Over the past few years the small and medium business (SMB) market segment has seen a growing interest from manufacturers. This is the result of two parallel developments.
Over the past few years the small and medium business (SMB) market segment has seen a growing interest from manufacturers. This is the result of two parallel developments. The first is a decreasing market size for higher-end segments. The relatively wide-scale adoption of IP cameras in the high-end is pushing manufacturers to look for “greener” markets. The second development is the lower price of video surveillance equipment, which has made these systems more affordable for SMB clients.
“Since the marked economic recovery, particularly in the U.K., we are seeing SMBs needing to upgrade from legacy systems that are failing to provide adequate protection of property, assets, and staff, as well as proving to be expensive to maintain,” said Brian Song, MD of IDIS Europe. “In addition, the recovery has seen many businesses grow, so companies are moving to larger premises, which in turn means office fit outs that include security installations. So we’re seeing really strong growth in the SMB sector right now and we expect that trend to continue.”
One of the main characteristics that tends to be common in SMBs is that video security is generally not business critical. “For example, if we compare SMBs to a large airport or a casino, in case video security is not functioning, the airport will have to close down that area of the airport. Casinos also have strong regulations regarding video coverage. SMBs don’t generally have hard requirements linking their video security to their business operations,” explained Janne Jakobsen, VP of Professional Products at Milestone Systems.
Video is most often used post-incident as a reference to see what happened. Nonetheless, businesses are slowly expanding the use of video surveillance.
“In the past, video was used as a form of insurance, in case something happened. We find that customers who start using the video data as part of their business operations achieve many benefits and use it more consistently,” Jakobsen said. “Some of these areas include employee training, improving business efficiency and effectiveness, supporting business operations remotely, accepting deliveries remotely, and generally linking video data to other sources of data such as point of sales, access control, and so on.”
Similar views were voiced by other manufacturers as well. Brien TerBush, Global A&E Manager at Aimetis also pointed to the option of utilizing video analytics for better business performance. “While there is additional cost, analytics can have a dramatic impact on SMBs. Applications like people counting and dwell time can provide additional business intelligence that improves productivity and profits.” Analytics can run on an IP camera at the edge, or on the server in which case video feeds from analog cameras — connected to the server with an encoder — can be analyzed as well without the need to upgrade them to an IP camera.
To compete with lower prices, SIs are
shifting to solution sales which
highlight their skills beyond security
sales and camera installation.
SMB expectations of their systems are similar to other clients. Demands for price, performance, return on investment (ROI), and low total cost of ownership (TCO) are universal. The one feature most commonly cited as an important feature for SMBs is remote viewing. “Remote viewing is more important to SMB’s because they’re not likely to have anyone on site to monitor the system. In addition, managers are interested in access to video that support the business processes,” TerBush said.
SMBs also have a special need for simplicity. Unlike large enterprises, SMBs do not have the resources to deal with complicated systems. This includes installation, configuration of the cameras and NVRs, on-going IT support after installation, and the personnel to monitor the systems at all times. “Small- and medium-sized businesses typically have modest resources in-house to scope, deploy, and maintain video security systems. With this in mind, these customers are looking for solutions and providers that can help manage these processes,” said Kevin Saldanha, Senior Product Manager at Pelco by Schneider Electric. In this sense, offerings from different manufacturers are conceptually similar. Systems for SMBs usually focus on simplifying the installation process, making sure the system is compact enough not to take up too much space on site and providing pre-installed and pre-configured software which allows plug-and-play installation.
Many manufacturers offer an end-to-end solution in which one supplier provides the complete solution. This offers a seamless integration of the equipment and simplifies the installation and work process. Systems integrators (SIs) who choose to build a system from different components must of course make sure that they are all compatible with each other.
What SMB customers look for in video surveillance may depend on the size of the business. “If it’s a really small business — such as just one or a handful of small sites — then they generally look for inexpensive, bundled solutions — traditionally analog, but sometimes IP if the owners/managers are looking for some new features like mobile access to the video. Large businesses with lots of small sites also traditionally use analog systems, but are rapidly gravitating toward IP since they need to be able to easily access and manage the systems from remote locations,” explained Jumbi Edulbehram, Regional President of Americas at Oncam.