Surveillance: More than just security
There has been a surge in the need for surveillance owing to increased risk of threat activities, government mandates and stringent implementations. Research indicates that the overall commercial security market in the Middle East is expected to grow from USD $2.6 billion in 2017 to USD $5.6 billion in 2022. As per a Frost & Sullivan report, regulatory bodies in the GCC have already enacted strict rules for installation of surveillance cameras for almost all market sectors, along with 180-day video storage.
It is interesting to note that video surveillance is outpacing the total commercial security market because of the mega events to be held and stringent, surveillance-related regulations in the region. Frost & Sullivan estimates that the video surveillance market will grow from USD $1.99 billion in 2017 to USD $4.45 billion in 2022 with a CAGR of 17.4%.
“Since the Middle East has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, a lot of requirements are regulations driven. However, this has not stopped the government and the private sector from executing traditionally challenging CCTV with the latest in video surveillance solutions,” states Ayaz Mohammed, Regional Sales Director, Pivot3. “Also, local regulations mandating thousands of cameras and six to 12 months’ retention at high resolution, have made it crucial to invest in high performance and reliable infrastructure solutions such as HCI.”
The Regional Director for META at Genetec, Firas Jadalla adds that it is only over the last few years that the region has seen significant growth in the video surveillance segment. He adds that while a number of countries that are putting in efforts to upgrade and adopt IP-based surveillance systems, UAE and Saudi Arabia contribute a large portion to the revenues being collected.
Video analytics has evolved considerably in the past few years being employed in various applications, such as facial surveillance, license plate recognition, advanced object tracking, dwell and loitering, people count, queue management analysis and demographics. As an example, analytics has enabled the end users to leverage specific data insights into actionable intelligence for various functions.
Costa Boukouvalas, CEO, AgilityGrid emphasizes that video analytics is a growing area in the surveillance sector in this region. “The region places great importance on video surveillance and the market continues to grow in the lead up to events such as Expo 2020, Vision 2030, etc. The significance of video analytics is especially true in areas that have large camera installations such as at government buildings and certain big private companies,” he explains.
With security requirements becoming more complex, the need for integrated products and solutions has increased. The implementation of different commercial security technology will surely make traditional and conventional infrastructure more efficient, sustainable and safe. Combined with the increasing adoption of IP surveillance, video analytics and smart storage, we can expect consistent growth in video surveillance systems for the next few years.
“The Middle East commercial security market is set to experience double-digit over the next few years as regional governments and the private sector look for improved technologies to protect assets and business,” explains Islam Ahmed Ali, Business Development Manager, NIT an Ingram Micro Company.
Genetec, through its partner technology company based in California, USA – Sensity Systems, has proposed an alternative approach to city security called Internet of Things smart city video security solutions to help address traffic issues in Kansas City. Sensity and Genetec worked closely to create and develop an advanced Internet of Things public safety and video security solution. “We are looking to bring this technology to the Middle East as well as worldwide, to safeguard citizens’ privacy through edge-based storage and analytics, while freeing human security personnel from having to watch security video screens all the time,” states Jadalla.
Today, surveillance is being used for more than just security. Video footage is being used to improve overall operational efficiency of organizations, especially in the hospitality and retail sectors. Customer interactions, store maintenance and employee supervision are a few of the alternative surveillance uses.
End users are increasingly looking for ways to more effectively manage large camera networks and hence video analytics with AI capabilities are of growing importance. “This new breed of software and benefit businesses in many ways including minimising or eliminating down time, more effectively managing video data, improving response times to incident and much more. To this end, AgilityGrid offers the latest in video analytics as part of its portfolio including video search software, camera tracking software, abnormal behaviour detection and crowd-based facial recognition.”
Pivot3 offers purpose-built, always-available solutions for video surveillance that eliminate downtime, data loss and dropped frames, but also easily integrate into existing environments. “These can be deployed in hours with commodity hardware, and easily scale out to multiple petabytes as the needs of the business or security and surveillance environment grows.”
In order to narrow down on the opportunities in this space, system integrators should do strong adoption of transformational technologies while offering solutions and utilize emerging technologies on the video surveillance across the entire value chain, from solution integration to hardware, giving customers a single source for all their technology needs. “Doing so, will give integrators a competitive edge, since most customers prefer end-to-end solutions that cover installation, hosting, analytics, and all other tasks,” adds Ali.
Mohammed adds that new technologies present more opportunities for the professional system integration partners as they can add value to the entire solution, based on their expertise and resources. Plus partners can look forward to more rewarding projects by investing in best of breed solutions across the industry.
The migration to IP-based solutions and its eager adoption by the region has spearheaded a change in customer expectations while driving the costs down. Partners now need to focus on the most effective tools that offer the greatest business benefits, such as greater system visibility, less reliance on the operator, reporting that aids business decision making and helps reduce OPEX. Further, channel players can benefit by providing value-added services that will help them differentiate from competitors. On their part, end users need to evolve beyond the required basic security as per regulations and look at security installations as an investment making it a win-win situation for all.
