A new retail monitoring service seeks to help store owners and managers combat high street risks, writes Bob Marston-Taylor, Country Manager-UK for Securitas-Alert Services.
A range of risk-related threats face shopkeepers and store chains around the UK. This includes shoplifting, thefts carried out by staff, verbal and physical abuse towards employees, arson and vandalism against property. Clearly, then, a lot more proactive work needs to be done to combat these problems. The overall cost of retail crime in this country, according to the 2007 Global Retail Theft Barometer, totalled around £4 billion in 2006, leaving plenty of scope to reduce these losses.
Yet businesses continue to be too reactive in terms of security measures, using often inadequate solutions. With retail remaining so low on the legal agenda, it’s down to the retailers themselves to ensure they have adequate protection. So where can they turn to be sure of getting effective help? Margins on the high street are tighter than ever these days and therefore the answer needs to be an integrated, flexible and cost-effective one that, where possible, adds extra value in terms of providing additional services.
Recognising the need to go the extra mile and provide a truly holistic solution to these needs, involving the independent monitoring provider Securitas-Alert Services – part of Europe’s largest alarms and CCTV monitoring operation – has teamed up with integrated security specialist Xtralis. Together, we’re now providing installers and end users with a complete, high quality package at competitive prices.
Rrotection
This has been achieved by introducing a three-part package that combines Xtralis’ ADPRO FastTrace multi-site video security system for transmission and recording of CCTV images with a router, as well as 24-hour remote monitoring by Securitas-Alert Services’ trained operators. The attractions of this ‘one-box’ solution include the high standard of the equipment and monitoring service providers involved, combined with a cost-effective pricing structure. The ADPRO FastTrace system’s key benefits include monitoring, recording and transmission of high frame rate images for rapid assessment of evidential quality CCTV video, with an intelligent search capability. Five, 10 and 20-channel units are available and once the pre-supplied router has sent the surveillance system pictures over to Securitas-Alert Services’ alarms & CCTV monitoring centre the operators there can use them to verify any on-site alarm activations and summon the appropriate response if required.
Depending on the level of service required, this package can also be used to carry out remote site ‘patrols’ using PTZ or dome cameras, for instance to check on a store proactively – thereby saving money on employing security guards to do the same task. This may be a more cost-efficient use of existing resources and be used to summon a key-holder or other manned response to any problem encountered.
Adding value
The Xtralis system already has an established presence in the retail market, but as part of this cost-effective new ‘one-box’ solution it promises to help many more retailers – from multi-store groups through to smaller shopkeepers. Besides allowing an alarms and CCTV monitoring centre operator to verify an alarm or remotely patrol a shop or store, the new package offers added value by enabling end users to dial in to view the camera images themselves, such as by using a laptop. A shop owner could therefore see how trade levels are, check that his staff are safe, or use the cameras as a management tool to view shoppers’ behaviour and change the store layout to encourage higher levels of spending. End users can also use this facility to view the security situation at any time, eg out-of-hours, safe in the knowledge that any alarm activation will be effectively dealt with by a Securitas-Alert Services alarms and CCTV monitoring centre operator.
Our independent alarms and CCTV monitoring centre is equipped to handle a wide variety of monitoring functions, including fire, lone worker protection and vehicle track-and-trace, in addition to intruder alarms, CCTV and remote visual surveillance. We work with all transmission technologies as well as specialist partners, such as Xtralis, to ensure a better service and fairer prices than alternative alarms & CCTV monitoring centres. We also help businesses to adapt to new challenges such as 21CN network changes, IP and emerging technologies.
