Nevertheless, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Technology is the solution to every problem. Retail Surveillance Camera System can be the best solution.

“You are under Surveillance,”- a simple board with these words can act as a deterrent:

The feeling that somebody is watching you itself creates fear of being caught. Security cameras can be placed at crucial points in stores, warehouses, sales counters and at every entrance and exit. You can watch the footage from any device with an internet connection.

Security cameras help in liability claim:

If you are troubled by false claims done by your employees or customers, then security cameras can help you greatly. You yourself will see a drastic decrease in false claims with 24/7 monitoring and availability of digital footage of any breakages, injuries or accidents. It can save you a lot of money that you drain through worker’s compensation.

Leads to increased safety customers and employees and peace of mind for you:

Installing cameras just above the cash counter areas can aid you in monitoring cash flow transactions, cash counting, or any refunds. The presence of cameras at POS can deter customers as well from committing any fraud or crime. And if at all any crime happens, you will have a clear view of that crime which can help police in solving the crime easily.

Surveillance cameras helps you guard high-value items:

Retailers tend to suffer heavy losses when their high-value items are not guarded appropriately. Stores with tobacco products, alcohol products, expensive watches, etc. can fetch heavy prices in black market. Video Security System and Live Surveillance Monitoring with access control system can provide you with electronic records and digital footage of all those entering and exiting.

CCTV Surveillance Cameras can also help prevent payroll fraud:

Most of the organizations suffer due to this fraud, no matter small or big. Although you can’t prevent it from happening, through CCTV Surveillance Cameras, you can at least catch the culprits. Whenever you come across a certain employee with suspicious in and out timing or working long hours, you can go back and check the video surveillance footage and rectify it.

Given all these above-mentioned challenges, it’s highly advisable that retailers start hiring professional security companies to mitigate employee theft

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If you are setting up a retail outlet, commercial establishment or a restaurant, you require a clear understanding of an integrated surveillance solutions. Finalising the placement of cameras and mapping the key areas in a store/outlet is very important as it play a vital role in day-today running of businesses.

While the primary objective of these surveillance systems is to protect against potential theft or criminal activity, they can also play an important role in the productivity levels of employees & to maintain hygiene in the premises.

Thus presence of e-Surveillance can provide 360 degree solutions from protecting your assets & information to maintaining your brand image.

Mentioned below are few reasons why you should regularly check the health of your e-Surveillance systems:

Prevent crime/ incident

Prevent pilferage/ shrinkage

To increase customer’s confidence

Acts as forensic data & aid to law enforcement

Protect the well-being of your staff

Monitor high-risk area

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BI encompasses a variety of tools, applications and methodologies that enable organizations to:

1. collect data from internal systems and external sources,
2. prepare it for analysis,
3. develop and run queries against the data, and
4. create reports, dashboards and data visualizations

Surveillance has gone beyond recording of burglar, employee, and customer activities. It can do so much more such as detect and deter crime, video housekeeping, monitoring employee behaviour, people counting, reducing pilferage and so on.

Business Intelligence and analytics play a crucial role in today’s competitive market.  It is a must to maintain and enhance business and brand.

A brief overview of the Securens Approach to Analytics:

1. 1. Through BI and analytics we have helped retail and QSR brands to identify the shortcomings in their outlets which has helped them take actions to enhance their brand image and thus increase sales
   2. We help business managers in mapping the people flow with sales with respect to days of the week, months, etc.  The analytics also alerts on Q-Length exceeding, unattended PoS systems, heatmaps, etc.
   3. We customise analytics based on each business’ uniqueness. Deterring incidents such as: Banking: burglary, suspicious activity, unauthorized usage, glass break, fire alert. Retail: pilferage, unhygienic premises, unauthorized, suspicious or unethical activity

There is no doubt that Business Intelligence has become one of the most used buzzwords in the modern business landscape. The accessibility to information which can give you quicker responses to your business queries, gain valuable insight into your customer’s behaviour, develop efficiency etc. Securens offers simpler user interfaces and can be operated through any device.

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Understanding “fog”

The fog is an extension of cloud based computing. A horizontal, system-level architecture that distributes computing, storage, control and networking functions closer to the users along a cloud-to-thing continuum.

Fog enables us to build solutions around:

1. Location awareness,
2. Mobility,
3. Wide geographical distribution,
4. Low latency (delay for information to go from point A to point B), and
5. Wireless access

Smart fog

Fog is not simply adding layers between the cloud and the surface. It will act as an enabler for smart IoT devices and the new capabilities it will make possible are:

1. Sharing resources from one device to another
2. Taking real-time decisions
3. Contextual data (available locally) for customized intelligence enhancing user experience
4. Autonomous networks that operate locally and can take decisions like save energy and network bandwidth, improve data security, reduce latency, etc.
5. Streamline the online-to-offline processes by leveraging the physical proximity of customer for better authentication and cross-sell opportunities

E-surveillance and Fog

Surveillance cameras are being deployed worldwide by retail outlets, smart homes and cities, manufacturing enterprises, etc. in order to secure things, people and places. They are heavily relying on camera sensors to detect unauthorized entry, pilferage, safety, reliability and efficiency.

These cameras are capable of generating terabytes worth of information in a single day. Traditional cloud networks are unavailable to handle this massive information as they aren’t scalable and the sheer cost makes it unfeasible. Besides it is impractical to transfer all this data to the cloud to gain real-time insights.

Another point to consider is that security needs to be local. Real-time monitoring and detection of irregularities strictly needs low latency on surveillance systems; making timeliness paramount for both detection and response.

