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A beginner’s guide for organizations to addressing loss prevention challenges during the holidays with video surveillance

Tip: For a holiday safety guide for personal use, see our ‘New Year holiday safety tips’

Undeniably, video surveillance has a tremendous effect on business everyday operations. From a strictly security-centered solution, CCTV has grown into a complex all-in-one solution that addresses not just the safety but processes optimization and automation. The solutions are many but with this guide even a newcomer to the world of video surveillance will get to know how to get benefits for a business from video surveillance, and how it helps address loss prevention challenges – in holidays and the rest of the year.

 

– Proactively prevent offences (burglary, break-in, defacement, vandalism, etc.) by staff or visitors;
– Aid in prevention of fire hazard;
– Provide safer environment for employees and visitors;
– Increase work productivity by addressing weaknesses;
– Boost sales with a more relaxing atmosphere for clients;
– Collect evidence of offences that captures criminals in the act;
– Anticipate and settle conflicts;
– Quickly react to threats or offences real-time (alarm, notifications, call to the police);
– Monitor suspicious visitors or events real-time to catch early signs of an alarming event;
– Control visitors’ satisfaction level and the quality of staff’s work;
– Analyze the customers shopping behavior and use it in growth strategies;
– Control the staff’s work for signs of corporate policy breaches (fight embezzlement, mishandling of goods, unsolicited discounts, etc.);
– Detect abandoned items;
– Substitute human staff in various routine areas;
– Automate access control;
– Facilitate compliance with health and safety regulations;
And many more.

SEE ALSO: Video surveillance for business in India

 

The profit of a business can be simplified to the formula: profit = income – expenses, where losses of various kinds are a part of expenses, and they can take a major part of the hard-earned money. Loss prevention is an important task for sustainable growth through the year, but even more so during the holidays, a season where sales can drop significantly or, on the contrary, overwhelm a business, depending on the business type. Let’s take a look at some loss sources, and how they can be negated even in a beginner’s video surveillance system.

Shoplifting, theft, vandalism are just a few of physical damages that any business can face. Damages mean losses. Amazingly to many, video surveillance helps address these challenges in the noble quest for loss prevention.

Every business is susceptible to conflicts. Then it comes to the old “he said, she said” routine where it’s often impossible to reach correct conclusions based on someone’s words alone. Video surveillance footage provides valuable situational awareness material acting like an impartial witness not prone to distractions or emotions. It makes a great post-incident investigation tool, forensic evidence but also an undeniable evidence for standing your ground in conflicts without escalating to it to the court room. Which means – correct, less losses.

Moving on, crime prevention is one of the hugest portions of video surveillance purposes. Crime refers not just to burglaries in shops, but also to all kinds of vandalism in the organization’s territory – thrashing the hotel hall, defacement of a shop’s storefront at night, etc.
No matter the type, the most ‘economical’ crime is the one that doesn’t happen at all. According to crime analysts and security experts, most shoplifters are amateurs, and visible security serves as a reasonable deterring factor for them. Having working cameras in place already has a proactive deterring effect, just imagine what it can when combined with smart features. Take Xeoma – state-of-the-art video surveillance solution – for example: the solution has over 100 features, aimed at security and optimization goals. Here are some of them:

Interactive map eMap shows all your cameras on your floor plan making it easier for security operators to watch dozens of cameras. Other tools for security operators

Motion Detector will automatically detect unwanted movement in a place of business in afterhours. Combined with a rotating camera, it can ‘follow’ the moving object.

License plate recognition reads license plates in camera view, and is a great automated access control tool.

Sound Event Detector will be triggered if there is a loud sound (sound of breaking glass or security alarm).

Various notifications (“Sending Email”, “SMS Sending” or even custom alarms) will keep you updated on peace disturbing events.

So if the aim of video surveillance for business is safety of employees, clients, customers and property, video surveillance systems like Xeoma address that for over a decade now. Whether it’s trade galleries, zone of goods discharge, entrance elements, parking lot, corporation offices, or adjacent territory, Xeoma has solutions for each of safety system applications.

A pleasant side-effect coming with cameras in video surveillance systems is the applied control of employees’ and technical equipment work, remote acceptance possibilities and many others.

 

See also: Checklist ‘Measures for Business Security Protection with Xeoma Videosurveillance‘

 

In simple words, missed profit is when you could have earned more but didn’t. Amazingly, loss of possible income can be leveraged with video surveillance systems, too. With various tools available in current CCTV solutions a business can get priceless first-hard information on customer behavior and habits, their interaction with marketing and merchandising efforts, and build a more advanced strategy to widen the customer base. Besides, grasping all the recent advancements of technology can help get that attention-drawing stand-out-from-the-crowd tricks like live interactive virtual dressing room, custom ads, etc.

 
See also: BEGINNER’S LOSS PREVENTION INFOGRAPHICS
 

Here are some secret weapons to fight losses that come with lost profits:

1. Demographics: Xeoma has a diverse range of tools to collect marketing information such as age and gender of customers in camera view. These intellectual modules are based on Artificial intelligence and deep machine learning. The demographics breakdown will help you adapt your assortment, interior, etc. to satisfy your prevailing customers cense, and employ the right efforts to catch up with the target audience.

