Keynetics: Making Positive Waves

Keynetics, itself a small company with a nine-year history, has made a notable impact in the UK and European markets thanks to its innovative key management systems.

Despite the challenges faced by most businesses over the past years, including Brexit and COVID-19, the start-up has gone from strength to strength.

Today, its solutions are deployed by leading players in the security and facilities management industries, as well as in retail, banking and other sectors.

Stuart Wheeler, the company’s managing director and one of the founding figures of Keynetics, talks about the company’s origins, the hurdles faced on the journey of transforming key holding and plans for times ahead.

SM: For those readers who may not be familiar with Keynetics, could you briefly describe what you do?

SW: Keynetics provides unique key management solutions that help commercial clients to improve their alarm response time and reduce key holding costs, all while maintaining complete control over property access. Our system is digital in nature and offers an audit trail of all access events.

In simple terms, our solution consists of a security-certified, commercial-grade key safe, a platform and a mobile app. These components work together to address key holding challenges and deliver a solution that meets the demanding expectations of high-security sectors, including banking and retail.

SM: Keynetics is a relatively new company. Could you share the story behind its creation?

SW: The company was established in 2016. We’re part of a much larger US-based organisation, namely SentriLock, which designs and manufactures the physical product (ie key safes) and develops the software that powers our solution. Interestingly, SentriLock’s primary market is real estate where the SentriGuard system is widely used by realtors across the US.

We partnered with SentriLock as both parties identified an opportunity to expand, not only into new geographic markets, but also new target sectors. There was a market gap in industries such as security, void property management, retail and social care. 

From there, we developed bespoke software platforms for access management, tailoring them to meet market needs and incorporating features that end users require. This has allowed us to build our reputation and also grow our customer base.

SM: Would you say that having an in-house team of software developers is a ‘must’ for companies that design and manufacture security solutions?

SW: Calling it a ‘must’ is quite definitive and strict, notably so in the current digital age. It ultimately comes down to choice and trust in external parties, with various influencing factors and a number of pros and cons.

On one hand, outsourcing to a third party specialist can be more cost-effective and efficient, particularly so if the necessary expertise doesn’t exist within the business. However, we chose an in-house approach for several reasons.

Our parent company SentriLock is as much a software development business as it is a physical product manufacturer. Keeping all processes in-house allows for greater control, better responsiveness and a far shorter time frame from ideas through to implementation.

We constantly collect feedback from the field, listening to our customers and their needs. This information helps us to improve software features and add elements that specific customers and similar businesses require for effective service delivery.

With an in-house team, we can upgrade and refine our digital platform and app much faster and respond to any issues immediately. This is something that would be far more difficult if we relied on external developers.

SM: Can you give us an example of a feature created based on customer requirements?

SW: We recently launched a feature designed for security service providers. In some cases, security officers don’t have individually assigned work mobile devices. Instead, a mobile device used for work is linked to a patrol and changes hands between shifts. Previously, our system was tied to individual and named accounts.

To address this issue, we developed a whitelisting feature that allows security companies to grant access permissions based on specific mobile devices rather than individual users.

This unique upgrade has been well received, notably by one company that saw the lack of such a feature as the only barrier to implementing our solution.

SM: You’ve mentioned quite a few industries like retail, banking and security services. What’s the most unique or unusual sector that you supply to?

SW: One sector that stands out for us is domiciliary care. We have contracts with several local councils that prioritise auditability and proof of service delivery. This is something that traditional mechanical key safes simply cannot provide.

To meet the needs of this sector, we developed a dedicated app and platform called SentriKey Care. This ensures that our digital features align with the specific requirements of care providers who are the primary users of this system.

SM: What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far and how did you overcome them?

SW: One of the biggest challenges was ensuring that our physical products, which are manufactured in the US for a different market, complied with UK rules and regulations. We also needed to make sure they were suitable for commercial applications where security requirements are that much more stringent than in domestic settings.

Achieving LPS 1175 certification to our current standard (SentriGuard holds both C1 and C3 levels) was very time-consuming and required a lot of effort, continuous product development and rigorous attack testing. On top of that, and as is the case with any software, we had to ensure that our platforms and apps are cyber attack-proof and comply with strict industry requirements.

Another major hurdle was overcoming the stigma associated with key safes, particularly for commercial use. People often associate key safes with poorly built, off-the-shelf products. Basically, they see them as simple push-button boxes. We had to change that situation.

In order to counter this impression, we’ve pushed our product testing to the limits and ensured that the security and reliability messages are well communicated to key stakeholders and decision-makers alike. We firmly believe that this approach has paid off. Attitudes are now shifting towards the deployment of keys at the point of need in accredited and secure key safes.

Our solutions have proven to be highly effective for clients in high-security sectors, among them the banking environment and security services.

SM: The access control market appears to be quite saturated at the moment. What sets Keynetics’ products apart from those of its competitors?

SW: The access control market is indeed developing very rapidly. There are so many options available, including keyless access with mobile credentials and biometrics.

Such access methods are suitable for staff and visitors, but it remains the case that every building still needs to be locked and unlocked using physical keys.

While we would like to envisage a keyless future, and there’s little doubt that we’re slowly moving in that direction of travel, solutions are required to streamline what we could call ‘external’ access control or physical access to buildings themselves.

What sets us apart is that our solution offers something of a unique approach. While it doesn’t fall strictly within the digital access control category since physical keys are still involved in the process, it provides a complete access audit trail at a fraction of the cost of digital access control or keyless systems when it comes to the end user.

In terms of our direct competition offering similar key safe-based solutions, there are several advantages to our system. The most obvious one is our certified physical security. At this point, no other key safe manufacturer can match our level of certification.

Second, it’s the digital capabilities of our solutions. The audit trail is automatically generated each time a key safe is opened via the app, eliminating the need for manual data uploads.

In addition, features such as key detection and automated missing key notifications are extremely popular with our customer base.

SM: How do you see the security market evolving in the coming years?

SW: The security market as a whole is a broad topic to cover. In a few words, technology and automation will play a major role, as will undoubtedly be the case in any other sector.

First, both allow security providers to deliver services more efficiently with less human resource involved or time wasted on unnecessary or duplicate tasks. Second, technology means data. Often real-time data, which is particularly significant not only when reacting, but also for forecasting and incident prevention.

If we speak about niche topics that we’re much involved with, key holding and alarm response seem to be becoming increasingly challenging in terms of time, costs and staffing. We’re already witnessing a trend of key holding being outsourced, but this ‘pass the parcel’-style approach may well cause more problems than it actually solves.

While there are various potential scenarios for the future, we’re seeing a growing interest in our solutions as they can assist in addressing these challenges.

The industry is clearly on the brink of significant change. Only time will tell how all of this might unfold, but we’re fully confident that our products will play a major role in shaping that future.

SM: Are there any exciting developments in the pipeline for Keynetics in the near future?

SW: The future looks incredibly bright for Keynetics. We’re expanding into new European markets, while also onboarding several major UK clients, primarily in the security and facilities management sectors.

The next few years will be a period of rapid growth as we continue to solidify our presence and introduce our solutions to a wider audience.

2025 is also set to be a pivotal year for integrations. Our first major integration will be with Ajax Systems’ alarms, which we will showcase at The Security Event when it takes place at the NEC in Birmingham from 6-8 April. This integration will enable end users to both collect keys and disarm security alarms, all within our app, with a complete event log available for auditing purposes.

By streamlining access control and alarm management, this feature is expected to significantly enhance operational efficiency for security providers and facilities managers.

We’re very much looking forward to The Security Event. It’s a fantastic opportunity to reconnect with existing clients and partners, as well as introduce our innovations to prospective customers.

*Keynetics: Stand L80 in Hall 5 at the National Exhibition Centre