Hikvision Aims For #1 Brand In 2020

I voted no but only because 2020 is too optimistic.  2025 though?  I can see that happening.

I'm hoping Chen Zongnian commitment will result in Hikvision user manuals that actually relate to the current firmware in their products and make the end user experience consistent with his goal.

when I read this headline, I assumed they meant the biggest brand in all industries. Like apple or Google, which, yeah that would be real hard to achieve.

As far as biggest brand in surveillance industry? They arent far off.  That is somewhat of an immeasurable statistic to reach, but everyone knows about Hikvision already, and they are by far the #1 sales-wise company in the industry. I assume they mean they want to be the most "respected" brand.

Why #1 Brand?

The Chinese government desires 'soft power' and 'international status' as Hikvision's Chairman statement above indicates. Selling a lot of 'widgets' by itself does not deliver such status. Think of the prestige of Japan's Panasonic and Sony brands or South Korea's Samsung. The Chinese government is not simply interested in profits like typical Western corporations think. As a government owned company, Hikvision is especially cognizant of achieving the government's greater goals.

the last part "cognizant of achieving the government's greater goals" 

Im not sure i fully understood this paragraph and this sentence but what I feel its alluding to is "why would Hikvision want to be #1 in the surveillance industry when their main goal, being government owned, is to possibly use their products to initiate cyber warfare and/or other types of activies that would benefit the Chinese government?" If I got it wrong, what others goals did you mean when you said that?

What if you took it from a different approach though and actually took Xi's word for it that all he really wants for Hikvision is to be the #1 brand in the industry, create the best products in the market, be highly profitable in the process, and give China something to be proud of? Isnt this the main goal of most all businesses, to be the best they can be. What if the investment that the Chinese govt has in Hikvision was used simply to achieve "greatness"? 

They can be a bit thick down at hik

polo Cai their vp when first applying for visa to the USA put down member of the communist party back then the USA had the common sense to refuse his visa

why did they ever change their minds

I see a few stumbling blocks ahead for Hikvision to reach the goal of becoming the premiere brand in our industry. 

1) Communist government ownership will always be a non-starter for some. I am unsure if complete divestment by the government would even suffice at this point for these critics. I am unsure how this could be remedied going forward. 

2) With Trumps promise impose import duties to even the playing field with US based companies, this could be a huge stumbling block for companies like Hikvision, Dahua, and UNV. If Trump could get this plan in place, and I don't think he can, it would severely limit their advantage in the legitimate US market. 

3) Overall professional aspects of their business are lacking the final attention to detail that most US based firms get right. Their website is missing content and isn't the easiest to navigate. Their marketing materials and ad campaigns don't seem to make sense. The whole dancer campaign seems strange to me, at least. If they could find a way to complete these small details, they could appear to be a more professional, competent competitor to the west. They still have the appearance of an Asian based company and that, historically, has meant second class, if only in corporate image.

4) Better software that is written with help from western based devs would go a long way to help. Currently, 5200 is not  the level of quality needed for US based installs. 4200 is not really viable for multi site or larger installs. They lack support from major VMSs when you consider their built in analytics. If they had their own VMS that was on the level of the other major VMS brands and allowed the full use of their analytics, they could simply laugh off the Genetecs of the industry. This, I think, is already in the works, or at least I hope. 

HIKVISION will never be number one with the current mindset of doing business and unethical approach of cheating and competing against their distributors. I wanted to highlight that many of distributors of HIKVISION are going legal against HIKVISION for cheating and leaking info about their projects, quoting direct to end users and selling end of life stocks to their distributors who ended up paying huge money for stocks that layed in their warehouses. I can see may of the system integrators moving away from HIKVSION.

They could write into their OEM agreements that there must be a Powered by Hikvision label in a visible location, like Intel processors.  With the 50+ "manufacturers" OEMing their equipment from Hik it seems like this would make them a much more visible brand.  Whether that is desirable or not is debatable.

If Mick is right:

"the product would no longer be locked into chinese he can now get the full range in english and sell it through amazon market place world wide"

This is a slap in the face to all their US employees, distributors and integrators. Locking the Chinese imports out of the US is currently their #1 defense to their #1 US employeee and partner complaint. If they betray their US employees and partners by doing this, they've shown their true colors and should be boycotted and sanctioned. 

Growth at all costs is unethical and unsustainable. 

Bump: resharing this. The past year has made this goal harder to achieve.

It's 2020 now. No doubt, Hikvision has become the most well-known video surveillance brand and, by far, the largest manufacturer. The more difficult question is whether it is the "#1 brand" given the controversy over the company's PRC government ownership, human rights abuses, etc.

Vote now: