Traveling life’s highway… just when you think the road’s going to zig, it zags

Since the first hints of COVID-19, we’ve worked with businesses around the world to adapt to what’s now become a new normal. Companies once panicked at the thought of securing shuttered buildings or challenged to maintain social distance between employees and customers have settled into a quiet acceptance of the new reality.

Unfortunately, just as business owners started to shakily emerge from the financial impact of COV-19, new concerns about protecting retail storefronts have bubbled to the surface in the wake of national and international civil unrest.

Just when you think the road is going to zig, it zags. This is the unknown businesses face today. How do you plan for the future when each day seems to bring something new and unexpected?

The answer.

Now more than ever, businesses require flexibility, agility, and adaptability in their business solutions. This is particularly true when it comes to solving security challenges.

Innovative technologies are emerging to keep businesses, employees, and customers safe. A great example is found in the changes we’re seeing in security monitoring services. No longer is it enough to simply check a camera at fixed intervals throughout the day. How often do you think an incident occurs at the exact moment you look at the camera? What if you could bring relevant feeds to the operator's attention in a dynamic video wall with alerts and notifications??

A timely example is found in the work my company, Ava, is doing with security monitoring leader Global Axiom to help auto dealerships protect automobiles on car lots. Together we are delivering an innovative approach to security using intelligent video systems.

Businesses must take a proactive stance on protecting assets. It is not enough to have cameras catching criminals and vandals on video, business owners must find a way to stay a step ahead. Just last week, not too far from my home in Northern California, more than 70 new cars were stolen from the San Leandro Dodge dealership. Unfortunately, by the time the looters had taken over the lot, it was too late to intervene. The window of opportunity was lost.

Good news, by adopting innovative intelligent video security solutions like our Ava Aware video management system (formerly Vaion vcore), Global Axiom is able to help businesses take a proactive stance against physical security threats.

The use of machine learning brings a whole new level of agility and flexibility to monitoring services allowing security operators to detect anything unusual at any time. For example, Aware understands perimeters and behaviors, identifies, classifies, and tracks people of interest, vehicles, or other objects to send alerts before threats escalate. If the San Leandro auto dealership had deployed a solution like this, it could have been a totally different outcome.

Analytics provided through artificial intelligence (AI) also transform the manually-intensive examination of massive surveillance footage into accurate and useful results within mere minutes. Security operators can use powerful appearance, event, or image search functions to narrow down and track people or objects of interest across a car lot or any business to identify exactly who, what, and when anything is stolen or vandalized. The accuracy and speed with which data can now be retrieved are game-changing.

Also lending to speed and agility are new technologies that change video streams dynamically to bring only the relevant feeds to the attention of the operator. Real-time alerts and notifications show up on the video wall to describe the incident, the time, and the place it occurred.

No doubt the role of security monitoring companies is evolving in the wake of COVID-19 and beyond. It is no longer enough to simply throw more bodies at a security challenge. Flexibility, adaptability, and agility require innovative technology solutions like our end-to-end intelligent security system.

Perhaps, the best news for security monitoring companies and businesses alike is that solutions like Aware can be used with existing security camera infrastructures providing an out-of-the-box solution to minimize installation time and eliminate downtime. Critical today when life seems to change on a daily if not hourly basis.

Today businesses need to be able to predict and avoid threats rather than just document the damage. The good news is that artificial intelligence and video analytics integrated into a remote monitoring service can take video security to a whole new level. Today’s intelligent video surveillance solutions allow organizations to proactively monitor, understand, and act on their surroundings.

I look forward to sharing more insights in the days and weeks ahead and I invite you to register for a proof of concept of our Ava Aware video management system.

Originally published Jun 23, 2020, updated Sept 01, 2020.