Diana Kelly Levey

When Risk Comes Knocking: Boon Edam Offers Security Solutions

June 1, 2017 | Categories:

(This was a custom publishing piece for Bloomberg Businessweek.)

In March, a 16-year-old boy from New Jersey gained unauthorized entry to One World Trade Center, in New York, and roamed the premises for two hours before being caught. The building has a security system estimated to cost $20 million when it was installed in 2008, and on the surface it seems to offer soup to nuts protection. But none of it mattered when the security guard on duty fell asleep.

“That very easily could have been someone other than a teenager looking for a thrill,” says Mark Borto, President and CEO of Boon Edam, the leading manufacturer of security entrance solutions in North America. “It very easily could have been a very dangerous situation. People who own buildings and senior business executives often don’t even realize they have security problems—and that there are solutions.”

One of the more common methods of gaining unauthorized entrance to a building is known as “piggybacking” or “tailgating.” If you’ve ever used your access card to get into a building, and then held the door open for someone who looks like they also work there, you’ve participated in this security breach—and put yourself, your colleagues, the business and its future at risk.

“We’re trying to educate businesses that may not know they have a risk, but it’s there,” says Borto. “The best access control systems in the world can be defeated by exploiting the fact that people are nice and will often allow others to follow them through a door after it’s unlocked.” Boon Edam’s broad range of security entry products enables companies to reduce risk, and allow security staff to be reallocated or even eliminated, creating a tangible ROI just by upgrading entrance systems.

“Our products allow existing access control systems to work better by minimizing, or in some cases completely stopping, piggybacking and tailgating,” says Borto.

Boon Edam is a family-owned company headquartered in The Netherlands, where it’s been creating sophisticated entry solution products for more than 140 years. Over the most recent few of those years, chemical companies, pharmaceutical firms, financial and other businesses and government agencies that have higher protection requirements for data and transactions are stepping up their entrance security with high-tech doors and access control systems.

The company’s Tourlock high-security revolving door is their bestselling anti-piggybacking entrance. Often used at employee-only entrances, this door has a sophisticated sensor system that sees and monitors everyone who walks through the door and matches them up with an access control system so that only authorized personnel can enter. Customers can also add on StereoVision, a detection system that uses technology and sensors to make it impossible for more than one person to enter the building through the same compartment.

“Biometric detection systems, like iris scanning, facial recognition and fingerprint- and hand-reading systems can also be incorporated with Boon Edam’s products quite easily,” says Kurt Measom, Vice President of Technical Support. “While these biometric systems are optional, in today’s commercial and industrial security field, that’s the trend and direction most tech and financial businesses are going. We’re taking that security up a few notches.”

While Boon Edam’s innovative products and technology set them apart from the competition, Borto says it’s the attention given by everyone involved in selling, installing, servicing and owning its products that keeps its customers coming back. “No one else in our industry goes to the lengths that we do to ensure long-term customer satisfaction,” says Borto.

By this summer, the company plans to streamline the way its products integrate with various access control systems, to minimize customization and speed up the installation process. And within roughly two years, Boon Edam will roll out a new optical turnstile for lobby security that incorporates the latest piggybacking detection systems and will further enhance the company’s market leadership position. “We’re actively exploring the next generation of detection systems that can be innovatively deployed into security entrances to further reduce risk and staff supervision, which is the true financial benefit to owners of our solutions,” says Borto.

Read the full article about security entrance solutions in the Bloomberg Businessweek PDF article here.

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