White Paper: A Smarter Way To Mind The Store: IP-Surveillance

In both retail operations and the sales floor, the competition is fierce and the profit margins are slim. To stay on top, retailers have to seize every advantage they can. This often means adopting the latest technological advances as they become available. That's why today nearly every aspect of retail operations, from inventory to hiring, is computerized and networked. Now is the time to add video surveillance to the list.

IP (Internet Protocol) video surveillance gives retailers new tools and capabilities for improving loss prevention and store performance. By enabling video to be captured as digital information and accessed anywhere on an IP-based network, IP video surveillance allows your loss prevention staff and other departments to view, analyze and manage surveillance video. Built-in intelligence also enables cameras to automatically detect and alert staff to potential thefts, suspicious behavior, and other events.

For most retailers, nearly all important processes and operations are connected through a local area network (LAN). The exception is loss prevention. Legacy Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) systems are proprietary and typically have separate support and maintenance contracts. This precludes loss prevention from being able to leverage the lower infrastructural costs of the existing network and all the advantages of IP networking for video.