Age recognition in Xeoma to recognize average age of your customers

 

Gender recognition in Xeoma to recognize gender (male/female)

 

 
2. Emotion recognition is a multi-purpose tool that can tell what emotions your customers experience at the moment, and make conclusions on customers satisfaction level, or how well they react to changes in the decor, store music, or to ads in a billboard.

Emotion recognition in Xeoma to recognize 7 basic human emotions (happiness, surprise, neutrality, anger, disgust, fear and sadness).

 

3. Unique customers counting: statistics is key in nearly any business. Learn how many unique customers visit your business, establish the best performing tme and shift, find to-be-improved issues.

“Face recognition” module in Xeoma has the unique visitors counting tool that can tell if a person in camera sight is a returning customer or new to your establishment.

A simpler module “Visitors Counter” allows you to keep count of employees, that enter or leave a building, or how often does medical staff comes to check a patient.

 

4. Improve service quality with Xeoma: the above mentioned Facial Recognition tool in Xeoma is quite multifunctional. Besides the more common entrance automation, criminals detection or employees time management tasks, it can be used also for bringing high-quality service to your business. You can use this module to detect particular VIP clients walking in your store and quickly react (e.g. bringing coffee or tea, or greeting them).

Besides, Face Recognition can be used as an employee time tracking tool that will help eliminate episodes of employees clocking in after work hours start and the customers have to wait.

Need to automatically detect and get rid of queues fast? Xeoma will help you with that. “Crowd detector” will detect if there’s a queue or a bunch of people having issues with orienting at the store. You can get notification and take measures to get rid of queues fast. And also you can rearrange products/goods, so your customers wouldn’t have troubles walking around.

Best service will provide a business the flow of customers even in times of economic decline.

 

5. Targeted advertising: But also you’ll be able to transform potential customers into real ones by playing targeted advertising clips when they are walking around your store and attracting their attention to the interesting matter.

Sometimes it takes just a little of pushing forward to make your customer satisfied and leave the store with a purchase. Through the use of “Loitering detector” in Xeoma you’ll be able to keep track of potential customers spending a lot of time within an area (e.g. particular shop-window).

 

6. Best merchandizing:
Get the perfect spot for product placement using heatmapping.

Place promo indoor panels correctly using heatmap and finding perfect spots that attract attention the most. This feature allows checking motion dynamics in camera’s field of view.

 

Besides, Xeoma has a unique feature – live Eye Tracking – which is a neural-network-based Additional module that will enable your video surveillance system to detect the direction of a person’s gaze. This is the best unbiased tool machine vision has to offer to understand consumers’ behavior, where their gaze takes direction first, what product catches attention and what is the most profitable location on the shelf to choose. With such marketing information collected, it is possible to improve your advertising strategy and thus your business. No special equipment or sensors required!

 

Read more in ‘8 ways to grow your business fast. Collecting marketing information with Xeoma‘

 

As you can see, business video surveillance can facilitate many layers of loss prevention – from reducing violence to sales shrinkage – and address various challenges during the holidays time as well.

 

Holidays is the traditional time for understaffing as many take days off to spend the vacation with their family, while on the other side many customers have time to visit your business, be it a retail shop or a food establishment.

Managers or IT staff are no exception. And if a disaster is to happen, it will of course be when it is least desired. That’s why many companies outsource the IT infrastructure and host as many of its elements in a Cloud rather than on premises. The Clouds -which technically are remote server machines and data centers somewhere in the world – are usually maintained by the service provider who are paid to have everything working flawlessly. Besides, a service can be run by a team from another country that doesn’t have holidays that coincide with yours. Cloud video surveillance is a great way for businesses to remain up-to-date with latest innovations in AI while always meeting the fast-changing hardware challenges in business.

Xeoma Cloud is one of such solutions that allows a business to move its video surveillance infrastructure to the cloud.
It offers the full-circle service for full cloud-based VSaaS systems as well as partial cloudization for hybrid ones, which means the whole range of services, from keeping your cameras’ recordings in a safe place to doing all the camera processing, including smart features, in the cloud.

Partial or complete VSaaS allows end-users to easily and securely view their cameras in real-time, set rules for alarming events, record event-driven or continuous video security footage and replay it and perform forensic searches – anytime and anywhere – from any smartphone, tablet, or computer.

With a full VSaaS implementation, cameras are the only upfront hardware ‘investment’ needed on premises, which is a great solution for businesses that require mobility, have space constraints or desire little to no equipment on-site. Cameras can be added where and when they are needed because the solution is easily scalable and supports thousands of cameras. All software maintenance, updates, configuration settings, and related grooming of servers are handled by the service provider. Besides, Cloud surveillance is cost-effective because the business only pays for the services they use, just for a month ahead. Cloud service can be changed with almost zero losses. With VSaaS businesses get greater financial flexibility that would meet most budgets and needs.

 

With the variety of options and flexibility in their pricing, organizations can easily select a system architecture that would be the best fit for them to reach the purpose of prevention of losses due to malfunctions.

 

As you can see, even a beginner in business video surveillance can have CCTV address loss prevention challenges during the holidays in any organization with this guide. Video surveillance in business can fulfill many tasks from fighting theft and shoplifting, to collection of statistics and business operations improvement. Organizations in any business field can get the solution that will keep losses at bay with video surveillance systems like Xeoma!

December, 7 2022

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