Building Your Business: Explaining ‘Big Data’ in a Security Context
The vast amounts data generated by video surveillance and access control systems, which has long been discarded as a regular practice, can now be mined to provide end users with new-found business efficiencies. These cloud-based solutions reduce organizational costs and improve security through increased intelligence.
Photography ©istockphoto.com/thumb
A significant added value of a cloud-based platform of this type is its ability to guide an operator through the process of managing incidents. This is typically put in place to ensure security and operational employees comply with processes put in place to meet company risk management policies, and to ensure compliance with legal frameworks and the requirements of regulatory bodies. Often the need to enforce regulatory compliance is the key value driver of this type of solution. This could be as simple as managing the audit process of access control rights to secure areas or reporting on potential health and safety incidents.
Alternatively it could be as far reaching as managing compliance to emergency action plans, where data taken from an existing access control system is referenced to the requirements of an emergency action plan in order to highlight in real-time shortfalls in qualified first responders or fire marshals.
To sum up, ultimately a Big Data approach must provide the ability to link vast amounts of security, risk and property-related data, and present it in such a way that the security and risk professionals can understand and address risk in real-time in a way that reflects their business. It’s a challenge that many organizations will need to take on, particularly in the financial sector and for those other organizations with a high level of security risk and regulatory pressure.
Success will come from careful definition of objectives and selection of the right software platform to bring together all of the relevant security, risk and facility data.
David Ella is Chief Technology Officer for Burlington, Mass.-based G4S Technology Soft
ware Solutions Ltd.
If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our FREE digital newsletters!
Related Content
Security Is Our Business, Too
For professionals who recommend, buy and install all types of electronic security equipment, a free subscription to Commercial Integrator + Security Sales & Integration is like having a consultant on call. You’ll find an ideal balance of technology and business coverage, with installation tips and techniques for products and updates on how to add to your bottom line.
A FREE subscription to the top resource for security and integration industry will prove to be invaluable.