Fog deployments provide an opportunity to address the above concerns by moving the compute decision making device closer to the end point. We leverage fog architecture to crunch data closer to the end points and delivery the filter data relevant for trend analysis and forensics to the cloud

-By George.M.J., Sr.Vice-President-Information Technology

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Surely, CCTVs are necessary.

1. CCTVs can be a valuable tool to document a criminal act and identifying the perpetrators at a later time.
2. If people spot CCTVs on your premises then they will think twice before attempting any criminal activity. This means there will be less of a chance of shoplifting, thefts and other crimes occurring, and if any of this does happen then you will be given clear footage that you can present to the police as evidence
3. CCTV can also help reduce your liability in case of disputes. With cameras recording the whole incident you will be able to prove that allegations are false.

However for the ultimate goal to prevent a crime from happening in the first place, CCTVs by itself falls short. It cannot prevent a crime – It only records a crime.

The Alarm System

The Alarm System is yet another tool that helps protect the premises. An Alarm System connects to various sensors connected to Shutter, Doors, Windows, and Safes to detect unusual activity. The door open sensor will alert you of a door opening when it should have not. A Shutter sensor will alert you of a Shutter opening when it should have not. A Glass Break sensor will alert you of a Glass break incident. A Thermal sensor will alert you of a Gas Cutting attempt on your safe. A Vibration sensor will alert you of a Drilling or Hammering attack on your safe. A Motion sensor will alert you of a Motion in your premises when it was not expected.

These alerts are transmitted to you through a SMS or Voice Message. SMS is an unreliable mode of communication for such an important event. A Voice clipping alerting you of an incident cannot give you details and cannot answer any of your concerns.

However for the ultimate goal to prevent a crime from happening in the first place, Alarm Systems by itself falls short. It cannot prevent a crime – It only Alerts of a crime.

To prevent a Crime from happening, you need a robust E-Surveillance System with Active Deterrence.

The Active Deterrence System

The Active Deterrence System integrates the CCTVs, Alarm System and a 2-Way Audio System to prevent a crime from happening.

When a Burglary is attempted at premises, the Alarm System generates an alert and the siren goes off. This alert is immediately transmitted to a Central Alarm Monitoring centre through wireless communication. As soon as the Central Alarm Monitoring Centre executives receive the alert, simultaneously the Video of the Site starts. The executive will then use 2-Way audio to command the burglar in a powerful voice to leave the premises. In their command, they make sure that the Burglar understands that, he is clearly identified and being watched LIVE, by addressing the Burglar by the colour of the dress that he is wearing. E.g.: “Attention! The Man with the Green Shirt and hammer in the hand; you have been identified and Police have been informed. Leave the premises immediately!”

When a Burglar hears this powerful voice that has clearly identified him and is being watched LIVE, the Burglar runs away immediately. This is proven time and again with 100% success.

The Cost

This powerful, successful, credible and reliable Active Deterrence System comes at 1/5^th the cost of Manned Security.

Conclusion

A remotely Active Deterrence system allows the premises to be protected 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

CCTVs alone cannot prevent a crime – Only Records a Crime.

Alarm Systems alone cannot prevent a crime – Only Alerts of a crime.

An Active Deterrence System not only records a Crime and alerts you of a Crime but most importantly, Prevents a Crime from happening much more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost of man guarding

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The biggest pay-off of using a SaaS-based application is that you don’t need to buy, install or maintain clunky software. All the middleware, infrastructure, app software and data are located in the service provider’s centralized database. You just need an internet connection, web browser and subscription to the application.

The hardware and software in this scenario is the responsibility of the service provider who will ensure the availability of the app and the security of your data. SaaS allows your organization to be up and running the app with minimal upfront investment.

Surveillance systems have received an upgrade from the previous passive monitoring to intelligent recognition, awareness and analytics. Alert monitoring, live site and remote monitoring, scheduled motion-based monitoring, video analytics, etc. are the new-age methods of deterring crime and securing the premises. All this requires infrastructure and investment.

To deliver unprecedented deterrence capabilities and business analytics, credibility, reliability and efficiency of the e-surveillance delivery partner has to be established and demonstrated. With our SaaS-based e-surveillance products and services, you can now view the health of your CCTV cameras, video recording, remote viewing, alerts, e-check of retail outlets to monitor if stated parameters are being flouted, etc. in a neat dashboard.

Our SaaS-based products not only help you to save money spent on unreliable and inefficient guards, but also save capital. Based on organizational requirements, our team customizes analytics that are unique to your organization and thus can be put to use seamlessly.

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People counting or counting the foot traffic in any store can be used for smarter business decisions that can lead to profitability and operational efficiency. People counting technology includes retail analytics, queue management and security.

A retail outlet has two objectives – get people into your store and get them to make a purchase. People counting can help you improve your conversion as it assesses:

1. Locational advantage – is one of your store suffering / gaining as a result of its location?
2. Attraction power – compare and analyze what themes, colours, etc. attract people to your stores, analyze your merchandizing efforts, success of promotional activities, etc.
3. Hold factor – how long do people stay in the store? This can help you improve customer service and be future ready when planning activities, displays, etc.

The Need

People counting goes beyond just the number of people who are visiting your store. It is a metric that can help retailers determine:

1. Sales revenue with respect to traffic
2. Staffing needs
3. The success of promotional activities
4. How different outlets are performing and what are well-performing outlets doing differently from poorly-performing ones

The Securens Approach

Video Analytics can help your organization track and understand business as an overall entity that is also drilled down to an individual store by using people counting that is co-related with PoS billing data.

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