Physical access control · US and Europe · 2024

Kisi: one intercom, three industries that share nothing but a door

SECTOR

Physical access control

MARKET

US & Europe

COMPANY

Kisi

ROLE APPLIED FOR

Product Marketing Manager

DATE

Jan 2024

The situation

A hospital, a software company and a commercial landlord all need to control who walks in. They agree on almost nothing else.

Kisi sells cloud-based access control and a video intercom. The product is horizontal; the buying committees, regulatory pressures and definitions of risk are not.

01 · What this engagement produced

4 of 34 outputs

Research

Competition

Segment, position and price

Message

Launch and enable

Measure and maintain

Solid is what the brief produced. Dashed is what it did not reach, and could not from outside.

02 · The decision

The third column.

A hospital, a software company and a commercial landlord all need to control who walks in. They agree on almost nothing else. The product is horizontal; the buying committees, regulatory pressures and definitions of risk are not. A single secure-your-building message would have been true for everyone and compelling for nobody.

So: three ICPs with their own messaging and channels. And on the competitive side, a third column. Most competitive analysis stops at strengths and weaknesses, which is enough to inform a strategy document and useless in a live conversation. A rep doesn't need to know that Honeywell has global brand recognition. They need to know what to say when the prospect brings it up.

Every competitor row ends with the counterpoint: the honest reframe, not a dismissal. Against Brivo's market experience, a modern, mobile-first approach to cloud access control. Against Johnson Controls' building-systems depth, pace of innovation in access control specifically. The test for competitive intelligence isn't whether it's accurate. It's whether someone can use it while a prospect is talking.

03 · What I wasn't given

0

Customer interviews

0

Rep conversations

3

Buying committees

Not givenNo pipeline data, no win/loss, and no chance to watch anyone actually use a battlecard.

04 · The work

3 moves

Three industries, five competitors, one usable card.

01Segment by buying committee, not by building

03 Segment, position & price

  • Commercial real estate, technology companies, and healthcare and labs
  • Each with its own personas, key values, messaging guide and channel mix
  • Healthcare leads on compliance and patient confidentiality; tech leads on protecting intellectual property and operational reliability; real estate leads on tenant experience and property value
02Different rooms, different channels

05 Launch & enable

  • Healthcare: medical conferences and industry journals
  • Tech: technical forums, Reddit and content marketing
  • Real estate: trade shows, and partnerships with contractors and proptech firms
  • Which is the real argument against one campaign, not that the message differs, but that the three audiences are never in the same room
03A battlecard a rep can use live

02 Competition

  • Five competitors: Brivo, Avigilon and Openpath, HID Global, Honeywell and Johnson Controls
  • Structured as comparative strengths, comparative weaknesses, and counterpoints
  • The counterpoint written as something a rep could say out loud, rather than a dismissal they would be embarrassed to use

Where I pushed back

The honest reframe beats the dismissal.

The temptation in a competitive card is to write the version where your product wins every row. Reps don't use those, because prospects can hear them. Honeywell does have global brand recognition and Johnson Controls does have building-systems depth, and pretending otherwise costs the rep the room.

So each counterpoint concedes the point first and then moves the comparison onto ground that is actually true. A card that admits something is a card that gets used.

05 · What I'd change

Three segments is one too many for a first push. Given the choice again I'd sequence: pick commercial real estate as the beachhead, prove the motion, then extend. Analysis wants completeness; go-to-market wants focus, and this deck served the first at the expense of the second.

What happened next

HELD UP

The intercom shipped, and the site is organised by industry.

Jan 2024

I presented this. The video intercom was the product to take to market.

Aug 2025

Kisi announced Intercom Pro shipping, with video calls and door unlocking from the Kisi web and mobile apps, and live streams and intercom calls in the dashboard. getkisi.com

Today

Kisi structures its site by industry, with dedicated pages for high-tech, media and others. getkisi.com

The intercom shipped, and the industry-by-industry structure is how the company presents itself publicly. That is the easy half to claim, and mostly it confirms the segmentation was the obvious read rather than a clever one.

The part I got wrong is still wrong. I proposed three segments at once and said above that I would sequence them. Kisi went wider rather than narrower, which tells you something about a horizontal product with a partner channel, but it does not make three-at-once the right advice for a first push.

The brief, as it was set

Brief set by Kisi

January 2024

Product Marketing Manager, take-home

Build the go-to-market for our video intercom across the industries we sell into, including the competitive positioning a rep could use in a live call.

Summarised from the brief. Answered from public information only.

What I wasn't given

0

Customer interviews

0

Rep conversations

3

Buying committees

Not givenNo pipeline data, no win/loss, and no chance to watch anyone actually use a battlecard.

Set by the company.