Hikvision’s new Hik-Partner Pro (HPP) platform is designed to help installers, integrators and distributors make the most of Hikvision’s vast product range.
When you’re on the cutting edge of security technology, with the industry’s leading research and development team bringing breakthrough new products to market on a near-daily basis, how can you best keep your partners – installers, integrators, distributors, resellers and alarm receiving centres – informed and empowered to make the most of your unparalleled product range?
Okay, sure, perhaps it’s not a question that comes up that often. But it was the one facing Hikvision as they looked to provide partners with a genuinely practical tool which would bring added value to their businesses as well as ensuring they could easily identify the right Hikvision solution for the job.
The answer they devised was Hik-Partner Pro, a new app and web portal which serves as an upgrade and expansion of its predecessor Hik-Pro Connect. Ashley Zhao, Digital Operations Manager at Hikvision UK & Ireland, explains the thinking behind the all-new HPP, which the company describes as “a one-stop security management platform tailored for security partners”.
“With Hik-Partner Pro, we wanted to really extend the capabilities of Hik-Pro Connect to help our partners in their day-to-day work,” Ashley says. “We wanted a platform that would help them to find new solutions which would make their jobs easier and enable them to grow their business, to add practical support and promotion to the mix, and Hik-Partner Pro was the result.”
Users of Hik-ProConnect can log in to the new platform with their existing account. They’re notified with a pop-up window to migrate when they open Hik-ProConnect, with further instructions to upgrade or download Hik-Partner Pro. New users can register directly. The mobile version of HPP is available on the App Store for iOS users, and on Play Store for Android users.
“Hik-Partner Pro users can easily access up-to-date product, sales and marketing information and tools,” Ashley says. “It’s simple to navigate, so our partners can quickly find the products and solutions they’re interested in and drill down to see relevant information. They can also show products of interest to their customers, in the form of easily accessible and downloadable marketing handouts.”
The remote capabilities of Hik-Pro Connect have been expanded, and there are a variety of reasons behind that development.
“Partners can use HPP for remote device configuration and maintenance,” Ashley says. “That’s a big deal for installers and integrators, for multiple reasons. One is convenience, in that they no longer need to travel to be on-site for those maintenance and configuration tasks. Then that lack of travel time is a boost for productivity. It also means margins on maintenance and service contracts can really work in the installer or integrator’s favour: potentially they can open up new revenue streams by offering up those ongoing service contracts that they may not have had the personnel to fulfil previously. Now, though, that can be done remotely, so it’s much more feasible. And on top of all that, there’s the environmental benefit of not having to have vehicles out on the road, so there is a reduced carbon footprint benefit as well.”
In addition to configuration and maintenance, HPP allows security installers to provide value-added packages to their customers, such as device health monitoring and employee management. They can reset passwords remotely, access live camera feeds based on customer permissions, and receive notifications when devices go offline for any reason.
HPP also offers site management map functionality for easy navigation when site visits are a necessity. And they can avoid tedious repetitive tasks by batch activating devices remotely as well.
A key feature of Hik-Partner Pro is its easily accessible ‘How To’ guides, with video tutorials which provide practical installation know-how.
“The How-To guides have been an important part of our thinking with HPP,” Ashley explains. “They’re designed to be practical references for installers and integrators as they go about their daily work.
“We’ve seen with the popularity of our YouTube channels that product videos and installation guides are highly valued, and we’ve seen how it’s becoming second nature for all of us to go to an expert guidance video when we need assistance or even just a refresher on the finer points of dealing with a product, whether that be integrating it with a third party, establishing optimum camera or sensor positioning – whatever the case may be.
“We will be continually expanding the library of How To guides over the coming months, and we’d be really keen to hear from installer and integrator partners if there’s anything in particular that they’d like us to add to that reference library.”
Hik-Partner Pro has been designed as a practical product selection tool too, Ashley says. It’s simple to select products and compare their features in order to decide which is most suitable for a given project or most closely meets a specification.
This is important when you’re faced with a product range as wide and in some ways formidable as Hikvision’s; it’s not whether there is an appropriate camera or device available, that’s a given.
It’s about ensuring you can get to the right one for your specific needs, and provide that information to the end user, quickly and easily. HPP makes that possible.
HPP users can even build a quotation in the app and send it through to the end user, without any unneeded fuss or complication.
“That quote can be customised too,” Ashley says. “Installers can avoid admin and paperwork, and choose the price that is displayed to the customer, factoring in their own costs as well as the those of the products. It can be exported as a PDF and sent to their customer in just a few clicks.”
Distributors and resellers can also benefit from easy access to Hikvision’s marketing materials and information on promotions, while there are also new product ordering and tracking functions available at specific partner tiers.
An important element of the development of Hik-Partner Pro has been to ensure the user experience is comfortable and familiar. To encourage that familiarity, Hikvision has built in a ‘gamified’ reward system. Users earn points for using Hik-Partner Pro, which they can redeem for a variety of rewards including health monitoring packages and physical kit. The more they use HPP, the more points they receive, and the more devices they connect via HPP, the more those points pile up as well.
“It’s meant to be fun,” Ashley says, “but it also encourages and helps people to make the most of all that Hik-Partner Pro provides, just by logging in and seeing what they can do with it.”
Hikvision end users can access a variety of system functions through their own Hik-Connect app. Hik-Partner Pro allows installers and integrators to co-brand that end user Hik-Connect app with the installer’s logo and details.
“Hikvision has always been renowned for our products and our technical expertise, for bringing cutting-edge technologies to market at a range of price points and for a hugely wide range of applications,” Ashley says.
“Now what Hik-Partner Pro does is round out that offering by delivering easy access to marketing information, promotions, rewards, and practical how-to tutorials.
“It’s the connection point between us and our valued partners, so we want it to be a really effective tool that they can rely on to help them optimise their own workflow and drive their business growth.
“After all, what’s good for our partners is good for us. Hik-Partner Pro has a vital role to play and we think it’ll make a big difference to their day-to-day operations.”