NICE Systems $22 Million dollar acquisition of Orsus Situation Management could be a steal!

I have been asked to comment on this NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) / Orsus acquisition three times this week so I better write something on what I see as the future of our industry and why I believe this is a very important purchase. My background was in operations before I became involved in Loss, Fraud and Risk Prevention so maybe I look at these solutions differently than someone with a security point of view.      

I met Dan Yalon NICE’s Corporate VP of Strategy & Strategic Alliances back in early 2008 at TechSec Solutions in Dallas. I found the company to be very solid, well capitalized and focused. At the time I was building new alliances for Wachter Network Services and their focus was more on public projects and I was focused on private or non-union projects. I have been tracking them and many others on my http://www.physicalsecuritytechnologist.com/ page. I have also been tracking

• CNL

• ForgeHouse

• Intergraph

• Orsus

• Proximex Surveillint™

• S2 Security

• Schneider Electric - Andover Continuum

• videoNEXT

• VidSys

in the area of Physical Security Information Management or PSIM and BI or Business Intelligence.

I learned a long time ago from my Grandfather that “People will only do what you expect, if they know that you are going to inspect.” My family a 250 bed nursing home when I grew up and when I wasn’t with my Grandmother I was there. He told me that once when I asked him why we would always drop in, unexpected, to see what was happening. I have never forgotten those words and I have used that concept since the late 1970’s to be sure that those who have worked for me do their jobs. In the Risk Management and Loss Prevention business it is all about influencing negative behaviors to stop internal and external theft and liability. With all the information available from our systems thru video feeds, access control information, video analytics, energy systems, computer networks and any other technology that can send a signal, without an intelligent tool to make sense if all this data the investment will be a waste. Without an intelligent tool that can compare data within an enterprise the system will not be proactive and if the system is not proactive it will not create an environment that can stop potential negative behaviors from those we employ and protect ourselves. My goal is always to eliminate opportunity and temptation from the enterprise.

For example: I am involved in a project, in the retail sector, that we have been able to develop algorithms that discover abnormalities within the enterprise. We know that the hardest fraud to detect is skimming. Why? Because there is a limited paper trail or paper trail at all. (Skimming for the purpose of our discussion is the removable of cash from an organization before the cash has been recorded on the books. I call it off-book fraud for short.) We have been able to predict with a 98% certainty, and in real time, which employees are skimming before we even go to the video. The video is then just a confirmation of the evidence created by the business intelligence. We then push this data to the owner/manager who can act on it immediately right from his cell phone.

This is why I believe that the future of this type of technology is the future of this business and NICE systems is making a great deal. Orsus should also bring NICE into other vertical markets such as: retail and banking and other private companies that will invest in this technology to eliminate risks. The return-on-investment (ROI) should be exceptional on this solution and its implementation should be a very simple decision for the management team. It is not all the government accounts that it can help that excites me, it is the 10s of thousands of business's that can be helped that get's me going.

I will be watching, in fact, I think I want to learn more the solution for some of my clients…