PSIJan2017

SECURITY IN 2017
(continued)
of your speakers have a good grasp of the English
language.
24
Another trend for
2017 will be the
continuation in the
growing number of
companies either
shying away from
large exhibitions, or
supporting their
presence there with
roadshows and
smaller venue events
replacement services so there is outlay in getting
the income when it comes to supplying CCTV
these days. When there is more than one company
selling the wares of a manufacturer this creates
competition, but when there are more than five
vying for the business it can get tricky.
Furthermore, there may well come a point in the
future when one of the big camera manufacturers
pulls all distribution in-house…
Visibility in the market is another consideration
for distributors, as it is for manufacturers and
service providers, and another trend for 2017 will
be the continuation in the growing number of
companies either shying away from large
exhibitions, or supporting their presence there
with roadshows and smaller venue events. Both
ADI and Norbain host an established series of
localised events and the popularity of such
occasions has not passed by the rest of the
market with many manufacturers choosing to
invite installers to dedicated presentations and
product launch demos without the distraction of
hundreds of other exhibitors that have paid to
attract the eye of the new customer. The NSI
Summit has also gone from strength to strength
and it’s targeted audience of NSI Gold accredited
installers is appealing for exhibitors.
This kind of approach really works if done well
and even if the costs are all on the shoulders of
one company and the volume of attendees is
much lower than that of a massive event, with a
closed environment of specified guests the ROI
can be quite favourable. The key to this is finding
out which areas of the country you need to target
(ie how far will your customers travel?) and
making the event a useful, practical one rather
than a marketing exercise. And (allow me to add a
tip from personal experience here) make sure all
Analytical insights
And so onto another prediction, the continued rise
(at last) of analytics - but hold on there, this rise
may not be down to security this time.
As I said earlier, analytics has been the
buzzword of the industry for a few years now. So
much so that these days the more basic functions
such as motion detection are often supplied as
standard on cameras. The areas of interest for
2017 will be the rise in the use of camera analytics
for non-security applications, and this is good
news.
No doubt you are fully aware that when you
send in the quote for business the first thing that
the customer looks at is the bottom line. That’s no
surprise, we all do it whether we’re buying a car, a
television or a pizza – “how much?” is the always
the first point of contention. Combine that fact
with the common knowledge that security is still
considered a grudge purchase (alongside
insurance) then the tender can be rejected quite
quickly. What analytics does, however, is bring in
other business elements thus allowing the
security installer to appeal to the marketing
manager or product/brand manager at the
customer. As a simple example, analytics software
does not just detect motion, it can detect the
direction of that motion, count bodies, recognise
age etc and to a retail premises owner that kind of
data is pure gold.
For the installer this means that when pitching
for a contract in a shop entry area don’t just focus
on the security features. By mentioning the power
of analytics to determine not only who nicks
groceries, but also how many people moved left or
right on entering the store and how and where
they congregate, their age, ethnicity, sex, etc you
can build a profile for the store manager on their
customer behaviour. This data can then be used
for brand promotion activity and retailers can
charge for premium, well-travelled area
positioning within the store. At the tendering
stage this brings more people to the table other
than just the security manager and then allows
him/her to share the cost of the installation with
other internal departments and, as a result,
lowers the cost of the job for the customer –
making it a more attractive pitch.
This trend pretty much follows on from the
price drop statistics of CCTV and how
manufacturers and vendors can do business
despite the reducing prices of the hardware. The
non-security appeal of cameras thanks to
analytics adds value to a tender across the
customer base so expect to be adding business
intelligence to your quotes in 2017 to not only
(continued on p26)
www.psimagazine.co.uk