In-Store Surveillance Moving Beyond Security to Drive Retail Analytics

 As part of the wider evolution of the region’s blossoming retail sector, Canon Middle East—world leader in imaging solutions—believes that the time is ripe for local businesses to tap the huge potential of Video Management Solutions (VMS) to drive retail analytics; a multi-million dollar industry being opened up by companies adding extra capabilities to their traditional surveillance solutions.

Canon previewed the future of in-store video solutions as part of last week’s Retail Show 2016which took place at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre from 31st May to 1st June. 

Several well-known department stores and supermarkets internationally are already using video-based analytics and seeing significant returns on their investment far beyond security. The data provided by this kind of installation can inform decisions on how many staff to hire and what times of day require more staff, through to monitoring for when orders of new stock should be placed. There’s an opportunity for many more stores to capitalize on the possibilities of retail analytics, but they need the right support from the video industry.

"With the growing power of online retailers in particular, brick and mortar stores need to adapt to keep up with the competition, and retail analytics are a key part of this. These online retailers have staggering amounts of information on their customers, which many physical stores simply don’t have,” says Hendrik Verbrugghe, Marketing Director, Canon Middle East and Canon Central and North Africa. “Once companies are aware of how business processes can be improved through video management solutions, they can build up their surveillance systems over time, when they’ve seen for themselves the value of the solution.”

According to market intelligence firm IDC, video analytics are undergoing significant and rapid changes worldwide due to the increasing availability of video in municipalities, as well as improvements to the underlying technology and the declining costs of implementation.[1]

At the Retail Show, Canon also unveiled two new low-light network surveillance cameras; the indoor pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) VB-M50B and the indoor fixed dome VB-H651V. Both the cameras include new features that help to ensure high quality images, even in challenging low-light conditions. These new cameras are suited for a range of scenarios requiring round-the-clock surveillance, including retail spaces, commercial buildings, critical infrastructure facilities, and urban centers.

Both models include a new graphical user interface (GUI) and dedicated embedded Mobile Viewer to support multiple browsers and mobile devices, designed to offer installers and end-users improved compatibility and manageability. They also both feature Motion Adaptive Noise Reduction, a new Canon technology which senses moving objects and decreases noise reduction to improve performance in low light conditions.

In addition to hardware, Canon Middle East demonstrated new capabilities in integrating its physical cameras with the very latest video management software such as Netavis and Titan to meet the retail industry’s ever-growing security and surveillance requirements.