Until a few years ago, surveillance systems meant the use of closed-circuit television (CCTVs), that required eyeball monitoring. It also raised the need for personnel who monitored the camera feed continuously and identified any anomalies. This required extensive effort despite the use of technology and exposed businesses to human errors like omissions and machine issues such as camera failures.

However, the advancement of surveillance systems allows us to wring out so much more. Today, effective video surveillance can increase a company’s bottom line by improving safety, productivity, the cost-effectiveness of sites, identification of defective equipment and much more.

Technical advancements such as integrating Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) and deploying deep learning algorithms to record real-time video provide AI-based video analytics, increase productivity and provide organisations with a wealth of non-security related data and insights.

The advent of cutting-edge surveillance solutions
With the help of AI and ML, the current form of remote monitoring solutions (RMS) can do much more, especially in an age when eyeball monitoring has moved from few and far cameras to thousands and lakhs of video surveillance systems. Advanced RMS systems provide alert-based monitoring that sends alerts to the central command centre based on anomalies observed in the defined standard operating procedures (SOPs). And these alerts are completely configurable based either on the user’s requirements or the industry use case. For instance, a bank can ask its RMS to send a signal to its command centre anytime a user stays in the ATM booth for more than the defined average time or a large retail chain can customise its RMS to alert night-time intrusion detection and also help with aisle analytics across its multiple stores.

The AI capability of an RMS system can further be exploited to track the anomalies in the SOP and gather data points in a premise of immense significance/value to the business. The ability to track the number of people can give a footfall data of a retail premise or a bank branch. Similarly, the ability to sense the shutter opening/closing can give a log of any establishment's start and close time. This becomes more pertinent when monitoring thousands of retail /franchisee outlets and/or branches. Such use cases, and there are dozens such in each industry vertical, make the whole RMS proposition extremely viable since it no longer serves as a security/surveillance tool but also an effective and efficient BI (Business Intelligence) tool.

Critical Insights for business intelligence
An intelligent RMS system has been revolutionised into a business intelligence centre that can unlock critical insights through intelligent monitoring powered by artificial intelligence of things (AIoT) and robotic process automation (RPA). It is time for organisations to deploy a forward-thinking approach towards RMS systems as a business tool that gives them the power of intelligent monitoring by collecting and analysing information captured by their systems to detect threats and generate business insights from every location.

Business insights are generated by à-la-carte artificial intelligence AI library modules, which can track everything from footfall to energy consumption and in-store customer activity to queue lengths based on the footage video feed analytics.

For instance, in the retail segment, a retail mall can identify the hit rate of customer purchases compared with the footfall in the shop/mall by placing the purchase bags in the hands of the customer.

In aviation, the RMS can identify how many customers are using the lounge facilities of the airline and the peak hours, which can then be used to tweak the facilities and services of the lounge.

In the case of warehousing, business owners can identify the turnaround time (TAT) of the trucks both at the times of ingress and egress of the warehouse premises.

In financial services, beyond gathering intelligence and sending alerts based on consumer behaviour, an advanced RMS can also provide health check-ups of the systems deployed and additionally diagnose and resolve site problems efficiently.

Adding a new dimension to your business
Advanced video surveillance is driving productivity and efficiency with personalisation across the world. The United States is one of the most watched countries in the world. In India too, RMS has seen impressive growth fuelled by smart cities, educational reforms and transportation in addition to demand in industrial expansion. An advanced and intelligent surveillance system is rapidly becoming the most flexible and future-proof option for surveillance systems. While addressing your security concerns, an effective surveillance system can now also add a new dimension to your business by unleashing new insights through the camera as a business tool.

Disclaimer - This article has been first published in The Times of India