Genea is a cloud-based smart building security provider that recently entered the higher education market via a partnership with Transact+CBORD. CampusIDNews talked with the company’s President and CEO Michael Wong to learn about the company and its offerings.

Though new to this market, Genea has deep roots in corporate security with major customers such as Target Corporation. Target uses the Genea platform across 18 countries and 1500 locations.

According to Wong, when Transact+CBORD was seeking a replacement to its on-prem TS Access solution, they selected Genea as a best-in-class cloud solution.

Most enterprise software applications no longer sit on a server in the basement of the building. They've migrated to the cloud. We're that cloud solution, best-in-class.

The company’s first higher ed implementation is underway at Mercer University, a former TS Access client looking to transition to a modern platform.

Wong highlights Genea’s flexibility, integration capability with other providers, and commitment to open hardware standards. Using Mercury hardware instead of proprietary controllers gives customers the freedom to switch vendors if needed.

Built natively in the cloud, Genea stands out for its speed of innovation. In 2023, the company rolled out 55 major feature updates, compared to just one or two typical of on-prem systems. This agility allows Genea to respond quickly to customer feedback and deliver requested features in weeks rather than months.

To watch the full interview, click the image at the top of this page.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, I'm Michael Wong, President and CEO of Genea. We are a cloud-based smart building security platform.

We are relatively new to the higher ed space, partially because of our partnership with Transact+CBORD, where they're starting to end the life of some of their security products. They did their research on all the different access control solutions in the marketplace, and they said ours is the best. So that's how we got introduced to this industry.

We're now working with some of the other providers as well to do integrations.

We do all Target security worldwide, so access control across 18 countries, 1,500 retail locations, all their corporate offices, data centers, distribution centers.

Right now we are doing our first implementation for Mercer University. So, I talked to Ken Boyer. Once we're fully implemented, he'll be able to tell you what the experience has been like.

In terms of other industries that we've worked with, Target Corporation is our largest customer. We do all Target security worldwide, so access control across 18 countries, 1,500 retail locations, all their corporate offices, data centers, distribution centers.

So we know we can handle higher ed and the scale and complexity that it requires, because we've done it for a Fortune 50 company.

You know, one of the things that's happening right now with the industry is, for example, Transact is end of life’ing their TS access solution, and so those customers need to find a different solution.

So once again, as Transact looked at not developing another solution internally and trying to bring that to the cloud, they picked us as a best-in-class solution.

So that's what brings us back to Mercer University. Mercer was a TS access client. They were looking at trying to figure out what was the next step. And so we're right now at the beginning of the implementation process for Mercer University, and it's going well.

A lot of the end users that I've been talking to at the conference are just trying to figure out what else is available.

With Mercury hardware, they have 23 software providers that could use that same controller. So, if you do nothing else besides make sure that you get onto a Mercury platform, you future proof your investments.

And so with most enterprise software applications, they no longer sit on the server in the computer in the basement of the building. They've migrated to the cloud. We're that cloud solution, best-in-class.

We use Mercury hardware, which is very important, by the way. There's a lot of proprietary systems out there where they will sell you a proprietary hardware or a controller. And then if you want to switch to something else, no other software provider can use that.

So we lean in with Mercury as the platform on the hardware side because we always want to have our customers stay with us because we're providing great service and support, not because we sold them something that they can't get away from.

So with Mercury hardware, they have 23 software providers that could use that same controller. So, if you do nothing else besides make sure that you get onto a Mercury platform, you give yourself options and future proof your investments.

We are natively built in the cloud in AWS, which means our architecture is all microservices.

What does that mean? It means we can innovate faster than any company in the space. We had 55 major feature releases last year alone, where your typical on-prem solution with their monolithic code base, they can't be nimble like that. They're typically maybe releasing one or two.

And so when you talk to our end customers, one of the things you'll hear from them is they're just astonished about how quickly we can bring their ideas to fruition. We do it in months and sometimes weeks.

So if you want to learn more about Genea, go to our website. It's getGenea.com. Reach out, we'll set up a meeting, and we'll walk you through our platform.