The Unexpected Ways Businesses Are Using CCTV Beyond Security

Most people explain why they installed CCTV systems as “security”, “deterrence,” and “useful as evidence if something goes wrong”. All good reasons to install CCTV and appropriate places to start the conversation. There’s, however, an increasingly common phenomenon of businesses that discovered that their CCTV systems were doing something else that they didn’t account for: providing useful operational intelligence that has made a big difference to their business.

Retail is probably the best example. CCTV systems can tell a store which areas of the shop attract the most attention and which don’t. They can tell which displays are effective and which ones are being walked past. They can tell how the way customers move through the shop changes throughout the day. These are things that used to require expensive sensors and a data analytics specialist to put into effect. Now, they can be observed and studied from CCTV. For CCTV Cheltenham, contact https://apmfireandsecurity.com/cctv-installation/cctv-installation-cheltenham/

Some businesses that deal with customers forming queues use camera analytics to measure how long queues are and can act on that to adjust staffing levels before the problem gets serious. Warehouses and manufacturing sites are using camera analytics to observe whether workers are following the correct safety processes and whether they are wearing the correct protective clothing. And some businesses are using anonymised movement data to understand how customers move through their spaces and to identify opportunities for improvement.

This phenomenon of CCTV being used for operational improvement is fascinating. The camera was installed to watch out for intruders. What the camera actually ended up watching was the business. The business discovered that the data was useful and worth more than they paid for it.

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