure projects,” said Wisam Yaghmour, Regional Sales Director MEA with HID Global. In Saudi Arabia, there is also an increase in demand for secure ID cards, especially in, large enterprises and government offices to ensure that employees and visitors are protected without compromising on security or a good user experience. Features such as personalisation, lamination, engraving, encoding, as well as embedded smart chips are being increasingly adopted as additional layers of security. These features will play an important role in increasing security by making it more difficult to create counterfeit ID badges. While importance is placed on the authenticity of the ID cards themselves, the speed at which they are delivered and the layers of security they combine, are also critical factors. Wi-Fi capabilities will further help facilitate a more flexible access control ecosystem by enabling administrators to issue access control cards anytime, anywhere.