It's time to put a stop to shoplifting and abuse of credit cards. Matas wants to end shrinkage and lack of safety for employees – and will do this with the installation of advanced IP video surveillance solution in their chain of almost 300 retail stores.
It's time to put a stop to shoplifting and abuse of credit cards. Matas wants to end shrinkage and lack of safety for employees – and will do this with the installation of advanced IP video surveillance solution in their chain of almost 300 retail stores.
Matas has 2,000 employees and 27 million transactions for revenues of more than three billion Danish crowns per year. Thefts and errors or misunderstandings at checkout can lead to uncomfortable situations for this retail chain's personnel and customers – not to mention meaningful losses for Matas. According to the Danish Business Association, shrinkage accounts for more than five billion crowns annually in the retail sector, which is a serious and growing problem.
"We have chosen to take up the fight against shrinkage and have therefore researched how we can best provide our employees with greater security, while simultaneously improving efficiency and limiting inconsistencies and errors at the checkouts," said Marianne Sejbak, Head of Security at Matas.
The surveillance solution was decided to be based on IP video software from Milestone Systems, with expertise from Matas' long-time partner IT Gruppen to implement the system. Milestone software is integrated with XProtect Retail to provide traditional video surveillance for each store with analytical capabilities of all the cash register transactions. Their PoS system generates documentation for each transaction that is connected via the software with video recordings of the actions so it is possible to identify theft or errors – and to resolve any possible doubts concerning payments, change and discounts.
Less shrinkage – more security
The Milestone retail solution is customized for the needs of Matas and offers them the freedom to choose from more than 700 network video hardware products, meaning that a lot of Matas' existing video devices can continue to be used. Due to the Milestone open platform, the solution can also be integrated with over 100 other systems like one from Milestone Solution Partner Cognimatics.
"We sought a flexible and reliable solution that is easy to manage, that would benefit our two most important assets: our customers and our employees. With the solution from Milestone Systems and IT Gruppen we get a unique opportunity to optimize procedures and work processes in relation to the checkouts. By reducing the possibilities for errors we free up time for much more interesting things like delivering better service - which not only benefits our customers but naturally also our sales."
"In addition, we can use the video surveillance to help avoid or resolve abuse of credit cards, while also lowering the risks of shoplifting," said Henrik Rothe Juhl, Technical Manager at Matas.
According to Juhl, the collaboration with IT Gruppen is based on their many years of experience delivering solutions to some of the country's biggest retail chains with a high level of security, where such a relatively complex system has to be implemented.
"In cooperation with our many retail customers, IT Gruppen continuously works on optimizing our surveillance solutions. From the market's advanced camera types we have chosen those products that give our customers the best possible value for money. We also have a large installation team who can handle orders of this magnitude," said Michael Hygild Sorensen, Product Manager at IT Gruppen.
From November 2009 the video surveillance system begins installation in 55 Matas locations. As those implementations create the expected return on business value, the installations will expand further. Milestone is seeing a general increase in demand for such video surveillance solutions from the retail sector worldwide.
The Matas video surveillance system will include integration with a people counting IP solution that registers the number of people in a store, from Milestone Partner Cognimatics, which operates with network video cameras from Axis. The customer counting helps each store compare numbers with actual sales figures, and set up store displays in the beneficial way for customers, so the entire solution functions both as an analytical and management tool.