Broadening Your CCTV Business Beyond Security

Keeping Tabs on the Environment and Selling Banner Advertisements
Cameras are often used to monitor potential sources of pollution, such as factory smoke stacks and points of chemical discharge in rivers, lakes and creeks.

Tourist spots are another potential application for cameras over the Internet. The most obvious incentive for tourist-oriented clients to purchase cameras is described by the age-old adage: A picture is worth a thousand words.

For example, cameras make it possible for skiers, swimmers, snowboarders and vacationers to monitor the weather at their favorite mountain resort or vacation haunt. A good look at a beautiful ocean resort is often all it takes for management to clinch a sale.

The camera that McKimm’s firm uses also contains an electronic sensor that allows viewers to see the ambient temperature on the screen along with weather conditions.

Not only that, but the client can also use their video system as a marketing tool. The alarm company can add their company logo to the image or the client can sell the space to other companies in the area.

Coon says in some cases, especially when used to view urban streets, the owner of the video system might consider soliciting local businesses seen in the video concerning the placement of a small add. The most common practice is to place the artwork an inconspicuous spot on each real-time image.

Tracking Employee Performance and Business Traffic
Security companies, without realizing it, have been selling non-security video to retail stores for a long time. Convenience stores and grocery chains are big buyers of remote video, for example.

The purpose of monitoring employees when the manager has gone home for the day is one of the most compelling reasons why store managers buy it. In large chains, upper management located in the main office may also use it to quietly observe a store for cleanliness, employee work ethics, and to ascertain whether management is doing its job by ordering stock in a timely manner.

Using remote video, for example, managers can monitor foot traffic into and out of their store. They can also observe chronic loiterers who spend too much time inside.

Non-security video in retail can be used to hone the sales ability of a
firm’s salespeople. Using video, managers watch for employee non-responsiveness to customers and their overall sales presentation.

“Being as how most of us don’t sell cars for a living, we would never realize how much of an asset cameras can be to a car dealership. [Video] is used to better train their salespeople,” says Bryan Lagarde, president and CEO of CCTVwholesalers of New Orleans. “We usually sell four cameras so sales managers can monitor what their salespeople do.”

Lagarde says body language is extremely important and why managers watch for salespeople who approach too quickly or take too long. They also watch for a hand over the mouth, as well as those who cross their arms – all of which have a negative impact on the prospective buyer.

Another use for video involves employee waste in such environments as bars and restaurants.

“In bars, it’s not uncommon for employees to waste 25 to 30 percent of [liquid products] through over-pouring,” says Lagarde. “When the bartender hits the tap to fill a pitcher of beer and goes to answer the telephone, or when they get busy with other patrons, it’s possible that enough beer is lost to fill the same pitcher three times over.”

Lagarde’s firm sells a black-box solution called PC Witness to car dealerships, retail stores and other concerns. The system uses a USB port to connect the digital video system to a PC. Each box can handle up to four cameras and up to two boxes can be used on a single computer for a total of eight cameras.

POS, Liability Protection Top Retail Uses

Security firms have long partnered with retail establishments to provide a variety of video-based services.

Point-of-sale (POS) transaction documentation, in conjunction with a firm’s common security cameras, is a notable non-security application that security dealers are often asked to provide. Transaction documentation may become necessary when management believes an employee is defrauding the firm.

One example of this is called sweethearting, which is a criminal act committed by an employee with the help of an outside accomplice. The outside person selects a number of items, which he then presents to the inside person for payment. The participating employee behind the counter will then ring up items of lower value, allowing the accomplice to leave the store with the more expensive items in their possession.

“If you have a store that sells a $5.99 book and a $59.99 book, you see that the $5.99 books are selling a lot but your inventory shows that it’s really the $59.99 books that are being sold,” says Maria Gonzalez, vice president with Nortronics of Fairview, N.J.

Perhaps the most powerful benefit derived by non-security video in retail relates to the high level of integration between retail sales data and video. The power of tying video to POS transaction documentation has only begun to be realized by retailers.

“We offer a POS software that can track every transaction at every register in a store. It attaches a duplicate copy of the cash register transaction to a video clip. The purpose of this is to track any irregularities that may occur in inventory,” says Gonzalez. “In the case of the $5.99 and $59.99 books, you can go back and research by item and see every time a book was sold.”

Because the POS information and video images are contained in the same database that houses the merchandise inventory, management can go into the database and view transactions by specific date, time, cashier, price range and item, just to name a few.

Another use for video technology for non-security use involves marketing research in retail stores. Cameras that are positioned in the right manner allow vendors to observe consumer reaction to a variety of advertising props — from packaging to signage. It allows them to determine whether their marketing strategies are working.

David Bitton, vice president and COO of Supreme Security Systems in Union, N.J., says grocery stores have also become a major source of video work for his firm because of liability issues.

“The biggest concern with grocery stores is slip-and-fall. Many hold on to videotapes for two to three years — whatever the statute of limitations is in the state they operate in,” says Bitton. “With three or four tapes a day multiplied by 365 days in the year, multiplied by the number of stores in the chain, you can see why DVRs have become so popular.”

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