In South Africa, international QSR (quick-service restaurants) brands are booming. Fast-food restaurant business opportunity also brings business risk. Jorge Marques of Buffken PTY Ltd., and a QSR On-Site IT Support Manager, says: “we do have tremendous business growth opportunity, but there are also many security hurdles that we need to address … this is the reality in each of our individual stores.” Buffken PTY Ltd. chose Hikvision products. Around Port Elizabeth are a variety of QSRs. Security had been problematic. However, two years ago, Buffken PTY Ltd. – the security installer – was hired to upgrade all of one international QSR franchises’ security. Marques found that each of these franchises had particular issues. Ultimately, Buffken PTY Ltd. was faced with 32 separate security problems in the 32 sites.
To simplify matters, Marques brought in Hikvision. He says: “We decided, in the end, it was a far better proposition to gradually upgrade with better technology than try to force a set solution through 32 distinct business environments. For us, the biggest issue was our DVRs.”
In many of the franchises, Hikvision’s DS-7300HFI-SH Standalone DVR Series (with four, eight, 16 and 32-channel options) has been fitted. Marques said: “While each store, in terms of security, is very different, one constant is the need for storage space.” Each site requires 90 days of storage, “hence we are making sure that each franchise has hard-drive capacity of 500GB, 1TB, or 2TB … which the latter storage amount now represents at least 20 per cent of our stores … and we are still growing.”
It’s not simply an issue of hard-drive space. Fast-food restaurants are notoriously difficult upon electronics – security or otherwise. Marques said of this issue: “One of the main factors in choosing Hikvision was this product’s reputation for durability. Unfortunately, the earlier installer had not put DVRs in an optimal store position; fortunately we were able to move these units – rather than replace them due to damage – because of this quality.”
South African internet
Internet bandwidth realities force quicker decisions in South Africa. Although there is one owner for all 32 franchises, it is logistically impractical to centralise security functions. Partly the reason has to do with franchise hardware, and partly lack of internet bandwidth.
Marques said: “We hired an IT specialist because of these issues. Based upon bandwidth issues, each store manager is in charge of their own security. This is why we require both a robust DVR and an also easily accessible VMS client software. Since there are so many different franchise managers, Hikvision’s iVMS-4200 works extremely well to let these owners use their own PCs for their own store management purposes.”
Essentially, each franchise is on a five-year renovation plan, for the store’s infrastructure to be upgraded. The franchises are using Hikvision analogue, and hybrid DVRs.
While slow internet bandwidth may cause trouble for central management, local South African QSR managers can take better control of their workplaces. Marques said: “Unfortunately before, it was loss-after-loss, and sometime loss, after that. However now, these simpler and better DVRs, combined with Hikvision iVMS software, have allowed our franchise owners to better understand the day-to-day operations … and all upon their own PCs.”
