What customers really expecting from VSaaS and access control service in 2027?

Physical security is moving away from isolated cameras, recorders, and access-control systems toward connected services that combine cloud management, local resilience, data, integrations, and analytics.

60% of respondents cite integration with new technology as the main reason for replacing legacy systems, 43% identify video surveillance as a 2026 focus area, and 73% say they want vendors capable of building a long-term relationship.

For telecom operators, cloud providers, ISPs, and security service providers, seven signals stand out.

1. Integration—not hardware replacement—is driving modernization

The strongest signal in the report is that customers are replacing legacy security systems primarily to gain connectivity and new capabilities.

When respondents were asked why customers replace legacy systems, 60% selected integration with new technologies, making it the leading motivation. 51% cited access to new capabilities, while 40% pointed to compliance and another 40% to the announced end of life of an existing system. A further 36% said customers were moving toward a unified physical-security platform.

Only 19% cited a move to hybrid cloud or full cloud as the primary reason for replacement. That distinction matters: customers may not necessarily begin with “cloud” as the objective. They begin with a business problem—fragmented technology, limited capabilities, maintenance complexity, or integration gaps.

For providers, the stronger proposition is therefore not simply “move surveillance to the cloud.” It is “connect what you already have, make it easier to operate, and create a path to new services.”

The report recommends leading with benefits such as remote visibility, simpler expansion, lower maintenance complexity, and access to additional capabilities, while treating APIs and integration as core product requirements.

2. Physical security is expanding beyond the security department

Security technology is increasingly supporting wider organizational workflows.

The report shows that cameras remained the most commonly replaced physical-security system in 2025, cited by 61% of respondents, followed by access-control systems at 56%. Video-surveillance systems were cited by 40%, access-control readers and cards by 36%, and alarm panels by 17%.

But the more significant change is organizational.

24% of respondents reported collaboration with other departments on broader business outcomes, 14% collaborated on visitor management, et 11% on industrial IoT initiatives.

This means that video is becoming relevant to a larger set of stakeholders. Security may remain the primary use case, but cloud video can also support multi-site oversight, evidence workflows, operations, visitor management, occupancy analysis, and selected analytics.

For providers, that widens the addressable audience—but it also increases requirements around permissions, tenant separation, identity, and secure data sharing.

3. IT has become part of the buying decision

Cloud video surveillance is no longer exclusively a security-department purchase.

The report shows that IT, executive leadership, finance, operations, and security all influence buying decisions. Among end users, executive leadership ranks first, finance second, IT third, and the physical-security department fourth in the purchasing process.

The shift also affects what customers evaluate.

Security teams ask questions such as whether users can find and share evidence quickly, whether monitoring remains available, and whether permissions can be controlled by role or site.

IT teams focus on different concerns: integration architecture, data hosting, scalability, software updates, disaster recovery, and ongoing operational support.

As a result, a VSaaS proposition needs to make both the business and technical case. Ease of use is important, but so are architecture, governance, resilience, integration, and lifecycle management.

4. Hybrid cloud is emerging as the mainstream model

The report does not point toward an immediate shift from on-premises infrastructure to 100% cloud.

Instead, the market appears to be consolidating around hybrid architectures.

In 2024, 43% of surveyed physical-security environments were hybrid cloud. In 2025, that figure increased to 48%.

Over the same period, fully on-premises environments declined from 49% to 45%, while completely cloud-based environments represented 8% in 2024 and 7% in 2025.

Those numbers suggest that cloud adoption and local infrastructure are not mutually exclusive.

Customers are using cloud services for centralized access, administration, updates, and scalable features while retaining local resources when they need bandwidth control, recording continuity, data-location control, or resilience during a cloud disruption.

The five-year outlook reinforces that point. In the report’s deployment outlook, 43% of respondents in both 2024 and 2025 selected hybrid deployment as their target architecture, compared with 18% targeting all-cloud deployment in 2025 et 19% targeting entirely on-premises infrastructure.

The report also states that 72% de consultants prévoient de spécifier des déploiements hybrides au cours des cinq prochaines années.

For providers, the implication is clear: deployment flexibility can be a stronger proposition than a cloud-only model.

5. Access control and video are converging into a broader service portfolio

The next market shift is from a single video service toward a portfolio of connected physical-security services.

The report identifies planned investment in capabilities such as AI-assisted false-alarm reduction, biometrics, intelligent locks and keys, mobile credentials, multi-factor authentication, physical identity management, visitor management, and access-control modernization.

The broader 2027 planning data shows just how important access control remains.

58% of end users identify access control as a top priority, making it the strongest of the major technology priorities highlighted in the report. Video surveillance follows at 43%.

For service providers, this creates a natural expansion model: start with a simple, easy-to-understand cloud video offer and then add archive, analytics, access control, identity, or other services as customer needs grow.

The report specifically cautions against making the first proposition too complex. The core promise should remain straightforward—reliable remote video access, archive, and management—with additional services solving clearly defined customer problems.

Core security systems still anchor the 2027 market

Despite the attention given to cloud and AI, the report makes another point clear: customers are not abandoning traditional security functions.

For 2027, 58% identify access control as a priority, 44% identify AI and LLM technologies, and 43% identify video surveillance. Cybersecurity tools are cited by 36%, data analysis and visualization by 33%, and cross-department collaboration by 31%.

This suggests a market in which new technology is being built around established physical-security infrastructure rather than replacing it outright.

That is important for providers developing their service roadmaps. The winning architecture is unlikely to be “AI instead of video” or “cloud instead of access control.” The emerging model combines cameras, access, cybersecurity, cloud operations, analytics, and data services through a common platform.

Download the document to learn more about the market signals which make it lucrative to enter.